25 May PROTEST AGAINST THE CLOSURE OF INJECTION CENTER
Community activists in Vancouver’s downtown have threatened “civil disobedience” to protest the impending closure of a controversial supervised injection site for drug users.
First opened in 2003, Insite is North America’s first legal supervised injection site based on a harm reduction model for minimizing the health risks associated with unsafe drug use.
Funded by British Columbia’s Ministry of Health Services and Health Canada, Insite has functioned under a special exemption to the Federal Controlled Drug and Substances Act.
Although the exemption has been renewed several times since 2006, the Federal government has threatened to close the centre and a constitutional challenge is currently underway.
Harm reduction refers to public policies designed to decriminalize recreational drug use and provide substance abusers with safe avenues for minimizing diseases such as hepatitis and HIV.
Harm avoidance strategies, including the use of needle exchange programs and safe injection sites, represent a controversial alternative to more conventional approaches such as criminal convictions for drug possession and forced abstinence.
Safe injection site programs have been used successfully in a number of European countries since 1986.