INSITE DECISION MERITS MP COMMENT

Dear Editor:

Thanks for your excellent Oct. 2 editorial, Strong Constitution,
enthusiastically supporting the Supreme Court decision with respect
to the safe injection site we know as Insite.

For the last decade I have been a volunteer in the Downtown Eastside
of Vancouver. A sign at the front of the building out of which I
volunteer reads Keep Insite Open. That means keep people in the
neighborhood from dying; keep disease and illness from spreading;
keep addicts from losing their human dignity by being forced to shoot
up on the streets and in the alleyways. The many reasons for keeping
Insite open were clearly evident to all in the neighbourhood and to
virtually all health professionals.

Therefore it was, as you have stated, "morally outrageous" to see the
government of Canada expending precious resources to close down this
life-saving community health resource. And while it is to their
credit that an overwhelming number of local politicians gave their
support to the continuing existence of a safe injection site in the
Downtown Eastside, the same cannot be said of the two local members
of Parliament, Andrew Saxton and John Weston, whose government fought
an irrational fight to close it down, allowing ideology to trump the
evidence which was so clearly expressed in the Supreme Court
decision: namely, drug addiction is a health issue and, as a health
centre, Insite saves lives.

I have yet to hear from our local members of Parliament their reasons
for being complicit in the incomprehensible and potentially
death-dealing campaign conducted by their government. A public
response by our two Conservative members of Parliament to the Supreme
Court decision would be appreciated and perhaps indicative of where
they stand as, indeed, the battle for a progressive response to the
issue of drug addiction is not over.

Don Robertson,

North Vancouver