The federal government has agreed to British Columbia's request to re-criminalize hard drugs in public places, after nearly two weeks of the province asking to end its pilot project early due to concerns about public drug use.

This was announced by Mental Health and Addiction Minister Carolyn Bennett on Tuesday on Parliament Hill, and Bennett told reporters, "We said yes, and it is effective immediately".

It has been just over a year since the start of a three-year pilot project in British Columbia to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of certain illegal drugs, including heroin and cocaine.

But citing safety concerns regarding public consumption of these substances, British Columbia. asked the federal government on April 26 to make illegal drug use illegal in all public places, including hospitals, on public transport, and in parks.

Bennett said that the issue is "a health crisis, not a criminal crisis, but "communities need to be safe".

According to a statement from Bennett's office, the exemptions in the criminal code for possession of small amounts of illegal drugs for personal use will remain in effect in private residences, some healthcare clinics, and places where people seek help legally, as well as for overdose prevention and drug-related harm.

When asked by reporters why it took the federal government more than a week and a half to decide to abandon the pilot program, Bennett said that "the illegal toxic drug supply," not decriminalization, is what causes deaths from overdoses.

She said, "Moving forward towards any type of pilot like the one that happened in British Columbia, we know that we need to have balance, public safety, and public health.” "This means there need to be sufficient health services, expanding them to meet people's needs wherever they are, as well as law enforcement to have the tools they need to ensure that public safety is the priority.”

Bennett added that decriminalization is one of the pillars of the Liberals' approach to addressing the opioid crisis, and that while the federal government acknowledged the "urgent need" for British Columbia's request, it did not want to make a decision based on "unthoughtful reactions."

This issue sparked heated debate in the House of Commons last week, when Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre pressed the Liberals to accept British Columbia's request. One of the heated confrontations saw Poilievre ejected after he called Prime Minister Justin Trudeau "a fool" for his drug decriminalization policy.