SAFE INJECTION SITES DEFENDED IN COURT

KELOWNA (CUP) - Dean Wilson is a 38-year heroin addict inflicted with
Hepatitis C. Shelly Tomic is disabled by depression and arthritis in
addition to her heroin addiction. They're both users of the Insite
safe-injection site in Vancouver, and they've won the battle to keep
Insite open.

A new decision by the B.C. Court of Appeal has found that the laws
that make such sites illegal infringe on these persons' charter
rights to life, liberty, and security.

Wilson and Tomic, alongside the Portland Hotel Society, which
operates the site under contract with the Vancouver Coastal Health
Authority, filed a statement of claim against the federal government
in 2007 claiming that closing Insite would violate the users' rights
to "security of the person."

"We were incredibly ecstatic at the ruling [...] People were
overjoyed," said Liz Evans, PHS executive director.

She believes Insite is extremely valuable.

"If a drug user walks in off the street, they can find belonging,
dignity, and access to services that are designed with them in mind," she said.

The site addresses overdose rates as well as the rates of spread of
infectious disease through dirty syringes and unclean equipment.

The group had filed action when the temporary legal exemption that
had allowed Insite to operate was set to expire in 2008.

The B.C. Court of Appeal's 2-1 decision "represented the courts
actually supporting the information and the research and the reality
of what's actually happening every day on that site," Evans said, "as
opposed to validating what ultimately is this ideological rhetoric
which is coming out of the central government."

Federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq's office would not comment on
the government's plans following the announcement.

"While the government respects the court's decision, it is
disappointed with the outcome," said Christelle Legault, a Health
Canada spokesperson. "The government is reviewing the decision carefully."

Insite was created in 2003 after Health Canada, under the Liberal
government thanks to a minister's exemption from the Controlled Drugs
and Substances Act, had received two exemptions from the following
Conservative government by 2008.

At the time, the government had said that the extensions were meant
to provide more research.

"Then, rather than using the [health-related] goals that Insite was
established to actually achieve, they switched the focus of what they
wanted [to] criminalize. Are we actually getting people off drugs and
are we getting rid of crime?" Evans said.

According to Evans, the scientific research into the matter backs up
the need for injection sites like Insite.

"The types of things that they've demonstrated is that Insite has a
significant role to play in a comprehensive way of addressing
addiction," she said.

The Canadian Medical Association Journal published an article in 2004
that claims that Insite lowers public drug use and discarding of drug
paraphernalia. A 2006 paper from the New England Journal of Medicine
states that an average use of Insite of once a week or any contact
with the on-site addictions counsellor independently increased that
person's chance to get into rehab.

Health Canada compiled a report in 2008 for then-health-minister Tony
Clement that upheld some of these points, noting that Insite had
intervened in 336 overdose events, with no deaths.

"If they were to occur in an alley or somewhere isolated, that person
ultimately ends up dying," Evans noted.

The report identified some limitations of the research, including the
issue of self-reporting and the difficulty of measuring injections in
Vancouver's downtown east side outside of Insite.

Evans wants to drive home the message that Insite saves lives.

"Shelly Tomic and Dean Wilson [...] testified in the court document
that Insite had saved their lives," she said. "There's many people
that go every day [into the upstairs detox] who tell everyone who's
willing to hear [that] they wouldn't be in detox without Insite."