SAFE-DRUG HYPOCRISIES

VANCOUVER'S so-called safe injection site for drug addicts has always
been controversial, not just in that city but across Canada. Now it
is the subject of an international complaint.

A United Nations agency last week said that Insite, as the facility
is called, violates international drug-control treaties that Canada
has signed because it offers a controlled environment in which
addicts can legally shoot up or smoke up. This program, and other
less ambitious 'harm-reduction' projects across the country, provide
drug paraphernalia such as clean needles and crack pipes to habitual
drug users -- Insite is unusual in that it also provides a place
where they can be used.

The UN's International Narcotics Control Board has advised federal
Health Minister Tony Clement that a place such as Insite "serves as a
small market where people go and legally inject drugs." As such, it
violates the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and should be shut down.

It might well be shut down, but for reasons that have little to do
with the UN's concerns. Canadian governments have long been aware
that narcotics treaties are a huge barrier to reforming drug laws.
The solution might lie in new treaties rather than old and
ineffective remedies.

The UN prefers the traditional approach to drug addicts -- jail them
or leave them out on the streets to steal, grow ill and die. Many
Canadians feel the same way, although they would probably not phrase
the sentiment so harshly. A January poll said that 35 per cent of
Canadians still believe the illicit use of drugs should be treated as
a crime and that we need tougher criminal laws to deal with addicts.

The issue divides not only the public, but politicians as well. The
federal Liberals would permit more safe injection sites across the
country. A slim majority of Canadians agrees with that. The
Conservatives take a more cautious approach. Mr. Clement has extended
Insite's licence until the end of this year but rejected opening
other such centres "pending further research."

In the meantime, a few addicts in Vancouver have access to a safe
house where they can take their drugs, but the vast majority of
junkies is confined to crack houses and dark alleys in
crime-infested, disease-ridden inner cities.

The Canadian government should not worry too much about provisions of
narcotics treaties that are already irrelevant in a rapidly changing
world. It should, rather, find better sanctuaries for drug addicts
than jails. Easing the problem of drug addiction and reforming the
criminal laws that deal with drugs require the political courage to
face down international critics. It will take even greater courage to
challenge the critics at home.

Drug addicts have few friends, and Canadians may be deeply divided on
the best way to deal with them. Most of us, however, can see the
irony, the hypocrisy, in the government's providing a safe and
sterile den where people can use drugs that remain illegal.