HEALTH NUT

Health Minister Tony Clement demonstrated this week that he has an
alarmingly poor understanding of the principles on which the medical
profession is built.

In an address to the Canadian Medical Association Monday, Clement
said health professionals who support Vancouver's safe injection site
are immoral. By allowing addicts to take drugs in a clinical
environment, nurses and other staff are neglecting their duty to do
no harm to their charges.

Presumably, Clement would rather see addicts perish in a place
outside of medical supervision.

The idea that Insite does more harm than good has been so thoroughly
undermined by clinical data as to be laughable.

Over a single two-year period, nurses at the facility intervened in
more than 500 overdoses. They have supplied more than 600 clean
needles daily and -- according to a litany of peer-reviewed studies
- -- helped contain disease, increase rehab enrollment, cut down needle
sharing and reduce public injections.

After 80 years of failed drug policy, the Conservatives cannot
believe the traditional approach they advocate offers any of these outcomes.

One can only conclude that Clement and his colleagues have no
interest in helping addicts, but rather wish to continue down the
wrong road as a matter of principle.

Now they would like doctors to join them. One can only hope our
health professionals decline the invitation.