NOW THAT INSITE HAS WON REPRIEVE, IT'S TIME FOR THE REAL WAR ON DRUGS

By extending for six months the licence to operate Vancouver's
supervised drug injection site, the federal government has
conveniently removed from the table the most contentious aspect of
its new anti-drug policy.

So enamoured of the Insite project are its supporters that their
noisy clamour of support for its continued operations had threatened
to drown out the more pertinent parts of Tory strategy.

Even Premier Gordon Campbell felt compelled to get in his two cents'
worth in favour of Insite in the nick of time before Health Minister
Tony Clement's announcement yesterday of its reprieve.

Ostensibly, the extension of Health Canada's necessary approval for
Insite is to allow further time for the assessment of the relevant research.

In reality, however, abandoning the project now, as Prime Minister
Stephen Harper had wished, would have generated only negative
headlines for his new drug policy.

And he had to consider that a mass of studies, albeit chiefly
authored by those with vested interests, has claimed a great success
for Insite, where addicts shoot up illegal drugs under supervision,
using clean needles.

These studies claim to show that Insite has directed addicts to
treatment, and prevented overdose deaths, without jeopardizing public
safety and while halting the spread of HIV/AIDS.

A handful of doubters who dared to question these claims has drawn
much scorn from the advocates of "harm reduction" -- around whom a
small industry has evolved.

But the frenzied defence of Insite and "harm reduction" has tended to
obscure the broader aims of Ottawa's proposed change of direction on
national drug policy.

Harper was about to be pilloried as a rigid law-and-order man,
oblivious to the suffering of the distressed victims of drug addiction.

His alleged callousness would have been bolstered by claims that most
addicts are victims of circumstances beyond their control, even
though in fact they may have wilfully descended into the black hole
of their addiction.

As I say, the insistent emphasis on harm reduction, the endless
papers and rallies and speeches, obscure an uncomfortable truth --
that for far too long in this province we have drifted on a cloud of
pot smoke into a make-believe land of ever greater tolerance for
drugs, hard and soft.

Many people apparently believe marijuana has already been
decriminalized, although this imminent folly was mercifully abandoned
when the Conservatives took power from the Liberals.

At the time, other western countries were also coming belatedly to
their senses, realizing that permissive drug policies were
imperilling the health and future of generations of young people.

With the Insite controversy temporarily muzzled, the Tories can hope
that the focus of attention will be on their main thrust -- that no
drugs are safe, no matter what we've been lulled into believing over the years.

That's real harm reduction.