Vancouver's supervised drug injection center

Paul Hiebert on a state-sanctioned injection center that reduces the harm caused by drug addiction. [The Awl]

Located in Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside—often called Canada's poorest postal code—the supervised injection site opened as a 3-year experiment back in 2003 to curb the neighborhood's high levels of disease spread through shared needles and death from overdose. Now, after nearly a decade of academic research, political debate, public scrutiny and a Canadian Supreme Court ruling last September that stated InSite should remain open indefinitely, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and other cities across the nation are contemplating opening their own injection facilities.

• [Funk Daddy]

  What? They don’t give First Nations reserves postal codes anymore? That’s wrong.

  • [SedanChair]

    That’s what I was gonna say; if you can afford to shoot heroin instead of huffing gas you might not be in the poorest postal code in Canada…

    • [Christopher Higgins]

      It is called the poorest postal code in Canada but that is not correct.  It is a reserve in Atlantic Canada that gets last place for lowest average net worth.  

• [Wild Rumpus]

  And even though the safe injection site saves lives, helps people get off drugs, and reduces crime, Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants to shut it down because. Well… Drugs….

  • [EH]

    His version of Jesus told him it was bad.

• [Romeo Vitelli]

  And Stephen Harper finds the Supreme Court decision to keep the site open as “disappointing” despite its proven lifesaving value.

  http://drvitelli.typepad.com/providentia/2011/10/canadian-supreme-court-decision-welcomed-by-safe-injection-site-advocates.html

  • [Sagodjur]

     What good are drugs if not to kill off the undesirables in society who not only won’t support you but also can’t contribute money to your bank account?

• [GeekMan]

  Just wanted to pop in as a Vancouverite proud to see this on BB. The vast majority of us are glad that InSite is still around, and hope that it will continue to be seen as a model for harm-reduction in Canada. 

  • [hughstimson]

    Also live a few blocks from the DTES, also a big fan of Insite.

    I gather some of the folks who are moving into the expensive condos that are infilling the nebulous border between Gastown and DTES are a little less taken with it.

    But, well, fuck them obviously.

  • [Kimmo]

    Ah, I do love the smell of harm reduction in the morning.

    Suck it, conservative fearmongers!

• [Aaron Gilliland]

  I’m always saddened when discussion of InSite and its potential offspring devolves into “what a waste of money, we should be putting people into rehab instead.”  Yes, rehab would be best, but it costs orders of magnitude more money and requires an amount of patient buy-in.

  I can understand the NIMBYism that opposes quasi-sanctioned drug use, but if you accept that people are going to do it whether you give them a clean place to do it or not, this project is really something that people should support.

  I believe the Ottawa Police Chief (now, strangely, a Senator) was vocal in his opposition to this project.  I’m sure it would be politically dangerous for a Police Chief to support a drug injection site, but reducing the spread of communicable disease and getting real data on drug usage in the city should be important to someone responsible for public safety.

  Just had to get that out.

  • [Dan Allard]

     Reminds me of this (yet again): http://www.marco.org/2012/02/25/right-vs-pragmatic

• [Baldhead]

  Not sure “State sanctioned” is the best phrase, since the Supreme Court decision that kept it open was one where the federal government lost. Of course they lost because their arguments- that InSite promotes drug use, and will cause higher addiction rates, and crime rates- was proven definitively false. Not that Stephen Harper and his crowd care what the facts are anyway. I think they said something about it being “against policy” or some nonsense when they lost.

  • [dragonfrog]

    The federal government is not the state.  The state includes all three branches of federal government, as well as provincial, territorial, municipal, and first nations governments, the entire body of laws, the constitution and surrounding case law, etc…

    It’s certainly not unanimous state-sanctioned, since at least the lower house of the federal government is against it, but the highest level of the federal government, the one with the ultimate say, supported it.  So the state as a whole sanctions it, and those who oppose it get dragged along kicking their feet and sulking.

• [Dora May Henaire]

  Well I think it is a good thing! As a former junkie I have seen a lot of people using dirty needles myself included! It is even better that they offer you a way out or to (get of the shit) I was addicted to Crystal meth! But I have been clean for 11 yrs thanks to the power of Jesus Christ! Believe me if he can help me he can help anyone! and I pray for all the poor souls that have to use the place!

  • [bloopeeriod]

     I am quit  and the reason for that is ME. It falls to me to rise above. I am to blame for my success,  not you nor others, except inasmuch as their wisdom adds to mine.
    But, good on you. Whatever floats your boat I guess.
    As for in Site; It seems to have cleaned up the downtown east side a fair bit and as a local who takes transit or walks through the area regularly, I appreciate the difference it makes in my community.

  • [Mantissa128]

    I’m grateful to hear of your personal success, I’m a Vancouver-expat who thinks this is a great idea, and I would like to introduce you to something called the “period.”

• [PJG]

  InSite doesn’t just provide a clean place to shoot up with clean needles, they also have a nurse on site to monitor for overdoses (reducing drug-related deaths) and, most important of all, provide information about getting listed for rehab and other community resources (scant as they are thanks to government cuts). As a Vancouverite I am proud to have this program in our city. Harper can suck it.