SCC ruling: Insite to stay open

[WWWTT]

Not these ones.

This is an ugly thing to write!

What makes you so good as to say who deserves help or not?

What gives you the right to write such a thing?

WWWTT

[Scotty]

WTF? This decision has nothing to do with the "rights" of drug addicts. It simply held that provincial jurisdiction over health trumps federal jurisdiction over crime.

You're wrong. The decision was not about provincial rights. In fact, in the area where provincial rights to ignore federal laws was concerned the court found against the province.

Supported by the B.C. attorney-general, the coalition was successful in persuading the B.C. Supreme Court and the British Columbia Court of Appeal to find Insite immune from the criminal prosecution under the doctrine of “inter-jurisdictional immunity.” But the Supreme Court overruled the lower courts on the finding of immunity, saying Ottawa has a clear right to administer the criminal law where it sees fit, provided it does not violate an individual’s Charter rights.

Instead, in a rather odd finding:

In its ruling, the Supreme Court found the decision in 2008 not to renew the site's exemption from drug laws violated the rights of Insite users under Section 7 of the charter, which protects the "life, liberty and security" of Canadians.

In effect, it found the addicts had a right to use illegal drugs without fear of being arrested, which is frankly weird.

[CitizenX]

If they don't want it then let them die.

There is something wrong with you.

[Scotty]

This is an ugly thing to write!

What makes you so good as to say who deserves help or not?

I'm all for helping them. I'd arrest every one of them and confine them to an institution until their addiction can be cured. That's help. It's more expensive and more complicated and more difficult, but I'd be willing to pay the money.

What gives you the right to write such a thing?

I need a 'right' to write things which you don't like? How are you gonna stop me?

[olp1fan]

There is something wrong with you.

Some people take Darwinism too literally

[Scotty]

There is something wrong with you.

I am capable of good judgement?

[CitizenX]

That wording leaves the impression that provincial governments approve of safe injection sites. I doubt that's the case.

The BC Ministry of Health Services provides operational funding for Insite through Vancouver Coastal Health, which operates the facility in conjunction with PHS Community Services Society.

[Oleg Bach]

There was a female crack addict on the street during the summer - she was so sickly that she in broad day light - in front of a bank - pulled down her pants and spewed out a high pressure stream of liquid shit onto the side walk - pulled up her pants and limped away -----------------I wonder if this poor creature did this on the lawn of the chief Justice of Canada - If the good Justice would still feel the same about giving the wasted woman a clean crack pipe?

[cybercoma]

drug use is illegal

I didn't read the rest of this post because if it's based on this premise, you can stop right here. Drug use is not illegal in Canada or the United States.

[bush_cheney2004]

...What gives you the right to write such a thing?

Errr...that would be the Constitution Act and Charter of Rights. Next question please.....

[cybercoma]

It's issues like this that make it hard for me to identify myself as a CPC supporter. So many other supporters will do anything from attacking the SCoCs legitimacy to ignoring medical evidence. There never even should have been a question about this. It's works, and it's that simple.

This is what's baffling to me. If our goal is to ensure the safety of the public, save lives and get people off drugs, then Insite has been proven to be extremely effective. Any arguments condemning Insite, given the preponderance of evidence, are in effect misguided attempts at accomplishing the same goal, while ignoring the absolute fact that it has the opposite outcome. Why would people who claim to have the same goals not want to support a system that works? I will never know.

[capricorn]

Doctor calls for free heroin for addicts

A renowned AIDS doctor wants Vancouver's supervised drug-injection facility to become home to North America’s first free heroin distribution centre.

In a news conference celebrating the Supreme Court decision Friday to keep the drug-injection facility Insite open, renowned AIDS doctor Julio Montaner called for expansion of its services to include the distribution of heroin.

“If you know what people are injecting, it will be much safer,” said Montaner. “I see this as the very next question we have to wrestle with. It is question about when and how we are able to embrace it for implementation.”

“(The RCMP) actually indicated to me that they would be a lot more comfortable if we would had have fully medically supervised dispensing and supervision of the drugs.”

http://www.torontosun.com/2011/09/30/doctor-calls-for-free-heroin-for-addicts

As much free heroin to addicts for as long as it takes to keep them alive until they're ready to kick the addiction. This is getting off the ground much sooner than I expected.

And the RCMP agrees that Insite should also dispense the drugs? I want to see the RCMP's official response to this man's assertions.

[TimG]

As much free heroin to addicts for as long as it takes to keep them alive until they're ready to kick the addiction. This is getting off the ground much sooner than I expected.

All the government will do is prolong their addiction by enabling it. After all, want incentive is there to clean up when the government supplies your drugs at no cost to you?

[Oleg Bach]

In the scornful memory of Jack Layton and the MDP that altered the Mental Health ACT giving sick people the right to kill themselves - I spit on that socialist legacy -----------I see human being close to death - who are enabled and assisted in their slow suicide -it is a horror - What was wrong with containing and treating those that were on deaths door -? These ideas born in modernity and some sort of social progress - are simply a nice an not noticable way of killing off the addicts...look at the prescription rate of oxycodone - dispensed to the poor................ One pharmasist commented on the doze of a now dead man that I knew of..."what doctor is giving three times the tolerable amount to this guy?" The guy was found dead....no one even attempted to curb this addict who could barely speak - oddly enough this dead person was about to settle a multi-million dollar law suit - He as a kid was sexually abused at the old Maple Leaf Gardens facility.

[blueblood]

The stats show insite does save lives. In that regard its been successful, which makes sense as if someone ODs, they can get treatment asap. However, I couldn't find stats of anyone being cured of their addiction by going there or getting clean. There are stats of people using the detox program, but I couldn't see if that part of it actually worked.

Capricorn makes the point about of smoking and why its gone down because of public attitudes. With insite I don't see the use rates changing in either direction. With the large support of insite I can't see attitudes changing and with that I can't see rates going down. However, people's lives are being saved. Imo they're treating the symptoms and not the disease.

[ToadBrother]

All the government will do is prolong their addiction by enabling it. After all, want incentive is there to clean up when the government supplies your drugs at no cost to you?

The addiction is going to be there regardless. At least with a clean sight you reduce public health risks. Beyond that, everyone involved directly in this clinic, including the VPD, the Province of British Columbia and the City of Vancouver all say, with some evidence, that it is working.

So do you want to talk about what's happening, or continue this ideological fist thumping.

Perhaps you and your fellow "law and order" types should take a hint from Isaac Asimov, who famously said "Never let your sense of morality stop you from doing what's right."

[Guest Derek L]

http://www.torontosun.com/2011/09/30/doctor-calls-for-free-heroin-for-addicts

As much free heroin to addicts for as long as it takes to keep them alive until they're ready to kick the addiction. This is getting off the ground much sooner than I expected.

And the RCMP agrees that Insite should also dispense the drugs? I want to see the RCMP's official response to this man's assertions.

I say why not……….If it puts the drug dealers/organized crime out of business selling the crap, and the junkies no longer need to steel and/or resort to prostitution……….really, why not?

I’d just move the location of the site………maybe out to Annacis Island near the sewage treatment plant…….get all the rock monsters out of the downtown core……..it’s shocking for visitors to the city……literally two blocks from touristy gastown is Main & Hastings where all the junkies mingle………Driving through that part of town is like going through the set to Thriller………Get them out of the downtown core, and maybe turn this new site I propose into a duel use facility……..A Return It Depot

[TimG]

So do you want to talk about what's happening, or continue this ideological fist thumping.

It is not ideological fist thumping. It is first hand experience with many addicts and seeing who recovers and who does not. If you want to condemn an addict to his/her addiction then supply them with free drugs and no pressure. You want to see an addict recover you got make them accountable for their choices (and yes - once you get over the physical withdrawal picking up a drink/drug is a choice). Edited October 1, 2011 by TimG

[capricorn]

Perhaps you and your fellow "law and order" types should take a hint from Isaac Asimov, who famously said "Never let your sense of morality stop you from doing what's right."

That's fine from a personal perspective Toad. But do you think the Supreme Court should be ruling on matters of public interest on the basis of morality? Shouldn't the SCoC not limit its decisions on points of law? In this ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the federal government's right to legislate on the law and order aspects of illegal drugs. Essentially, in spite of the Court's ruling the Minister of Justice, if it so chooses, could still oppose Insite and shut it down. What the Court did is take it one step further into the territory of morality, in the sense that Insite is a good thing for addicts and relied on the Charter to argue that point. I happen to think morality issues should be decided by citizens and advanced through their elected representatives, then on to the House of Commons. But that's just me.

[TimG]

However, I couldn't find stats of anyone being cured of their addiction by going there or getting clean. There are stats of people using the detox program, but I couldn't see if that part of it actually worked.

All recovery programs have miserable stats if you simply look at the percentage of that people stay clean after going through them. The best you can hope for is getting them through the physical withdrawl and teach them some skills that might help.

[Smallc]

What they said was that the decision was arbitrary. Given that previous governments allowed the site, they aren't wrong.

[Oleg Bach]

It is availablity that is the culprit - get rid of the drugs...and the recovery rate will go up - 30 years ago I hung out with the son of Lady Iris Mountbaten - she was a nice woman - the son was quite stupid...She passed away leaving the young man a bit of cash...First thing he did was rent a large house and start buying 5000 dollar bags of high grade cocaine that he and his buddies would process and free base.

I spent a couple of days with these losers....I came back two months later and the pipes had burst - they were buringing fine furniture in the fire place to keep warm - a while later - he the son of royality was broke....point of the story - even hard drugs are not addictive....one could use for a day and walk away unphased...BUT if one can step out the door and find more dope immediately a pattern forms - it is the availablity that is the problem. Narcotics are not addicting - habitualism is the addiction...

In all honesty - I partook with great vigor - and I walked out the door and went home - There were no hard drugs available were I was - so I did not develope a pattern of use....what I mean to say - IS - the easier booze or drugs are to get - and humans being lazy by nature - the more dangerous things become - The government should NOT make things easier for lazy people..for they will just become more lazy and more prone to take the easy way out ------------------------as my corner store guy says of hard drug use --- It is the easy way out - why facilitate? It is like giving a baby all the apple juice he wants at night - eventually the new formed teeth will rot.

[Battletoads]

Who is supplying drug user's Drugs? What the hell are you talking about? Do you ever try to understand the issues before you comment?

And yes it's the right thing to do to help save the life of the unfortunate and addicted. Apparently you would like to just round them up and put them out of their misery?

No, he would rather them OD and die in the streets, like most of his con buddies.

[Moonlight Graham]

Japan has a lower rate and their economy has been stagnent for 20 years. Crime is driven primarily by culture - not economics.

You have proof of this claim via a research study, or is this your hypothesis?

Japan has the lowest income inequality in the world.

[ToadBrother]

That's fine from a personal perspective Toad. But do you think the Supreme Court should be ruling on matters of public interest on the basis of morality? Shouldn't the SCoC not limit its decisions on points of law? In this ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the federal government's right to legislate on the law and order aspects of illegal drugs. Essentially, in spite of the Court's ruling the Minister of Justice, if it so chooses, could still oppose Insite and shut it down. What the Court did is take it one step further into the territory of morality, in the sense that Insite is a good thing for addicts and relied on the Charter to argue that point. I happen to think morality issues should be decided by citizens and advanced through their elected representatives, then on to the House of Commons. But that's just me.

As others have pointed out, it was the Feds who arbitrarily decided to change the rules. The Supreme Court shot them on those grounds, but also as part of the decision pointed out that all the other interested parties; including two lower levels of government and a police force, wanted the clinic to remain. Wouldn't you agree that of all the parties the Federal Government had the least to win or lose, other than some sort of vague ideological notion that what's needed is throwing these addicts in jail.

But surely the wider lesson here is that the Tories' anti-drug policies are simply reiterations of policies that have failed over and over and over again. Unless you just plan on throwing absolutely everybody found with any prohibited substances into prison for long periods of time, which will be quite an interesting stunt considering there isn't enough prison space for all the other people the Tories want to throw into prison, let alone some poor stupid bastard with a heroin addiction, perhaps there should be some consideration of a program that has had some positive results, and has not, as you would seem to think from all the angst its cause the law and order types, increased crime or addiction.

I'm awfully sorry the Tories law and order stance has been harmed, but ultimately what should be of prime concern is not whether or not someone's ideological itch gets scratched, but that there is a net improvement in society, and by any reasonable metric, this clinic has done that.