DRUG INJECTION SITE CAN STAY OPEN, JUDGE RULES

Ruling Renews Talk of Victoria Facility; Insite Supporters Ecstatic
Over Decision

VANCOUVER -- Vancouver's supervised drug injection site is a needed
service and can stay open under existing laws, a B.C. Supreme Court
judge ruled yesterday.

The decision is renewing talk of opening a similar facility in Greater
Victoria.

Canada's drug trafficking and possession laws are unconstitutional
when they are applied to addicts using a supervised-injection site,
Judge Ian Pitfield ruled.

He said that Insite, the continent's only supervised illicit drug
injection site that's sanctioned by government, should be allowed to
remain open for a year even without a federal exemption from drug
laws. The current exemption was due to run out June 30.

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

He said possession and trafficking laws are too broad and arbitrary to
deal with people with drug addictions.

"The blanket prohibition contributes to the very harm it seeks to
prevent," he wrote. "It is inconsistent with the state's interest in
fostering individual and community health, and preventing death and
disease."

He said those laws, when applied to Insite, threaten a person's
constitutional right to life and security because "it denies the
addict access to a health-care facility where the risk of morbidity
associated with infectious disease is diminished, if not
eliminated."

Pitfield pointed out that people who drink alcohol or smoke tobacco to
excess aren't denied treatment.

The office of federal Health Minister Tony Clement released a brief
statement reacting to the ruling: "We are studying the decision."

B.C. Health Officer Perry Kendall said the ruling moves chronic
addiction out of the area of law enforcement and back into health
care, where it belongs.

"I hope this will encourage the Vancouver Island Health Authority to
start on its application process [for such a site]," Kendall said.

A few small supervised injection sites were proposed for Victoria last
year, supported by VIHA, the City of Victoria and Victoria police. But
VIHA has not started the application process to Health Canada, pending
further review.

University of Victoria drug researcher Benedikt Fischer said if legal
issues are a major stumbling block for VIHA, this decision might carry
some weight.

"At the same time, these decisions are still very much local
decisions," Fischer said. "So I'm not really sure this now means
everyone will drop what they've been working on and start working on a
safe consumption site for Victoria. We'll see."

Victoria Mayor Alan Lowe said the decision "will keep pressure on the
[federal] government to look at opening others in the future."
However, Lowe doesn't see that happening soon: "I can't see the
government looking at opening new sites at this point."

PHS Community Services, which runs Insite, and two drug users sought
the ruling.

It was greeted with near disbelief and euphoria by Insite advocates,
who have lobbied for years -- first to open the site, and then to keep
it open. "I just want to cry, I'm so ecstatic," said Liz Evans, one of
the directors of PHS.

Dean Wilson, a longtime heroin user who was part of the court case,
celebrated. "We won. A couple of junkies have knocked off the prime
minister. The most conservative judge in B.C. got that we are real
people and we should have the right to have a normal life."

B.C. Health Minister George Abbott said his government is pleased by
the judgment. "We are strongly supportive of Insite as part of the
continuum of mental health and addiction services in this province."

Whether or not the federal government appeals the decision,
yesterday's ruling "stands until such time as it is overturned by a
judgment from a superior court," Abbott said.

Vancouver Coastal Health spokeswoman Viviana Zanocco said her group's
interpretation of the ruling is that it only applies to Insite and
doesn't mean new sites can be started.

Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca MP Keith Martin, a medical doctor who fought to
keep Insite open, said if the "Tories appeal this decision they will
be using ideology to trump science, which will result in the deaths of
Canadian citizens."