DON'T LOSE SITE

WITH the deadline looming for Vancouver's free injection site, and the
federal government showing no signs of renewing it, supporters are
beginning to fear it will soon be forced to close.

That they fear for the site's future is understandable; that they need
to fear for its future boggles the mind.

After three years of operation, evidence of the site's benefits is
plentiful. A series of studies in peer-reviewed journals have driven
home the point.

Since it opened, the site has helped slow the transmission of HIV and
hepatitis, reduced the number of needles in parks and alleyways,
curbed open drug use, and raised the number of drug users entering
detox.

Staff at the site have intervened in 200 drug overdoses, and put 1,000
addicts into counselling.

The Vancouver police, local health authorities, resident and business
groups, and Vancouver's right-of-centre Non-Partisan Association have
all come out on side. Yet in the face of this, the federal government
has refused to commit to renewing the site's funding, or even to
extending its exemption from drug laws.

Looking at the evidence, one must conclude the government's hesitation
is based less in logic than in ideology. To oppose such a project
because you don't like drugs is like refusing an umbrella because you
don't agree with rain.

The free injection site program should not be terminated, but rather
made permanent and expanded.

A problem as serious as drug addiction requires a serious solution. It
is up to Stephen Harper, now, to deliver that.