Pubdate: Fri, 21 Feb 2014
Source: National Post (Canada)
Copyright: 2014 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/wEtbT4yU
Website: http://www.nationalpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
Author: Chris Selley

THE CONSERVATIVES' EMPATHY GAP

In September, after renowned Toronto microbiologist Dr. Donald Low 
issued an affecting video, in his dying days, calling for legislative 
support for doctor assisted suicide, I suggested a critical mass of 
such testimonials might change a lot of opinions. Social and moral 
qualms about euthanasia are entirely understandable. But it takes a 
steely heart to project big picture arguments on to a lucid, 
terminally ill petitioner for relief. Individuals suffer 
individually, and receive our compassion individually.

Six months later, Quebec is poised to legalize what it calls "medical 
aid in dying." Most observers think it will happen before a 
provincial election does. And needless to say, the Conservative 
government in Ottawa is not on board. It appealed the 2012 decision 
by the B.C. Supreme Court striking down Canada's euthanasia laws. The 
Supreme Court in Ottawa is set to consider it some time this year.

In the meantime, Justice Minister Peter MacKay said in a statement 
last month, "it is our government's position that the Criminal Code 
provisions prohibiting assisted suicide and euthanasia are in place 
to protect all persons, including those who are most vulnerable in 
our society ... The Supreme Court of Canada acknowledged the state 
interest in protecting human life and upheld the constitutionality of 
the existing legislation 20 years ago in the [Sue] Rodriguez decision."

Unusually for this government on a Criminal Code issue, however, its 
message is free of moral judgment. Mr. MacKay's statement 
acknowledged it is an "emotional" issue. And in an interview with CBC 
last month, he was downright introspective. "It all depends on your 
perspective and experience," he said.

"I know [quadriplegic MP Steven Fletcher] for example, who survived a 
horrendous accident, his insights and personal perspective on this 
have caused me a lot of reflection to be quite honest."

Last year, shortly after Dr. Low's video was released, Health 
Minister Rona Ambrose even went so far as to suggest a dialogue on 
the matter with her provincial counterparts. "I think it's an 
important conversation to have," she said.

Compare this relatively open-minded approach to Conservative 
messaging on another "emotional" issue related to health care, the 
Criminal Code and provincial jurisdiction: harm reduction.

Earlier this month, when Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney learned 
clean crack pipes can be had for a quarter on the Downtown Eastside, 
he surged into full dumb-dumb drug war mode: "While the NDP and 
Liberals would prefer that doctors hand out heroin and needles to 
those suffering from addiction ..." well, no point continuing, you 
get the picture.

Having lost its fight against Vancouver's Insite safe-injection 
facility in the courts, the government has tabled legislation aimed 
at future similar facilities.

After Ms. Ambrose's department approved a clinical trial to prescribe 
pharmaceutical-grade heroin to 15 patients, she blew a gasket and 
slammed the door.

"This decision is in direct opposition to the government's anti-drug 
policy," she thundered." Our Government takes seriously the harm 
caused by dangerous and addictive drugs. These drugs tear families 
apart, promote criminal behaviour, and destroy lives," she said. (One 
suspects that's not actually what the government scientists hoped the 
heroin would do.)

"'Harm reduction' sites and similar initiatives are inherently 
harmful to human health," a spokesperson for Mr. MacKay's 
predecessor, Rob Nicholson, told the Post in 2009. "These programs 
not only cause physical harm, they also deepen and prolong the addictions."

Ms. Ambrose's predecessor, Tony Clement, who is not a doctor, once 
complained that "supervised injection is not medicine" because "it 
does not heal the person addicted to drugs."

"Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan called the SIS 'palliative care,'" Mr. 
Clement wrote in a 2008 op-ed in the National Post. "Palliative care 
is what you give someone when every other solution has failed, and we 
are just waiting for death. But injection drug users are not dying."

But they are, of course: Between 2002 and 2010, 1,654 people died 
from illicit drug overdoses in British Columbia alone, according to 
B.C.'s Centre for Addictions Research. Meanwhile, between 2004 and 
2010, of 778 overdoses that occurred at InSite, there were precisely 
zero fatalities. That, right there, is the simple case for harm reduction.

It's admirable that Mr. MacKay feels so strongly about the "state 
interest in protecting human life" when it comes to assisted suicide. 
The compromise in principle he seems willing to at least entertain, 
thanks to people like Mr. Fletcher, would allow people to die on 
their own terms. Surely the compromise in principle harm reduction 
entails ought to be easier: It's precisely to allow people to live. 
Even if it's only for another day, it's another chance to get clean.

Those 1,654 British Columbians had parents, siblings, friends. They 
must all wish their loved one's final hit came at InSite. And in 
precisely the way Dr. Low's message seemed to strike a chord, so, one 
hopes, might theirs.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom