It is finally over! After 4 years of fighting our own Federal government for the right to save the lives of injection drug addicts INSITE has been granted the right to remain open permanently.
A unanimous decision by the Supreme Court of Canada has clearly stated that the Federal Government does not have the authority to pass laws that take away a Canadian citizens right to access health care services. Even if those health care services are contrary to the Governments anti drug strategy.
The days of our government trying to make drug use as harmful as possible for the user are over. The age old argument that making drug use as unsafe as possible is a strong deterrent to use is no longer acceptable. That argument will certainly not hold any weight in a Canadian court of law going forward.
This decision saves lives, reduces crime in the neighborhood, takes open air drug use off the street, enables treatment to be more effective, gets used needles off the sidewalks and most importantly to me it sets a strong legal precedent. It will be much more difficult for drug prohibition to remain in place after this decision. I can think of many ways that health care services could be set up for all sorts of drug use. For example we all know smoking is harmful, so why not have health services for our cannabis using population? They could access vaporizers instead of rolling up a joint which is far more healthy. Certainly we’re going to see crack users get off the street with the opening of safe inhalation centers.
This decision is a win win, and for those who have opposed it – man would I like to send you the bill for the millions the Federal Government spent trying to stop this from happening. Get out of the way of progress – the future is a world without drug prohibition!
