COURT A BEACON ON DRUG POLICY

The ruling on Vancouver's safe-injection site marks an overdue turning
point in our response to addiction. The B.C. Supreme Court judgment
should not just ensure Insite's continued operation, but also bring a
more effective overall approach to the drug problem.

Justice Ian Pitfield, after hearing evidence on the scientific,
medical, social and criminal aspects of drug use, found that addiction
is a life-threatening illness, like cancer.

The injection site offers needed health care, reducing the risk of
death and the spread and effects of disease. Depriving people of
access to that kind of medical care would violate the Charter of
Rights and Freedoms protection of individual life, liberty and
security, Pitfield concluded.

Those rights aren't absolute, but before they can be stripped away
government has to demonstrate an important greater good that would be
served. Federal government lawyers couldn't provide evidence to
justify such a claim. Eliminating needle exchanges would not reduce
crime or addiction, according to the evidence.

The most important -- and we hope far-reaching -- part of the ruling
dealt with the claim that drug injection simply reflects a poor choice
by an individual, who must be prepared to suffer the consequences.
That argument has been used to justify much of our current approach to
addiction.

Pitfield ruled the evidence didn't support that claim. "The original
personal decision to inject narcotics arose from a variety of
circumstances, some of which commend themselves to choice, while
others do not," he found. "However unfortunate, damaging, inexplicable
and personal the original choice may have been, the result is an
illness called addiction."

And ill people are entitled to health care, which is what Insite,
operated under contract for the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority,
provides. "The failure to manage the addiction in all of its aspects
may lead to death, whether from overdose or other illness resulting
from unsafe injection practices," Pitfield found.

"If the root cause of death derives from the illness of addiction,
then a law that prevents access to health-care services that can
prevent death clearly engages the right to life."

That does not mean we must approve of addiction and abandon
enforcement efforts or programs aimed at getting people off drugs. It
means those who are sick with addiction -- to tobacco or alcohol or
other drugs -- should have access to needed care.

The federal government's argument that injecting is just a matter of
personal choice simply is not supported by medical evidence or experience.

The court heard a survey of Downtown Eastside drug users done for
federal Department of Health found the average person had been
injecting drugs for 15 years. Almost 90 per cent were infected with
Hepatitis C; 17 per cent with HIV; 20 per cent were homeless; 80 per
cent had been in jail; almost 40 per cent were in the sex trade; and
59 per cent had overdosed. It is not reasonable to claim people choose
that level of despair and destruction for themselves.

We can treat addiction as an illness without abandoning prevention,
treatment and enforcement. The court ruling has provided welcome
clarity for a commitment to an effective drug policy.