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.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom