Forrest/Trees: InSite

The safe-injection site in Vancouver for drug addicts, InSite, has come under fire yet again from the UN. As much as that sucks, what is great to see is the City of Vancouver stepping up to the plate to keep the site in place!

InSite is the location where nurses on hand give out safe crack kits to addicts and watch them as they inject themselves to help limit the spread of blood borne diseases, and from all reports it has helped since opening its doors as well! (links provided below). The only site of its kind in North America, it is a new model to work from that is making progress in fighting the drug war - in a non-traditional manner sure, but what great things has the traditional war on drugs done for us lately?

The Narcotics Control Board from the UN is making the claim that the distribution of these kits goes against a treaty that Canada signed into, and you know what they're right Canada is violating that treaty with this setup! Problem with that though is Canada was given an exemption thanks to a ruling under Canadian law that has allowed for a 5 year grace period where this site could still operate. However that time period is coming up this year, so here comes the UN stepping up its criticism once more, and now it's up to the present Conservative government to extend the rule allowing for the exemption or force the closure of the site....yes, I know, considering not holding my breath either!

From Vancouver's side, quotes like this make me glad to see the people running the show in that City - at least in regards to this matter (quote taken from The National Post):

Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan also dismissed the board's report by insisting it simply didn't understand Insite's success.

"The way we've approached drug addiction world-wide has been a failure," Sullivan told reporters. "We need new approaches. We need to be open to innovations."

This really does seem to be an instance where new thinking is shoved to the side for the old school train of thought, "you can't allow drugs in a fight against drugs, it's a fight AGAINST drugs!!". Sure I can see where the UN is coming from the drugs are still there and are being allowed to be injested even! But the City of Vancouver has established that this is a problem, not an easy one to tackle either, and with initiatives like this they're starting to make a good effort to bring this back from the edge of pandemic and make it more reasonable and manageable, put a halt to some of the negative side effects and actually help out people in need!

Might is not always right and the UN, and the US as well for that matter, should take a lesson from InSite and from Vancouver rather than try and shut down the operation. Anyways here's hoping for a positive response from Harper and his croonies when the extension is required...

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=364049
http://www.vch.ca/sis/research.htm
http://www.communityinsite.ca/community.html