An appeal to humanity: legal victory in favour of North America's only supervised injection facility: Insite

Abstract

Canada's federal government has once again failed to shut North America's only authorized supervised injection facility: Insite. A majority ruling issued by the BC Court of Appeal on 15 January 2010 upheld an earlier British Columbia Supreme Court ruling in 2008 that protected the rights of injection drug users (IDUs) to access Insite as a health facility as per the Charter of Rights and Freedoms component of the Constitution of Canada. The majority decision from Honourable Madam Justices Rowles, Huddart and Smith also established a jurisdictional victory safeguarding Insite as most appropriately run under the authority of the province of British Columbia rather than the federal Government of Canada. The Federal Government has appealed the case to the Supreme Court of Canada. A hearing date has been set for 12 May 2011. The appeal will be a legal one but even more so, it will be an appeal to humanity.

Figure 1

Photograph of church marquee advertising an upcoming sermon in Vancouver's downtown eastside. Photograph by D. Small