FEDS 'DISAPPOINTED' IN DRUG RULING

The federal government is "obviously very disappointed" with a
British Columbia court ruling striking down laws prohibiting
possession and trafficking of drugs by those accessing help at
supervised injection sites, Health Minister Tony Clement said Wednesday.

The ruling, say some advocates and legal experts, could prompt
injection-site proponents to try to launch other, similar facilities
across Canada, though some acknowledged it's likely the case will
have to survive appeals before that can happen.

The B.C. Supreme Court ruling by Justice Ian Pitfield effectively
granted a reprieve for Vancouver's controversial injection facility
known as Insite.

And it drew Clement's ire.

"We disagree with the judgment," Clement bluntly told reporters in
Ottawa.

"Our government believes that the best way to deal with the health
issues of drug addicts is to offer treatment and indeed to prevent
people from getting on to illicit drugs in the first place."

He also strongly suggested the Conservative government was always
opposed to the facility's continued operation.

"We don't consider it the best health outcome to keep people in a
position where they continue to use the illicit drugs, to inject the
illicit drugs."

The ruling was greeted ecstatically by Insite supporters, who mused
about the possibility of using the ruling to open similar facilities.

"I think it opens the door to (try to lobby for more facilities),"
Ann Livingston of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, said Wednesday.

"They (health authorities and the province) would be chumps not to
open another injection site. It's clearly what has shown to work. I
think they can open them right now."

Lawyer Monique Pongracic-Speier, who represented the group that runs
Insite in the B.C. Supreme court case, said while the ruling won't
force governments to provide similar sites, it will give health
authorities and provinces the right to open them if they want.

"If another site that opened was operating in substantially the same
way as this supervised-consumption room, I can't see how there would
be an argument against it."

The facility began as a pilot project and has been allowed to
continue to operate because of exemptions granted by the federal
government under a section of the Controlled Drugs and Substances
Act.

The latest exemption was to expire June 30.

But the B.C. court ruling gives the federal government until June 30,
2009 to try to fix the drug law. In the meantime, Insite is exempt.

Clement said the federal government is "examining our options" and
any decision to appeal would be announced by Justice Minister Rob
Nicholson.

The judge wrote that denying access to the site ignores the illness
of addiction and violates drug addicts' right - enshrined in Section
7 of the Charter - to life, liberty and security.

"While there is nothing to be said in favour of the injection of
controlled substances that leads to addiction, there is much to be
said against denying addicts health-care services that will
ameliorate the effects of their condition," he wrote.

"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 rehabilitation is the alternative."

B.C.'s chief medical health officer, Dr. Perry Kendall called the
decision "very humane."

He discounted the possibility of pressure being put on the province
to establish and fund more sites.

But he said the ruling "potentially removes one of the inhibitions,"
which was that people were worried Insite would be closed or users
and staff could face criminal charges.

Victoria Mayor Alan Lowe said the provincial capital wants to follow
Vancouver's lead and set up its own supervised facility.

He said the ruling was promising.

"I think it's a huge victory for those who support harm reduction
principles," Lowe said.

"If the federal government does not appeal this . . . a safe
consumption site in Victoria could become a reality sooner than we
had thought."