LEGAL BATTLE CONTINUES OVER SAFE INJECTION SITE

Canada's Conservatives are risking the future of the country's
anti-drugs laws by pursuing a legal challenge against North America's
only supervised injection facility, say the group's advocates.

The Conservative government has recently appealed a court decision in
favour of keeping Insite open.

Since coming to power in 2006, the Conservative government has
attempted to shut down Insite, a safe injection facility in
Vancouver's downtown east side. Insite operates on an exemption from
Canada's drug laws, granted by the previous Liberal government. The
exemption allows users to have and use drugs at the site. It also
allows the facility's staff to come into contact with illegal drugs,
such as cocaine and heroin, without the fear of prosecution.

In May of 2007 the Supreme Court of British Columbia ruled that Insite
was allowed to stay open, without requiring an exemption from federal
drug laws, and found Canada's Controlled Drugs Substances Act
unconstitutional, on the grounds that it denies treatment to drug addicts.

If the federal government doesn't amend the law to bring it in line
with the court's ruling in the next nine months, it will be struck
down. The federal government has instead decided to appeal the court's
decision. The court date has been set for April, raising the
possibility that the Conservatives could lose the appeal after the
June deadline, causing Canada's drug laws to expire
automatically.

"This was never our intention and I think that's very reckless of
Harper and Clement," said Dr. Daniel Small, director of the Portland
Hotel Society Community Services, one of the agencies that run Insite.

"We're confident that the judge's ruling will hold up and that Insite
will be safe," said Small. The program has the support of the
Vancouver Police Department, and both the municipal and provincial
governments.

Harm reduction activists say there is a wealth of scientific evidence
supporting Insite, but that Harper's government opposes it for
ideological reasons.

"They just don't like it and they ignore evidence and scientific
results," said Gillian Maxwell, a harm reduction activist who spoke at
Concordia on Oct. 3.

"It doesn't fit their [worldview] of how things would be, and they
think people who use drugs are wrong and bad and should be punished.
It is an old way of looking at things."

Even if the court ruling holds, a Conservative government could
prevent further harm reduction facilities from opening in other
communities, such as Montreal. Early in the summer the Quebec
government announced that they were considering setting up a facility
in the city, but in late August Health Minister Yves Bolduc walked
away from the plan, allegedly under pressure from Ottawa.

Insite was created in response to an HIV/AIDS epidemic among
intravenous drug users in the downtown east side of Vancouver. In 1997
the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, a provincial
government agency, estimated the infection rate at 27 per cent among
injection drug users.

Heather Hay, director of Addiction, HIV/AIDS and Aboriginal Health
Services for Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH), a provincial agency that
runs Insite along with PHS, described the downtown eastside of
Vancouver as "the poorest postal code in Canada."

Because of their lifestyles, addicts are at increased risk for other
diseases, health agencies in B.C. estimate that as many as 90 per cent
are infected with hepatitis C. BC's chief coroner reported that 40 per
cent of needle exchange clientele were illiterate, making harm
reduction programs one of the only methods to dispense health care
information.

"It doesn't make sense to just let [addicts] get really sick because
they become a big drain on the health care system," said Maxwell. VCH
estimates that each heroin addict not receiving drug treatment costs
the medical system $49,000 a year. For patients suffering from
HIV/AIDS costs are estimated at $225,000 a year.

Small said the scientific debate over the merits of harm reduction
programs is over, an assertion echoed in Maxwell's lecture. "The World
Health Organization, the Red Cross, different parts of the UN,
including the Secretary General are all on record saying harm
reduction is essential in order to fight HIV/AIDS, particularly with
injection drug users."

Small, Hay, and Maxwell all agree that the Conservative opposition to
the program is purely ideological.

"We must acknowledge the need for harm reduction programs and realize
that accepting harm reduction as part of a strategy does not mean
condoning the use of illicit drugs," said Hay. "It means accepting
that drug use does and will occur . . . it means recognizing that
abstinence-based strategies are often impractical and ineffective in
dealing with the street entrenched drug scene."