DRUG INJECTION SITE NEEDED

Let's get something straight right off the bat: government-sanctioned
safe-injection sites for needle drug users are creepy, sad and a sign
of a society in serious trouble.

That being said, Edmonton should have one.

A few years ago, I argued that Vancouver's experiment with a
medically supervised safe-injection site was a bad idea and that
Capital Health, Streetworks and anyone else working with drug addicts
should steer well clear of repeating the exercise here.

As far as I was concerned, giving junkies a sanctuary in which to
shoot up was tantamount to handing them a gun, a bullet and a
blindfold - we would just be encouraging them to keep slowly killing
themselves.

Go ahead, do whatever you want to yourself - just do it over there
where I don't have to see it and you won't scare the children. And
with any luck, you'll stay away from my home and place of work and
I'll never have to think of you again.

Instituting safe-injection sites just meant that we've given up on
addicts, I said.

But now the numbers are in, and it looks like I have to eat some crow.

In the two-and-a-half years that Vancouver's site has been in
operation, 800 of the 7,200 people who've shot up there got into
rehab - and these are people described as the "highest-risk users,"
those mostly likely to contract and spread disease.

Contrary to initial fears, crimes like drug dealing did not go up in
the neighbourhood. In fact, vehicle break-ins declined.

Rates of needle-sharing - one of the easiest ways to spread diseases
like HIV and Hep C - dropped dramatically.

Fewer people are doing drugs in public places and leaving needles and
syringes lying around the site's neighbourhood.

All of these findings have been published in the most respected
medical journals on earth - including the Lancet and the New England
Journal of Medicine.

But nonetheless, the feds, who had to give special permission for the
Vancouver authorities to carry on what is illegal anywhere else in
Canada, say nothing's conclusive and are hinting that the project
won't be renewed when its mandate runs out at the end of the year.

Let's be honest. The problem isn't that the safe-injection site is failing.

The problem is that safe-injection sites don't fit the Harper Tories' ideology.

As far as the government's concerned, drugs are wrong and bad and
people shouldn't do them, and if you do anything other than try to
stamp out drug abuse with a legislative sledgehammer, you're only
encouraging addicts to keep abusing. End of discussion.

Ultimately, they're right. People shouldn't abuse drugs.

It's stupid, dangerous and a cancer on our society. But the reality
is that people do. And hectoring them as morally weak, threatening
them with jail, and forcing them into the shadows isn't doing a thing
to stop them. In fact, it's only making things worse.

People continued to drink when alcohol was prohibited in Canada in
the early 1900s, so why would it be any different with other drugs now?

It's time to set aside ideologies, whether you're a pinch-faced moral
conservative or a poncho-wearing liberal who buys pot from his own kids.

There is no magic bullet to solve the drug crisis. It's going to take
a lot of creative, innovative measures - from supervised injection
sites to forcing some out-of-control addicts into lock-and-key detox
prisons - every one of which is sure to offend some segment of society.

We all have to keep an open mind and sometimes hold our noses.

And, every once in while, we'll have to be prepared to eat crow when
a good idea doesn't fit our world view.