Keep Insite Open

I'm still hearing about this big fancy new war on drugs policy proposed by the Conservatives. The worst part of it (and there are a lot of very bad parts) is the bit about shutting down Insite and destroying the prospect of any similar plan in another city.

Today it appears that Insite will have a reprieve until next June. In reality though, the evidence suggests that they ought to keep it open indefinitely. I cannot understand the idiots who are always ready with a sound-bite about how this constitutes government endorsement of hard drug use. This is so stupid, as if people will suddenly take up heroin use because of safe injection sites. Safe injection sites don't glamourize heroin, Lou Reed does:

Killing Junkies

Yes, that's a harsh title for this post. But according Keith Martin, that's what Tony Clement will be doing if he kills off safe-injection sites as part of a new rehashing the "war on drugs" philosophy. With regard to the closure of the safe injection sites, Martin says:

“But in doing that they will be essentially committing murder.”

Of course the point of this is not about harm reduction. Rather it's about posturing, being "tough on crime" and of course appeasing those in the US law enforcement that blame their troubles on Canada. Underlying this policy there may or may not be a notion that junkies are "asking for it" when they get diseases from shared needles.