Dear Editor:
Thanks for your excellent Oct. 2 editorial, Strong Constitution, enthusiastically supporting the Supreme Court decision with respect to the safe injection site we know as Insite.
For the last decade I have been a volunteer in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. A sign at the front of the building out of which I volunteer reads Keep Insite Open. That means keep people in the neighborhood from dying; keep disease and illness from spreading; keep addicts from losing their human dignity by being forced to shoot up on the streets and in the alleyways. The many reasons for keeping Insite open were clearly evident to all in the neighbourhood and to virtually all health professionals.
Therefore it was, as you have stated, "morally outrageous" to see the government of Canada expending precious resources to close down this life-saving community health resource. And while it is to their credit that an overwhelming number of local politicians gave their support to the continuing existence of a safe injection site in the Downtown Eastside, the same cannot be said of the two local members of Parliament, Andrew Saxton and John Weston, whose government fought an irrational fight to close it down, allowing ideology to trump the evidence which was so clearly expressed in the Supreme Court decision: namely, drug addiction is a health issue and, as a health centre, Insite saves lives.
I have yet to hear from our local members of Parliament their reasons for being complicit in the incomprehensible and potentially death-dealing campaign conducted by their government. A public response by our two Conservative members of Parliament to the Supreme Court decision would be appreciated and perhaps indicative of where they stand as, indeed, the battle for a progressive response to the issue of drug addiction is not over.
Don Robertson, North Vancouver
