INSITE DECISION A WIN FOR SCIENCE

Occasionally we get good news out of Ottawa, and on Sept. 30, the
country's Supreme Court delivered a rare unanimous ruling that is good
news indeed.

Putting an end to several years of squandered time, effort and
taxpayer dollars, all wasted on a vindictive Tory attempt to shut down
Insite, Vancouver's pioneering and wildly successful experiment with
harm reduction for injection drug users, the justices ordered the
Minister of Health to provide the supervised injection centre in the
Downtown Eastside with the legal exemption that will allow it to
continue its life saving work.

It's about time the Tory nonsense around Insite was put to rest. Now
the adults in the room can get back to the business of rational
science, harm reduction and sane social policy, unless, as is far too
plausible, the mouth breathers in the federal cabinet decide to find
some other way to block progress and throw more red meat to their "law
and order" loving base, who have no worries about their favourite
addictions and crimes being affected.

Insite is currently the only supervised injection centre in North
America, and one of 65 operating around the world. It has safely
supervised over a million injections since its opening in 2003, and in
2009 nearly 500 potentially lethal overdoses on site were dealt with
by the centre's trained health professionals, suggesting at least a
preliminary number for how many lives have been saved by Insite.

The World Health Organization calls such centres, where addicted IV
drug users are provided with clean needles and a sterile environment
in which to take their drugs, "a priority intervention in slowing HIV
transmission via needles." Dr. Julio Montaner, a St. Paul's Hospital
based HIV/AIDS researcher and president of the International Aids
Society, told Forbes magazine that the Supreme Court ruling represents
"a victory of science over ideology."

He's right, and let's be clear about what the ideology is that has
been repudiated in this case, because the attack on Insite is only one
of many ways this poisonous political theology is being manifested in
Canada.

Perhaps we can use the moment of clarity provided by the Supreme Court
decision to take a critical look at some of its other manifestations.
What has been rejected is a mean spirited focus on "law and order"
that's differentially tough on crime--bringing in draconian penalties
for the crimes committed by the poor and the marginalized and saving
its compassion for the crimes of the rich and well connected. With the
Harper majority government in power, we are likely to see this
merciless approach applied to many areas of public policy and we will
all have to fight hard to keep the government from establishing a
regime of omnibus crime bills, mandatory sentences and multiplying
prisons. In the meantime, drug prohibition, so beloved by the law and
order crowd, will continue to produce its predictable results:
powerful drug mafias, corrupted police departments, crowded prisons
and degraded public services.

Vancouverites have reason to be proud of our city's role in creating
Insite, and to be relieved that the attempt to destroy it has been
thwarted. Now we need to actively support the call, issued promptly by
COPE Coun. Ellen Woodsworth after the Supreme Court decision, for
increased provincial funding to extend Insite hours and to open other
similar centres across the city.

In a Sept. 30 release, COPE called for "... more sites in the city that
provide access to treatment, mental health assistance, and safe
injection for those in our communities struggling with addiction. COPE
is asking the provincial government step up the funding of Insite so
that there can be more staff and longer hours for this health service."

I urge my readers to echo this call by emailing their MLAs and the
premier this week, calling on them to comply with this urgent request.