Marshall Smith nurses a can of Dr. Pepper, eats pretzels and looks relaxed.
He’s looking forward to travelling and time on the beach after wrapping things up in the next couple of weeks.
The Alberta government’s drug czar, the man quarterbacking the addiction file as Premier Danielle Smith’s chief of staff, started talking to his boss about leaving the scene in January.
He was asked to stay but they agreed if he was leaving now would be a good time, before the politicians go back to the legislature.
Rob Anderson, already Premier Smith’s right-hand man, will become chief of staff.
Marshall Smith will be most remembered for leading the charge on getting addicts off drugs and staying off drugs.
His focus is heavy on recovery and he is more convinced than ever it is the right way to go though he didn’t make a lot of friends among the activist crowd.
Even though he’s heading for the exit, Smith talks this day about driving down the number of overdose deaths due to all kinds of drugs.
He says the numbers don’t lie and the numbers are down.
His example?
In Calgary in May of last year there were 70 overdose fatalities and in May of this year the number was 17.
Smith’s personal story is well known and highlights the fact he didn’t cook up some scheme out of an ivory tower textbook.
You see, Smith worked in politics back in the day and at the end of his time in politics he had “a very significant addiction issue.”
He lost everything and existed for four years on the notorious streets of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Smith was using drugs big time. Cocaine, opioids, meth. A partial list.
“You name it. If you had it, I would take it,” he says.
“I was not an addict who smoked too much pot and didn’t do the dishes. I was a hardcore, living in the alley, eating out of garbage cans homeless addict.”
In those times Smith didn’t look back to his days as a political staffer. There was no looking back. There was just looking for the next high.
Finally, faced with cops telling him he had a choice between jail and treatment, he chose treatment, cleaned up and started working in the addiction treatment field.
Fast forward two decades or so. He is a guy with a national profile talking about leaving a top political job in this province.
“It’s been a long haul. I come by my wrinkles and grey hair honestly,” he says.
Things Smith has set in motion are now scheduled to happen.
Those addicts, the minority who are danger to themselves or others, can be sent to treatment, like it or not.
The new law is being written up now and will be rolled out in the spring.
There are those who howl in opposition. Smith asks what do these people want to see.
Addicts “jack-knifed on the corner and being scary.”
Smith points to himself as an example of where he went into treatment only after being given a do-it-or-else choice.
“No addict wakes up in the morning, throws open the drapes and exclaims: Today is the day.”
There is always the threat. Losing their family, losing their job, their health, their freedom.
Many go into treatment voluntarily.
For others living on the edge it’s a case of putting them into treatment or nothing.
“Is involuntary care better than having an addict sleep under a bridge injecting fentanyl into their neck and dying in a tent? Any day of the week,” says Smith.
There are 11 facilities for recovery on the books. Three are open, five are already under construction, one opens in Calgary in January.
“If we need more, we’ll build more,” says Smith.
The man is committed to continue working for conservative politicians.
“Conservative governments are the only governments that have committed to treatment and recovery and getting people off the street and taking down tent encampments.”
Then there are the drug sites like the one in Calgary.
He says this UCP government will need to decide if the money from Alberta taxpayers is getting the best bang for the buck on the addiction front from these drug sites.
The province will make any decision on closing a site but they want local governments to weigh in.
“They are representatives of the local community,” says Smith.
But there is pushback to this whole approach. He knows the opposition.
“Addicts and the people in their sphere don’t like to be separated from their drugs. Anybody that seeks to come in between them is going to get their spears.
“There are also those who fight hard and if you look hard most of them get their paycheques keeping things the way they are.”
Smith is well aware, once his exit is public, there will be those who will go after him, as they have a right to do.
He doesn’t seem bothered about it.
“I’ve been dealing with crazy all my life professionally. It’s the price of admission to work at this level and that’s just the way it is.”
Smith is finished with the pretzels and the Dr. Pepper. He says his job was intense and he needs a break.
He says he will come back and advise governments throughout the country, and including Alberta, on addiction issues.
He then laughs.
“I explicitly deny I’m running for mayor of Calgary or mayor of Edmonton.”