Pubdate: Mon, 05 Mar 2007 Source: Winnipeg Free Press (CN MB) Copyright: 2007 Winnipeg Free Press Contact: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/502 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?142 (Safe Injecting Rooms) SAFE-DRUG HYPOCRISIES VANCOUVER'S so-called safe injection site for drug addicts has always been controversial, not just in that city but across Canada. Now it is the subject of an international complaint. A United Nations agency last week said that Insite, as the facility is called, violates international drug-control treaties that Canada has signed because it offers a controlled environment in which addicts can legally shoot up or smoke up. This program, and other less ambitious 'harm-reduction' projects across the country, provide drug paraphernalia such as clean needles and crack pipes to habitual drug users -- Insite is unusual in that it also provides a place where they can be used. The UN's International Narcotics Control Board has advised federal Health Minister Tony Clement that a place such as Insite "serves as a small market where people go and legally inject drugs." As such, it violates the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and should be shut down. It might well be shut down, but for reasons that have little to do with the UN's concerns. Canadian governments have long been aware that narcotics treaties are a huge barrier to reforming drug laws. The solution might lie in new treaties rather than old and ineffective remedies. The UN prefers the traditional approach to drug addicts -- jail them or leave them out on the streets to steal, grow ill and die. Many Canadians feel the same way, although they would probably not phrase the sentiment so harshly. A January poll said that 35 per cent of Canadians still believe the illicit use of drugs should be treated as a crime and that we need tougher criminal laws to deal with addicts. The issue divides not only the public, but politicians as well. The federal Liberals would permit more safe injection sites across the country. A slim majority of Canadians agrees with that. The Conservatives take a more cautious approach. Mr. Clement has extended Insite's licence until the end of this year but rejected opening other such centres "pending further research." In the meantime, a few addicts in Vancouver have access to a safe house where they can take their drugs, but the vast majority of junkies is confined to crack houses and dark alleys in crime-infested, disease-ridden inner cities. The Canadian government should not worry too much about provisions of narcotics treaties that are already irrelevant in a rapidly changing world. It should, rather, find better sanctuaries for drug addicts than jails. Easing the problem of drug addiction and reforming the criminal laws that deal with drugs require the political courage to face down international critics. It will take even greater courage to challenge the critics at home. Drug addicts have few friends, and Canadians may be deeply divided on the best way to deal with them. Most of us, however, can see the irony, the hypocrisy, in the government's providing a safe and sterile den where people can use drugs that remain illegal. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom