Fighting to Keep Safe Injection Site Alive

You surely know about North America's only supervised safe drug-injection site in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. When InSite first opened, it was launched as a pilot project and it was designed to see if such a site could prove effective in the harm reduction model of drug management. And now it could be closing.

It won't go down without a fight, however, and at least two groups are fighting to keep InSite open and operational. InSite is run, in part, by the Portland Hotel Society and that society has teamed up with the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users to prevent the B.C. Supreme Court from closing InSite at the end of June. It is at that time that the federal government's drug-law exemption expires.

Both groups said that the B.C. government should have jurisdiction over the program and not the federal government. They argue that "heroin and cocaine addicts should not be subject to Canada's anti-drug laws while they're under treatment." Research shows that InSite is effective in saving lives and preventing drug overdoses. The judge ruling over the hearing believes otherwise.

Source: Montreal Gazette

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