INSITE DEBATE A SLIPPERY SLOPE

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Ian Pitfield has certainly set the cat
among the pigeons with his ruling that Vancouver's safe-injection
site, Insite, should be allowed to remain open for at least a year.

And it's easy to see why lobbyists for the city's drug addicts, who
have been pushing hard to keep Insite running past June 30 ( when its
exemption under federal drug laws expires), are overjoyed.

They are hailing it as a huge victory over the Harper-led Tories, who
have expressed disapproval over the continued operation of what is
still North America's only legally-sanctioned drug-injection site.

Pitfield's ruling may, in fact, have done PM Stephen Harper a favour,
by letting him defer the decision on Insite -- and remove what could
have proved a major irritant during the coming election campaign.

In his 59-page ruling, Pitfield argues that drug addiction is an
illness, that Insite is providing a healthservice for it -- and that
denying addicts access to that service threatens their constitutional
rights.

But what is often ignored in the seemingly interminable debate about
Insite is the fact that it is simply an injection site. The illegally
acquired drugs used in it are brought there by the addicts themselves.

Well, you may say, the answer then is for the government to provide
addicts with free drugs in addition to a cosy place in which to shoot
them up.

That is a slippery slope down which, we believe, most Canadians won't
want to go. Nor should they.