NO REASON TO SCOLD DOCTORS

Speaking at the annual meeting of the Canadian Medical Association,
Health Minister Tony Clement took it upon himself this week to accuse
doctors of failing to look out for the interests of drug addicts.
Even if his words had not been delivered the same week that his
Conservative Party distributed advertisements pledging to keep
"junkies" off the streets and away from children and families, his
audience would have had reason to take offence.

His opposition to Insite is already well known; Mr. Clement could
have skipped the subject of Vancouver's supervised-injection facility
entirely. Instead, he adopted a more strident position than ever
before - questioning the ethics of doctors who support the site. "Is
it ethical for health-care professionals to support the
administration of drugs that are of unknown substance, or purity or
potency - drugs that cannot otherwise be legally prescribed?" he
demanded. "The supervised-injection site undercuts the ethic of
medical practice and sets a debilitating example for all physicians
and nurses, both present and future in Canada."

Not himself a doctor, Mr. Clement's scolding would have been
presumptuous under any circumstances. But it was all the more
dubious, because of the analogy he went on to draw. "Imagine for a
moment a doctor who has a patient with a serious but treatable case
of cancer," he said. "Would it be ethical for that doctor to give
that woman morphine and otherwise make her comfortable until she died
of her disease, rather than offer the patient treatment toward full recovery?"

As is always the case when he attempts to present harm reduction and
rehabilitation as mutually exclusive options, Mr. Clement neglected
to mention that Insite does not divert addicts from treatment. On the
contrary, it actively encourages them to seek it. In addition to the
reams of peer-reviewed research that Mr. Clement continues to
dismiss, his own comparatively skeptical advisory panel acknowledged
that such encouragement has led to increased use of rehabilitation facilities.

If Mr. Clement believes that long-term treatment is underfunded, as
he spent much of his speech arguing, then his government should
increase funding for it. But that does not justify attacking the
morals of medical professionals who believe, with ample research to
support them, that facilities such as Insite are life-saving tools in
treating the disease of drug addiction. As his own party distributes
literature dehumanizing that disease's sufferers, Mr. Clement is in
no position to deliver lectures on compassion.