STERN MESSAGE TO OTTAWA

The Supreme Court of Canada has left the Harper government nowhere to
hide on its opposition to Vancouver's Insite drug injection clinic.
The court's unequivocal nine-to-zero decision in favour of the
clinic's right to stay open is a resounding defeat for the
government's pointless struggle to shut down a facility that offers a
ray of hope in what is perhaps Canada's saddest neighbourhood.

Anyone who has visited Vancouver's Downtown East Side, home to some
4,600 addicts, cannot help but be appalled. The court itself pulled no
punches in describing the reality. "Of those who are not homeless,
many live in squalid conditions in single-room occupancy hotels . . .
with little in the way of security, privacy or hygienic facilities.
Existence is bleak."

Since 2003, Insite has offered strictly controlled injection
facilities. Its supporters include the city of Vancouver, Vancouver
police, the province of British Columbia and the Canadian Medical
Association. But since 2008 the Harper government has tried to close
it by denying the clinic exemptions from Canada's laws against use of
illegal drugs. Now the top court has told Ottawa: enough.

In its ruling, the court makes clear that safe injection sites are
quite common elsewhere -- they exist in 60 cities in Europe, as well
as in Australia. They are, the judges wrote, "evidence that health
authorities are increasingly recognizing that health care for
injection drug users cannot amount to a stark choice between
abstinence and forgoing health services."

As for Insite, the court concluded, "the experiment has proven
successful. Insite has saved lives and improved health. And it did
those things without increasing the incidence of drug use and crime in
the surrounding area." Closing the clinic, it said, would violate its
users' Charter right to "life, liberty and security of the person."

Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq says the government believes the focus
should be on preventing people from becoming addicts in the first
place. Of course that's the best route, and more needs to be done for
drug prevention and treatment. But now that the court has spoken,
Ottawa should abandon its crusade against a clinic whose only mission
is to help the most desperate, addicted drug users from doing even
more damage to themselves.