Canada's Top Court Rules to Keep Drug Injection Site Open
Canada's top court on Friday ordered the federal health minister to allow North America's first government-sanctioned drug injection facility in Vancouver's seamy Downtown Eastside to remain open.
The InSite clinic in one of Canada's poorest neighborhoods is the only place on the continent where addicts can receive medical supervision as they inject heroin illegally bought on the street.
The facility was established in September 2003 in response to a rash of drug overdoses and is operated by a non-profit organization under a special exemption from federal drug trafficking and possession laws.
The federal health minister's decision in 2008 not to renew the exemption led to a court fight pitting enforcement of federal drug laws against medical studies claiming InSite saves lives.
The Supreme Court ruled that the province of British Columbia may not offer health services that breach federal drug laws.
However, it added the health minister's decision to deny an exemption for InSite to operate had violated the rights of heroin addicts to access health services and counseling at the facility, "threatening their health and indeed their lives."
"The effect of denying the services of InSite to the population it serves and the correlative increase in the risk of death and disease to injection drug users is grossly disproportionate to any benefit that Canada might derive from presenting a uniform stance on the possession of narcotics," the justices said.
Thus, "the minister is ordered to grant an exemption for InSite."
The decision also opens the door for more safe injection sites to be set up in cities across Canada coping with rising drug addiction.
Source: Agence France Presse
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