As overdose deaths hit a grim new record, officials push Ottawa to stop treating addiction as a crime

As British Columbia marks another tragic milestone in overdose deaths, pressure is growing on the federal government to decriminalize personal possession of drugs, including opioids.

The province announced a record number of people in B.C. have died so far this year from overdoses — 201 in October alone.

"Simply put, we are failing," said B.C.'s chief coroner Lisa Lapointe. She's been echoing calls from officials in Toronto and MPs from across the country and across party lines to start treating addiction to drugs like fentanyl as an urgent health problem, rather than a criminal offence.

B.C., Vancouver and Toronto are formally asking the federal government to exempt them from the law in order to permit decriminalization of small-scale possession. They're wording it more as a demand than a plea.

WATCH: Toronto Mayor John Tory calls for big changes to Canada's illicit drug policy

"The status quo is not working," said Toronto Mayor John Tory. "And in cities all across this country, literally hundreds of people are dying, often alone and in alleys where they shouldn't be.

"And they haven't (got) a legal problem, not a moral problem. They have a health problem."

Decriminalization of so-called hard drugs is an official policy of the Liberal Party, endorsed back in 2018 at its convention in Halifax.

At the time, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — still dealing with his government's promise to legalize marijuana — wasn't interested in tackling another politically risky change to federal drug laws.

"On that particular issue, as I've said, it's not part of our plans," Trudeau told reporters back then.

It now appears the federal government's reluctance is waning.

"We are looking at these proposals very, very seriously," said Carolyn Bennett, the first ever federal minister of mental health and addictions.

In an interview airing this weekend on CBC's The House, Bennett spoke about how her father, a police officer, lived through the Prohibition era in Canada after the First World War, and how that experience shapes her own thinking.

"And I think until the day he died at 93, he felt Prohibition never worked and that this was a health problem," she said.