Pubdate: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 Source: Gateway, The (U of Alberta, CN AB Edu) Copyright: 2010 Gateway Student Journalism Society Contact: http://www.thegatewayonline.ca/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3149 Author: Andrew Bates, CUP Western Bureau Chief Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?142 (Supervised Injection Sites) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/Topic/Insite SAFE INJECTION SITES DEFENDED IN COURT KELOWNA (CUP) - Dean Wilson is a 38-year heroin addict inflicted with Hepatitis C. Shelly Tomic is disabled by depression and arthritis in addition to her heroin addiction. They're both users of the Insite safe-injection site in Vancouver, and they've won the battle to keep Insite open. A new decision by the B.C. Court of Appeal has found that the laws that make such sites illegal infringe on these persons' charter rights to life, liberty, and security. Wilson and Tomic, alongside the Portland Hotel Society, which operates the site under contract with the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, filed a statement of claim against the federal government in 2007 claiming that closing Insite would violate the users' rights to "security of the person." "We were incredibly ecstatic at the ruling [...] People were overjoyed," said Liz Evans, PHS executive director. She believes Insite is extremely valuable. "If a drug user walks in off the street, they can find belonging, dignity, and access to services that are designed with them in mind," she said. The site addresses overdose rates as well as the rates of spread of infectious disease through dirty syringes and unclean equipment. The group had filed action when the temporary legal exemption that had allowed Insite to operate was set to expire in 2008. The B.C. Court of Appeal's 2-1 decision "represented the courts actually supporting the information and the research and the reality of what's actually happening every day on that site," Evans said, "as opposed to validating what ultimately is this ideological rhetoric which is coming out of the central government." Federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq's office would not comment on the government's plans following the announcement. "While the government respects the court's decision, it is disappointed with the outcome," said Christelle Legault, a Health Canada spokesperson. "The government is reviewing the decision carefully." Insite was created in 2003 after Health Canada, under the Liberal government thanks to a minister's exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, had received two exemptions from the following Conservative government by 2008. At the time, the government had said that the extensions were meant to provide more research. "Then, rather than using the [health-related] goals that Insite was established to actually achieve, they switched the focus of what they wanted [to] criminalize. Are we actually getting people off drugs and are we getting rid of crime?" Evans said. According to Evans, the scientific research into the matter backs up the need for injection sites like Insite. "The types of things that they've demonstrated is that Insite has a significant role to play in a comprehensive way of addressing addiction," she said. The Canadian Medical Association Journal published an article in 2004 that claims that Insite lowers public drug use and discarding of drug paraphernalia. A 2006 paper from the New England Journal of Medicine states that an average use of Insite of once a week or any contact with the on-site addictions counsellor independently increased that person's chance to get into rehab. Health Canada compiled a report in 2008 for then-health-minister Tony Clement that upheld some of these points, noting that Insite had intervened in 336 overdose events, with no deaths. "If they were to occur in an alley or somewhere isolated, that person ultimately ends up dying," Evans noted. The report identified some limitations of the research, including the issue of self-reporting and the difficulty of measuring injections in Vancouver's downtown east side outside of Insite. Evans wants to drive home the message that Insite saves lives. "Shelly Tomic and Dean Wilson [...] testified in the court document that Insite had saved their lives," she said. "There's many people that go every day [into the upstairs detox] who tell everyone who's willing to hear [that] they wouldn't be in detox without Insite." - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom