EXTEND VANCOUVER INSITE EXPERIMENT

Even passionate supporters of Insite, Vancouver's threatened
safe-injection facility, recognize that its impact is tiny when
stacked against Canada's considerable hard-drug culture. But that
doesn't mean it has no impact at all, or that it should be abandoned
without proof it does more harm than good.

So far, as interested cities such as Victoria watch from the
sidelines to determine its fate, the four-year-old pilot program
stands alone in North America.

That's an interesting statistic, used effectively by some critics who
wonder aloud why there is no public clamour for a similar facility
in, say, Toronto, with its estimated 10,000 to 5,000 injection drug
users, or New York.

Answers to that question are probably as convoluted as anything else
surrounding the vexing problem of drug policy. But, as in all matters
that have to with illegal drugs and the people who take them, they
almost certainly involve large dollops of politics as well as
science, speculation, hope and helplessness.

For his part, federal Health Minister Tony Clement, who has twice
granted extensions to Insite, says politics has nothing to do with
it. The fate of the program rests in his hands, since he must again
sign an exemption under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to
allow the centre to remain open. If he doesn't, it will close June 30.

If it is mainstream science alone that the minister requires to make
a final call, you would think that the 22 positive peer-reviewed
studies of Insite published in international science journals to date
might qualify.

Among those who support the safe injection site are the Vancouver
Police Department, B.C. Health Minister George Abbott, Vancouver
Mayor Sam Sullivan, the Chinatown Merchant Association and four
leading mayoralty candidates along with the B.C. Nurses Association,
to tote up but a few marquee names.

On May 5, research criminologist Neil Boyd held an Ottawa news
conference to announce results from a new study on Insite that
concludes the facility had no adverse effects on crime or public order.

Those opposed to legally supervised injection sites usually point to
prevention, treatment and enforcement as the areas governments should
concentrate on. But, of course, that is precisely where the vast
majority of resources have been and continue to be devoted.

The efficiency of these methods are a continuing source of
controversy within professional and scientific spheres, with precious
little in the way of consensus beyond the obvious need for greater
societal concern about the underlying problem.

Insite has its detractors. In fact, as three international senior
police officers were holding a news conference supporting the program
last week, Tony Clement's office was helpfully providing media with a
list of dissenters within law enforcement circles. They include the
likes of Toronto's police superintendent Ron Taverner, who instead
favours further funding of treatment programs.

In fact, for all the herculean efforts that have been made in
attempting to influence and create a cogent national drug policy, the
file remains one of the most confounding and troubling in Canadian
public life. Because of the risk of dirty needles, lives hang in the balance.

Safe, supervised injection sites such as Insite aren't the sole
answer, of course. Any long-term, coast-to-coast success will rest in
a frustrating multi-pronged approach of the "three steps forward one
step back" variety.

But Insite and its diverse local, national and international
supporters -- who might not agree on much else -- make a reasonable
case that the program has saved lives and lowered neighbourhood
crime. That should be good enough for Clement to sign a multi-year
blanket extension that will allow even further study.