by C. Gwendolyn Landolt. December 12, 2013.
The Public Health Department in Montreal has recommended the establishment of four supervised drug injection sites. Permitting drug addicts to readily consume their drugs does not improve their health, or lead to public safety. Instead, the health authorities are condemning drug addicts to inevitable, agonizing and frightening deaths.
The only escape for a drug addict from the horrors of drug addiction is treatment for their problem. Montreal Health Officials are, therefore, wasting the taxpayer’s money by failing to provide treatment beds for the addicts. Instead it is providing not only death for the addicts, but also is destroying the safety of the community, because such sites will draw drug addicts worldwide, and destroy the tourist industry of Montreal.
According to the Expert Advisory Committee appointed by the Federal Department of Health to examine the Vancouver Drug Injection Site, included the following in its findings released in 2006:
(a) Only 5% of the drug addicts in the area use the drug injection site so that contaminated needles are still left lying around the city;
(b) There is no proof that the site has decreased the incidence of AIDS and hepatitis in drug addicts;
(c) There is no indication that crime rate has decreased; and
(d) Only 3% of the Insite clients are referred for treatment.
The only studies supporting the Vancouver Drug Injection Sites are those conducted by the political activists who had lobbied for the Vancouver site prior to its establishment in 2003. These political activists have not provided scientific studies, but only advocacy studies based on ideology rather than proven facts. Significantly, the lobbyists have refused to release any data from their studies for other researchers to replicate their studies.
The Montreal Health Officials, fortunately, do not have the authority to authorize such drug injection sites on their own initiative. It is necessary that an exemption be first obtained from the federal government under the Controlled Drug and Substances Act. No such exemption has been granted for the proposed Montreal injection sites.
The House of Commons is currently debating Bill C-2 called the “Respect for Communities Act” which provides 26 criteria which must be followed before a drug injection site can be established. One of the purposes of Bill C-2 is to permit community voices to participate in the decision of whether a site should be established. This factor is clearly absent from the Montreal Health Officials’ announcement.
Source: Media Release REAL Women of Canada