OTTAWA'S APPEAL OF INSITE RULING NO SURPRISE TO LOWE

Mayor says city, VIHA should discuss strategy on drug-injection
exemption

Meagan Fitzpatrick, Canwest News Service With a file by Carolyn Heiman
of the Times Colonist Federal Health Minister Tony Clement said
yesterday Ottawa will appeal this week's B.C. Supreme Court decision
that ruled in favour of Vancouver's controversial supervised injection
site.

Appearing before the House of Commons health committee, Clement said
evidence in support of Insite isn't strong enough, and that supervised
injection sites prolong addiction and divert dollars away from
treatment programs.

"For these reasons, fellow committee members, I can inform you today
that I will be asking my colleague, Rob Nicholson, the minister of
Justice, to appeal Judge [Ian] Pitfield's decision at the earliest
possible opportunity," Clement said.

The decision to appeal isn't surprising to Victoria Mayor Alan Lowe,
who hopes smaller supervised injection sites could one day become part
of a harm-reduction program here.

Lowe said the city should sit down with Vancouver Island Health
Authority "to determine if we should ramp up our request for an
exemption for our own sites."

That's unlikely to happen quickly.

After some preliminary work for an application to Health Canada, the
VIHA board has asked staff for a detailed analysis of research
providing evidence of the benefits of supervised injection sites. As
well as getting an exemption from Health Canada, VIHA would also have
to get community support and funding for the sites.

VIHA's plan to locate a fixed needle exchange on Pandora Avenue was
shut down this year by community opposition.

Pitfield ruled that Canada's trafficking and possession laws are
unconstitutional when applied to addicts using the facility, and that
it should be allowed to remain open under current drug laws for a
year, even without a federal exemption from current drug laws.

That year should give the federal government time to rewrite its laws
to allow for medical use of illegal drugs if they are part of a
health-care program, he said.

The current exemption from federal drug laws is set to expire June 30
and the government has not formally indicated whether it will be extended.

Clement is making it clear however, that his government does not like
the idea of Insite, North America's only sanctioned safe-injection site.

"In my opinion, supervised injection is not medicine -- it does not
heal the person addicted to drugs," he said.

The Tories' drug strategy does not include harm-reduction programs
because they are included within the government's three-pronged
approach, the health minister said.

"We see harm reduction as being represented within the other three
pillars of enforcement, prevention and treatment," Clement said.