CBC Global Header Navigation

 
CBCradio

Friday September 30, 2011

 
Bookmark and Share
 
   
 

Insite Supreme Court Ruling (Updated)

The Supreme Court of Canada has just ruled unanimously in favour of the Insite clinic, the country's only secure drug injection site just a few blocks away from our CBC Vancouver studio. We tell you what the court said and what it means for the treatment of addiction across the country.

Listen: (Pop-up)

Today's guest host was Ian Hanomansing in Vancouver.

Part One of The Current

Satire

It's Friday, September 30th.

Twenty-nine countries, plus the EU, have launched a new counter-terrorism network that Hillary Clinton says will be "as nimble and adaptive as our adversaries."

Unfortunately, those adversaries are now nimble and adaptive 2.0.

This is the Current.

Insite Supreme Court Ruling

Many health officials, activists, addicts and recovering addicts are celebrating on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside this morning. They're cheering the Supreme Court of Canada's decision to allow Canada's only free-standing secure-injection site, to remain open.

Earlier this morning, the court rejected the federal government's bid to shut down Insite, a clinic in the downtown eastside which provides a safe place and clean needles for addicts to inject drugs. We heard from Donavan Mahoney, a recovering addict and an Insite client, reacting to the decision. We've pulled him away from the celebrations at Insite to speak to us some more later.

Margot Young has been looking over this morning's Supreme Court ruling. She is with the Faculty of Law at the University of British Columbia. She has been tracking the progress of the Insite case through the courts and she was in Vancouver.

We were joined by three people with a direct stake in this ruling. Donovan Mahoney is a recovering addict and Insite client. Mark Townsend is the executive director of the Portland Hotel Society, which operates Insite with the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. And Jim O'Rourke is a former addict and is now the Executive Director of the Visionquest Recovery Society, an addiction treatment program in the Vancouver area. They were all in our Vancouver studio.

Related Links:


Other segments from today's show:

  • Commenting has been disabled for this entry.