Pubdate: Sat, 01 Oct 2011
Source: Nanaimo Daily News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2011 Nanaimo Daily News
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/nanaimodailynews/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1608
Author: Peter O'Neil, Postmedia News

LEGALITY OF INJECTION SITE UPHELD BY COURT

Federal Government Warned Same Right Apply Elsewhere

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he is disappointed but will comply
with Friday's Supreme Court of Canada ruling that has thrown open the
door in British Columbia and across the country to new
supervised-injection sites, dubbed "shooting galleries" by
conservative critics.

Canada's top judges, in a sharp rebuke of one of Harper's key
law-and-order planks, said the government's attempt to shut down North
America's only nurse-supervised injection site for drug addicts
violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The nine judges agreed with studies validating the clinic's role in
reducing overdose deaths and disease, and found that the government's
move to shut it down threatened the health "and indeed, the lives" of
addicts who otherwise risked disease and infection using shared needles.

A 2008 B.C. Supreme Court decision was correct in deciding that
"Insite is effective in reducing the risk of death and disease, and
has no negative impact on the legitimate criminal law objectives of
the federal government," Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, who is from
B.C., wrote on behalf of her eight colleagues.

The ruling ordered an immediate exemption that will allow the facility
to remain open.

The decision, made public shortly before 7 a.m. in Vancouver, sparked
an emotional reaction among the hundreds of supporters who gathered
outside the entrance of the facility.

The judges said the federal government's opposition to Insite was
violating the rights of the facility's users and staff, who faced
potential arrest on drug possession charges, under section seven of
the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees "life, liberty
and the security of person."

And it warned the federal government to take such rights into
consideration if other communities across Canada apply for a similar
Controlled Drugs and Substances Act exemption, like the one granted to
allow Insite to open its doors in 2003. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.