ADDICTS HAVE NO RIGHT TO INJECT, COURT TOLD

A lawyer for the federal government says it's not the state's job to
provide safe injection sites and there's no constitutional right for
addicts to inject illegal drugs.

The comments were made by Robert Frater, a lawyer for the
attorney-general of Canada, during an appeal of a ruling that allows
Insite, Vancouver's supervised injection site, to stay open.

Last year, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Ian Pitfield struck down the
laws prohibiting possession and trafficking of controlled substances,
as they apply to users on the Insite facility. He found the laws
prevent access to health-care services for drug addicts.

But Frater told a three-member panel of the B.C. Court of Appeal that
the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act does not infringe the Charter
rights of addicts.

"There is no constitutional obligation on the state to provide
supervised injection rooms, and there is no constitutional right to
inject scheduled drugs," he said.

Frater said Pitfield erred in several ways in his analysis of the
Charter rights involved and argued the harms to addicts were created
by their use of the drugs, not by the laws.

But Joseph Arvay, a lawyer for the PHS Community Services Society,
which runs Insite, argued that Frater "completely mischaracterized"
the position of Insite and the trial judge.

"He's set up a straw man in order to shoot it down," he said. "Where
a law, and particularly a criminal law, stands between seriously ill
people and the health care they need, that law deprives those people
of their rights to life and security of their person."

Arguments continue today in what is expected to be a three-day hearing.