DON'T BLAME CANADA

Why Vancouver's Experiment With Heroin Is a Model For
Seattle.

In Vancouver, B.C., there's a place called Insite, a supervised
injection center where junkies can walk in, get a clean needle, and
shoot dope in front of a licensed medical professional to make sure
they don't OD or hurt themselves. It's one of those kooky liberal
experiments that one can't imagine happening in the United States, but
which has worked marvels in Canada, reducing crime, sickness, and death.

Despite being a frequent political target, Insite lives on. No one has
arrested its doctors or employees, and its results speak for
themselves: Fatal overdoses dropped 35 percent in the two years after
Insite opened in 2003. So while comparing Canadian and American law is
in some ways an apples-and-oranges exercise, the basic concept that
legalization and regulation works while prohibition and enforcement
doesn't is one that crosses all borders.

But Insite now faces its most serious threat, thanks to the
Conservative majority that swept into power earlier this month. The
center's right to exist was recently affirmed by a Canadian court, but
an appeal by Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be heard this week in
the country's Supreme Court.

The center is wildly popular in Vancouver-a study published this year
in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence shows that Insite and
injection centers like it have reduced crime and helped wean addicts
off drugs and reduce the spread of disease. Meanwhile, only 30 miles
away in Washington, a somewhat similar dynamic is evolving with
state-run medical-marijuana dispensaries.

Here, as in Vancouver, facts and logic support the idea that
legitimizing and regulating the use of a drug (in this case marijuana
that's limited to medical use) works better than leaving users and
distributors of the substance in legal limbo over what they can and
can't do. And here too, the right of a local municipality to enact and
enforce a law that's at odds with national statutes is again under
attack-by folks like Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna, who
can't (or won't) wrap his head around it, and Democratic Gov. Chris
Gregoire, who is wildly mistaken in her interpretation of law and precedent.

The bill now before the Washington legislature-SB 5955, an alternative
to the previous bill that Gregoire gutted of all meaningful reforms-is
likely to do little to clear up the state's legal confusion over the
subject, and may in fact make things worse by allowing a myriad of
local laws instead of one statewide policy.

The bottom line, both for Washington's marijuana dispensaries and
Vancouver's legalized heroin-injection centers, is that science and
common sense show one thing while fear and defunct moralism show
another. One simply has to ask with which side legislators cast their
lot.