Concerns of ‘social disorder’ have become a powerful obstacle to drug policy reform in recent years, evidenced through the backlash to decriminalization in both Oregon and British Columbia. Yet, despite the political potency of disorder narratives, the concept itself remains conceptually ambiguous and empirically undefined, both in policymaking and in drug policy scholarship. In British Columbia, police officers were vocal critics of decriminalization, frequently framing the policy as a threat to social order in media appearances, policy consultations and federal hearings. The threat of disorder contributed to a major amendment in April 2024: the re-criminalization of simple possession in public space.

To better understand how the threat of disorder came to dominate public understandings of decriminalization in B.C., this study applied Critical Discourse Analysis to 36 semi-structured interviews conducted with front-line officers in B.C. Two dominant discourses were identified: 1) Decriminalization as Unleashing Chaos; 2) Decriminalization as Persecuting Officers. In the ‘chaos’ discourse, officers framed decriminalization as a direct cause of social disorder, suggesting that reducing police powers would unleash the ‘natural’ chaos of PWUD. In the second discourse, the threat of disorder was symbolic – officers feared decriminalization would erode police legitimacy. In this discourse, officers described themselves as ‘sacrificial lambs’ scapegoated by decriminalization, contending the policy would result in increased public disrespect, legal vulnerability, and an overall loss of public trust in policing.

By analyzing disorder in a discursive sense, this study argues that officers’ appeals to disorder may not simply be about public safety but also reveal deeper institutional anxieties about the decentralization of drug enforcement and the loss of symbolic authority. In this context, invoking the threat of disorder may serve important ideological functions aimed towards preserving police power, such as heightening perceptions of PWUD as dangerous, reasserting the necessity of police authority over drug use, and re-mobilizing public support for the ‘social order’ of prohibition.

This study aims to make two contributions. First, findings from this study can enhance understandings of how disorder can be strategically wielded in contexts of drug policy reform to sustain powerful interests. More broadly, this study draws attention to the urgent need for scholars and reformists to critically engage and deconstruct notions of disorder, as understanding how such discourses operate is crucial to resist reactionary backlashes to policies moving beyond prohibition.