InSite is the only supervised drug injection site in North America, and it’s located in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
“Insite is supported by a broad range of organizations and individuals including the City of Vancouver, the Province of British Columbia, Vancouver Coastal Health, Premier Gordon Campbell, Minister David Emerson, Senator Larry Campbell, Vancouver Police Chief Jamie Graham, Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan, former Vancouver Mayor Phillip Owen, injection drug users, community groups, local businesses, academic institutions and others.”
In order to legally continue its work after the end of the month, Insite needs an extension of its exemption from the federal Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. The BC Supreme Court recently ruled that Insite should get this extension because it provides a vital health care service which is protected under the Charter.
But the Harper government does not like Insite and plans to appeal the Court’s ruling.
Never mind that the research clearly supports the program. Never mind that it has led to a reduction in crime and a 45% reduction in open drug use in the area. Never mind that there is a 33% increase in the use of addiction treatment as a result of contact with InSite. Or that it saves lives. Or that it even saves money while saving lives.
No. The Harper government, in its profoundly simple view, wants to base Canada’s drug policy on its own simplistic ideology: drugs are bad, therefore drug programs are bad. Screw the evidence. Screw the wisdom and experience and knowledge of all the front-line workers, health care professionals and researchers who know infinitely more about addictions than Conservative politicians would ever want to know. The only thing that matters is that this government has the power and the will to inflict its own ideology on everybody else.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a rally attended by so few members of the general public and so many Members of Parliament. Among others, Libby Davies, Hedy Fry, and Ken Dryden spoke in favour of allowing InSite to keep saving lives.
The InSite campaign is a powerful one.
They enlisted the help of those of us in attendance to help unload a U-Haul they’d driven to Ottawa from Vancouver. It was full of wooden crosses. While listening to various renditions of Amazing Grace over the loudspeakers, we set up the crosses right in front of the Peace Tower – rows and rows and rows of hundreds and hundreds of crosses.
I thought maybe the crosses represented the number of addicts who died each year. But it turned out that each cross represented a person who did not die of an overdose because their overdose took place at the InSite facility. There have been over 800 overdoses at InSite, but because it’s staffed by health care professionals, not one person died.
The photographs were the most moving part of the event for me. All of the photographs were provided by users of InSite’s services: photographs of themselves as children, before they became addicted to drugs. The slogan is “Before they were ‘junkies’ they were kids.”
We can lose our children so quickly and easily to drugs. It’s disturbing how dehumanizing we can collectively be towards addicts. I think that the Harper government’s efforts to shut down InSite, and the City of Ottawa’s attempts to shut down the crack kit program, are both examples of this dehumanization. Harm reduction programs don’t seem unreasonable when you think of addicts as human beings. I imagine if you’re the parent of an addict, harm reduction programs represent the hope that your child will survive until she can quit.
The bottom line is that InSite saves lives and provides addicts with access to health care professionals. I don’t think anybody can look at the evidence and dispute that fact. More likely, I think, is that Conservative politicians dispute that addicts’ lives are, in fact, worth saving.
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Great post zoom. You hit the nail on the head again.
A powerful and insightful post. Thanks.
The photos of the kids made me cry. A strong thoughtful post, Zoom. Maybe send this one to some newspapers?
Ideologues make me tired. Specially ones that think being Right makes them right about everything. Terrific post, Zoom.
Dear lord, he’s a Bush clone. I shudder to think what Canada could become if subjected to such influence unchecked by common sense… perhaps another USA of 2008? Frightening.
Excellent post, Zoom and how great that you were able to particiapte in this event and give immediacy to not just the Insite issue, but the whole issue of attitudes toward drugs and the people addicted to them.
Makes me want to cry too. It’s just terrible.
Oh wow Zoom. This post is like a punch to the gut. You’re so right about the dehumanizing of addicts.
The photos made me cry here at my desk at work. What a great idea Insite is. We don’t have anything like that here in New Jersey. I work in mental health and often have the great blessing of working with student interns. One of the first things I try to impress on them is “every one of the individuals who comes in here is a person and not a diagnosis” similar to the “before they were junkies” slogan. Thank you so much for this.
I’m crying too, especially thinking of the kids I used to care for who may (or may not, hopefully) be headed in that direction. Our government appauls me.
J.
With luck, the government will eventually be forced to acknowledge that harm reduction is the sensible approach to drug policy. It is strange and worrisome that they seem inclined to copy the American enforcement model, given that the US has probably done the worst job at formulating drug policy of any developed state.
Although I tend to be on your side over this, I’ve also heard that there is research to support the other side. It’s difficult when both can produce their necessary stats.
I, too, cried when I saw the pictures. I just don’t understand why this government so badly wants to cancel these programs which have proven beneficial.
wow, fabulous rally. I remembered it too late that evening. Hopefully some politicians were swayed the right way to keep the program.
Wow Zoom, I think this is your best post ever. I wish I’d been there.
Thanks for all the positive feedback; I’m sorry I made you all cry.
Gillian, if you have links to that research, by all means post them. Apparently even the government’s own research doesn’t support the government’s position on this issue ( the Health Canada Expert Advisory Committee’s findings, April 2008).
By the way, if any of you want to support Insite, they make it easy on their site to send a message to the Prime Minister.
Thanks.
Thank you Zoom… you know my feelings on this issue… Great post!
Something that might interest your supportive readers:
http://www.educatingharper.com/
Thanks for the link Woodsy – it looks interesting – I’ve added it to my sidebar, and plan to try to keep up with the weekly readings.
[…] I’m adapting a print magazine for the web. Among other things, I get to read articles about Insite and health care wait times, which is the next best thing to writing articles about Insite and […]
[…] Stephen Harper’s Conservatives really hate Insite. […]
[…] [Update: 10 February 2010] There is a good post about InSite and the Conservative government over on Knitnut: Ideology trumps evidence: Conservative drug policy. […]