The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) welcomed today the unanimous ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada allowing Vancouver's supervised drug injection facility, Insite, to continue to operate.
"We're very pleased that the Supreme Court ruled in favour of allowing Insite to continue to carry out its work," said CMA President Dr. John Haggie. "While for some this is an ideological issue, for physicians it's about the autonomy to make medical decisions based on evidence, and the evidence shows that supervised injection reduces the spread of infectious diseases and the incidence of overdose and death."
The CMA was one of 10 interveners in an appeal to the Supreme Court by the Government of Canada to overturn lower court decisions allowing Insite to operate. The CMA has long supported harm reduction tools in the management of substance addiction. It recommends that such tools, including supervised injection sites, be included in a national drug strategy.