Canadian government to appeal safe-injection site ruling

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May 29, 2008 - Health Minister Tony Clement has made clear the Canadian government's position on Insite, the safe-injection facility in Vancouver's downtown East side. The Canadian government intends to appeal a BC court ruling that would allow the site to continue operating beyond June 30, 2008.

Insite is operating as a pilot project under a legal exemption originally granted by the previous government that allows people to carry, traffic and inject illegal drugs in the supervised facility.

The Conservative government extended the legal exemption until June 30, 2008 in order to conduct more research into the the program. Meanwhile, a British Columbia court has ruled that Canada's current drug laws are unconstitutional when they prohibit possession and trafficking of illegal drugs by those looking for help at facilities such as Insite.

"I cannot agree with Canada's submission that an addict must feed his addiction in an unsafe environment when a safe environment that may lead to rehabilittion is the alternative." - Mr. Justice Ian Pitfield

Clement said the federal government will appeal the recent BC court decision, saying supervised injection sites are well-intentioned but ultimately medically unethical.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Canada
• politics
• Insite
• supervised
• injection
• site
• Tony
• Clement
• Hedy
• Fry

[Straylight100]

@liberty4canada If you look into it, you will find the vast majority of harms associated with drug use, [even heroin or cocaine], are either directly caused by drug prohibition or made hundreds of times worse.

You've hit the nail on the head; prohibition is incompatible with a free society. By telling you what you can and can't put in your body, the government is claiming ownership over it. The "drug war" has been used over and again as an excuse to remove civil liberties from all of society.

[Straylight100]

@lkcwu That's a ridiculous argument. Addicts don't have choice over whether to use or not - that's why its called addiction. The duty of the public authority is to reduce the harm caused by their activities without promoting them. INSITE does not sell, or tell people where to buy drugs, so it does not promote them. Addicts using INSITE inject drugs whether INSITE stays open or closes, but by remaining open it offers a first point of contact to treatment services for the most hardcore addicts.

[Straylight100]

Tony Clement is a fucking moron. People like him don't give a shit about drug addicts. They are more than happy to see addicts die in the streets.

INSITE gives hardcore homeless addicts a first contact point with services that might eventually lead to recovery.

[KaitlinHoltby]

Dr. Fry is a complete idiot!!

[xMetallicPanda]

Fry is a complete bitch!

[MannyHMo]

I'm not an expert on this field although I've worked as a physician in detox and substance abuse 12 step program. There are truly some patients who wouldn't avail themselves of treatment. They would live in the most unhygienic conditions and would use the dirtiest syringe/needle. The key is harm reduction.  The people in Vancouver BC are lucky (low crime, low cost on health care of these hopelessly addicted persons, cleaner streets).

[jmay2002]

Talk about a double standard!

[lol365]

All I can say is that what Dr Hedy Fry said is the truth. The downtown east side in Vancouver HAS been cleaned up due to the safe injection site. It HAS led to addicts seeking treatment. It HAS prevented unnecessary overdoses that would land addicts in hospital, taking up beds for innocent people. The safe injection site, to my amazement (I was very much opposed to it), HAS worked.

And Tony Clement didn't answer Dr Fry's damn question! Shame on the Conservatives and kudos to Dr Hedy Fry!

[ve3ded]

Tony Clement has a huge communications problem

On you tube he says "i believe in needle sharing " during his misspeak

lets give Harper a reason to put tony down for his lack of communications skills

OTTAWA - A tape recording at the centre of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's $3.5-million defamation suit against the Liberal party was not altered as the prime minister has claimed, a court-ordered analysis of the tape by Harper's own audio expert has found.

[lkcwu]

Instead of focusing on places letting people continue using drugs, why not focus on rehab? Or on education and teach the patients and our young people not to do drugs in the first place? I think that'll be a much better use of our tax dollars.

I don't think as taxpayers we should pay for people to continually harming their bodies in ways that they know are harmful to them. So this is certainly an issue to look into, and I can't wait to see some of the debates on this coming up.

[lkcwu]

I actually don't think Tony's doing a disfavour in appealing the injection site ruling. Afterall, the injection site being kept open sends the message that the people can continue to use hard drugs and harm their bodies.

Recently Tony made a similar argument in the sense that should doctors continue allowing their patients to harm their bodies instead of recommending treatment, they'll be considered unethical. So if it's unethical there, then it's certainly worth considering a parallel here.

[liberty4canada]

I agree with you about decriminalizing prostitution and soft drugs - liberty is the freedom to do whatever you like as long as others aren't harmed. If there is no victim other than oneself, there should be no crime. Government should limit itself to guarding our liberties and protecting us from harm.

But dispensing narcotics (hard drugs) harms the addict and is against the law, so unless we want to decriminalize narcotics then this is the only viable position the government can take.

[smellyfooty]

"crime"and"abuse" wouldn't be there if prostitution was legal. you choose your profession and everyone else should choose they're own( no matter what you choose(depending on the money involved... and there is money involved). Freedom Baby! Like it or leave it. Drugs are the "medication" just like the medication that is sold legally for depression, but without all the "supposed" side-effects. Stop looking at the act and look at the "guilty" consequences instead. one connects to the other....

[Northgrant]

Nope. It makes no sense at all.

[Cnd1867]

Ya Hedy Fry says every life is precious to her and acuses the conservative minister of dismissing someones right to life, but, wait....don't the liberals SUPPORT abortion? HHMMMM.....well that's strange, a useless drug addicts life is more important to her than, an unborn babie's life is, does that make any sense whatsoever?

[Derekstarr]

One last thing I'd like to say is that Hedy Fry, the Liberal asking questions in the clip, says that the safe injection sites were set up for people who do not access their healthcare. To that I would say that we can make the healthcare available to everyone who needs it, but we can't make people go. If drug users chose not to be treated for medical problems, that's their own problem. Or at least, it certainly isn't my problem.

[Derekstarr]

I can't quite decide where I stand on this, but I do know that safe injection sites shouldn't be a federal issue. I would be more comfortable with municipal governments taking 100% of the burden with this one, (and allowing the existence of such sites be determined locally,) and completely supportive of it if charity organizations stepped up to the plate and took charge of the issue.

[jmay2002]

I would be furious as a tax payer if I knew people were getting high on my tax dollars. Working in the human services field for 4 years I find safe ejection sites like the methadone clinics here in the states. They started out with a good purpose because they were required counseling along with treatment. however now they are just injecting sites and they do not really serve a positive purpose.

[ODDMANtheone]

This is a tough issue to take a firm position on for me. I can see both views clearly, and I simply don't know the answer.

I do, however, find drug laws to be draconian anyway, especially marijuana laws, and I have seen stats that show disease decreases in needle exchange cities (Europe), but I wonder who takes advantage of these sites to simply get high in a comfortable place. Again, tough issue.