ANDREW BATES
The Phoenix (UBC Okanagan)

KELOWNA (CUP) ”“ Dean Wilson is a 38-year heroin addict afflicted with hepatitis C. Shelly Tomic is disabled by depression and arthritis in addition to her addiction to heroin. They are both users of the Insite safe-injection site in Vancouver, and they have won the battle to keep Insite open.

A new decision by the B.C. Court of Appeal has found that the laws that make such sites illegal infringe on these persons’ charter rights to life, liberty and security.

Wilson and Tomic, alongside the Portland Hotel Society, which operates the site under contract with the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, filed a statement of claim against the federal government in 2007. They claimed closing Insite would violate the users’ rights to “security of the person.”

“We were incredibly ecstatic at the ruling…. People were overjoyed,” said Liz Evans, PHS executive director.

She believes Insite is extremely valuable because “if a drug user walks in off the street, they can find belonging, dignity, and access to services that are designed with them in mind.”

The site addresses the rate of deaths by overdoses as well as the rates of spread of infectious disease through dirty syringes and unclean equipment.

By offering clean syringes and equipment, users are less likely to share and thus less likely to spread diseases such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis.

The group had filed action when the temporary legal exemption that had allowed Insite to operate was set to expire in 2008.

The B.C. Court of Appeal’s 2-1 decision “represented the courts actually supporting the information and the research and the reality of what’s actually happening every day on that site,” Evans said, “as opposed to validating what ultimately is this ideological rhetoric which is coming out of the central government.”

Federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq’s office would not talk about the government’s plans following the announcement.

“While the government respects the court’s decision, it is disappointed with the outcome,” said Health Canada spokesperson Christelle Legault. “The government is reviewing the decision carefully.”

Insite was created in 2003 under the Liberal government thanks to an exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, and had received two exemptions from the following Conservative government until 2008.

At the time, the government had said that the extensions were meant to provide more research. “Then, rather than using the (health-related) goals that Insite was established to actually achieve,” Evans said, “they switched the focus of what they wanted… (to) criminal. Are we actually getting people off drugs and are we getting rid of crime?”

When asked about safe-injection sites, Legault said their approach “focuses on prevention and treatment leading to full recovery.”

Legault was careful not to say whether or not Health Canada disagrees with Insite’s approach, noting that innovative approaches to treatment and rehabilitation were a part of the government’s agenda.

According to Evans, scientific research into the matter backs up the need for injection sites like Insite.

“They’ve demonstrated that Insite has a significant role to play in a comprehensive way of addressing addiction.”

The Canadian Medical Association Journal published an article in 2004 that says Insite lowers public drug use and the discarding of drug paraphernalia. A 2006 paper from the New England Journal of Medicine states an average use of Insite of once a week or any contact with the on-site addictions counsellor independently increased that person’s chance of going to rehab.
Health Canada compiled a report in 2008 for then-Health Minister Tony Clement that upheld some of these points, noting that Insite had intervened in 336 overdose events, with no deaths.

That number has risen significantly since 2008.

According to a spokesperson for Insite, about 700 people have overdosed at the site to date, with the number rising by “a couple overdoses a week.”

“If they were to occur in an alley or somewhere isolated, that person ultimately ends up dying,” said Evans.

The 2008 report identified some limitations of the research, including the issue of self-reporting and the difficulty of measuring injections in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside outside of Insite.

Evans, however, wants to drive home the message that Insite saves lives.

“Shelly Tomic and Dean Wilson… testified in the court document that Insite had saved their lives,” she said. “There are many people that go every day (into the upstairs detox) who tell everyone who’s willing to hear… that Insite has saved their lives, and they wouldn’t be in detox without Insite.”