I'll tell you how. Give yourself a crash course in a highly debated topic you only know a gloss about. My head is pretty much blown after too many hours of research. I'm in a bit of a lull in the PDP program, so my brain is being occupied by other things. This evening, it's been the Supreme Court's recent decision in favour of the BC Supreme Court against the federal government regarding criminal code exemption affecting the operation of Insite, Vancouver's safe injection site.
Let me rewind, and provide you with some relevant information, in case I caught you unawares--in layman's terms. Insite opened in 2003, as a pilot project brought to you by our then Liberal government. Because it was a pilot project in nature, it was given a three 3 "criminal code exemption". Essentially, this meant that addicts living on the downtown easide (DTES) of Vancouver were legally exempt to inject themselves with illegally purchased drugs, the hope being that providing drug users with a clean, sterile environment with which to shoot themselves up would reinforce one pillar of the four pillars drug strategy: harm reduction--the other four being prevention, treatment, and enforcement. Harm reduction is principally concerned with, in the case of Insite, reducing the spread of HIV and hepatitis, and reducing the incidences of overdoses, fatal or otherwise.
In 2006, a minority Conservative government, specifically Health Minister Tony Clement, granted Insite a temporary exemption to keep operating, until the Ministry of Health could make an informed decision about it's continued operation. Eventually, Clement refused to extend its exemption. In response, the BC Supreme Court heard and found in favour of a constitutional challenge to keep Insite open because (and here I quote the Wikipedia entry for Insite...gasp!) "laws prohibiting possession and trafficking of drugs were unconstitutional because they denied drug users access to Insite's health services". This is the decision that the Supreme Court recently upheld.
Essentially, the claiments stated that the government's refusal maintain Insite's exemption from the laws of the Controlled Drugs and Services Act, or CDSA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_Drugs_and_Substances_Act), was a violation of section seven of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_Seven_of_the_Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and_Freedoms), and that, alternatively the application of the laws of the CDSA to Insite violates the rights layed out in the Charter in the first place, the exemption notwithstanding. These arguments anger me and boggle my mind at the same time. It seems a circular argument because of how quickly a "pilot project privilege", for extreme lack of a better term, becomes a "right", no better term lacking. I'm still working my way through the Supreme Court's online publication of the case (http://scc.lexum.org/en/2011/2011scc44/2011scc44.html). Though I haven't read it in its entirety, it strikes me that much of the argumentation used in this case revolves around Insites supposed successes: lowered HIV rates, overdoses, etc, and not whether or not denying exemption violates section seven of the Charter.
So far, I haven't even gotten too deeply into the biblical argumentation. When it comes to addiction, the Bible's conclusion is clear, extapolating alcoholism to cover drug addictions (1 Cor 6 verse 10: "...nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God"). In this light, the Bible condemns such a facility as Insite, as it provides a haven for those who persist in addiction to shoot up and resume that addiction. The Bible might say that Insite doesn't do enough to rehabilitate addicts, though the notion of "rehabilitation" might open up the addiction as a sin vs. addiction as a disease debate--one that would take a whole other blog, or book, to tackle, and one that I don't feel sufficiently prepared to take on.
Anyways, I'm tired, and I've probably left you with more questions than answers. My own mind is spinning like mad, and I think I'm only depressing myself. Thoughts, anyone? Resources to pass on, especially concerning biblical perspectives surrounding such an issue?
**editor's note: rest assured that though I did publish a couple of Wikipedia articles for you to check out, my research ventured outside that realm ;). I posted the links so that you could have a brief crash course in certain isolated topics :).
No comments:
Post a Comment