REALWomen is another one of these fundie groups that never tires of lecturing everyone on the Correct Way to live their lives. Granny panties in a knot, snouts thrust firmly in the nation's crotches, their fingers wag relentlessly as they scold and jabber like hamsters in heat about all manner of Bad Behaviour... it goes on and on and groaningly on. And here they are again, their latest diatribes directed at Insite, Vancouver's safe injection site. When spring sprung a few weeks ago and the end of Insite's funding was on the horizon, it could only mean one thing: yet another pearl-clutching advisory from REALWomen to "Shut InSite down!" Insite is the "harm reduction" pillar of the "Four Pillar" drug strategy that takes a new approach to coping with the drug problem by addressing different angles of the issue: Prevention, Treatment, Harm Reduction and Enforcement. But RW has its own Four Pillar solution: Punishment, Pain, Marginalization and Death. So naturally Landolt's Moral Minority Stormtroopers were perturbed that their calls to kill the dirty druggies earned them a nice bitch-slap from the Supreme Court this week with a decision that would keep Insite open for another year:
"In a surprise ruling yesterday, the court supported Vancouver's experimental supervised injection clinic and halted federal attempts to close the facility.Judge Ian Pitfield said Insite should be allowed to remain open for a year even without a federal exemption from current drug laws."
REALWomen is REAL pissed! Activist Judges and their Social Engineering... filthy junkies... immoral... bad, wrong and dirrrrrty, and uh... SEX!!! SHRIEEEEEK!
"A single judge on the Supreme Court of BC, Mr. Justice Pitfield, handed down a decision on May 27, 2008, that took the olympian approach to judgeship. He did this by concluding that he knows best how to deal with drug addiction in Canada contrary to the policies of the federal government, which has jurisdiction over the issue. The government’s drug policy is to provide for a three-pillar approach to drug addiction by way of prevention (education), treatment and enforcement of drug laws, which has proven to be the only effective method of dealing with drug addiction."To protect the lives of addicts": sounds familiar, no? Abortion: "Women deserve better". Gay marriage: "Won't someone think of the children?" Yes, REALwomen's cup just runneth over with the sour, lumpy, cheesy milk of human kindness. Oh, they do talk the talk.
Mr. Justice Pitfield, however, decided that, in his opinion, he preferred the approach of harm reduction, which is to assume that drug addiction is going to take place any way, so why not permit it in medically supervised sites? Unfortunately, drug injection sites merely continue the addiction, allowing the addict to enter a downward spiral to eventual death. Supporters of harm reduction also have an agenda which is to liberalize our drug laws." [...]
"Using the Charter of Rights as his reason, Mr. Justice Pitfield concluded that to deny addicts the use of the site contravenes section 7 of the Charter which provides for “the right to life, liberty and security of persons.”
The ramifications of his decision are far reaching. If allowed to stand, it will permit the establishment of drug injection sites all across the country – bringing more misery and suffering for addicts.
Because of the seriousness of the situation, the government should apply for a “stay” of the decision, pending an appeal. This would result in the misconstrued decision of Mr. Justice Pitfield’s to cease to be binding until finally dealt with by the higher courts. In the meantime, the site should be shut down to protect the lives of addicts." (emphasis mine)
But bullshit walks. These authoritarian pinheads give not one shit for drug addicts -- they use the rhetoric of "concern" to mask a punishment-oriented mentality too stunted to even consider that there might be a better approach than the status quo. As discussed yesterday, we're 36 years, that's 1/3 of a century, into the goofy "War On Drugs", the net result of which has been rich drug dealers, more property crime, skyrocketing HIV among female addicts, clogged-up courts and packed-to-capacity prisons. If that's winning, I'd hate to see losing.
It's long past time to move on to Plan B of which this experimental Harm Reduction strategy is a part. It's also time to stop treating addicts like dispensable human garbage because they make decisions that some of us, in our high and mighty self-righteous glory, judge to be "immoral". We need instead to work on keeping them safe and helping them back into the community, something InSite does. Get a grip, Gwen -- if you're not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
