Posted on 05/27/2008 8:30:14 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
Canada's laws prohibiting possession and trafficking of drugs were struck down as unconstitutional Tuesday by the B.C. Supreme Court, in a case focusing on the plague of drug addiction in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
But Justice Ian Pitfield gave Ottawa until June 30, 2009, to fix the law and bring it in line with the Constitutional principle of fundamental justice.
The ruling, in a case challenging the federal government's jurisdiction over Vancouver's controversial safe-injection site, goes well beyond the site itself.
The case was launched by the non-profit organization that runs Insite and a group of addicts, who argued the site addresses a public health crisis.
In a 60-page ruling released Tuesday, Pitfield found that sections of the federal Controlled Drugs and Substances Act are inconsistent with Section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Pitfield's says in his ruling that denying access to the site ignores the illness of addiction.
"While there is nothing to be said in favour of the injection of controlled substances that leads to addiction, there is much to be said against denying addicts health care services that will ameliorate the effects of their condition," he wrote.
"I cannot agree with the Canada's submission that an addict must feed his addiction in an unsafe environment when a safe environment that may lead to rehabilitation is the alternative."
The safe-injection site opened in 2003 under an exemption from Canada's drug laws. But the latest exemption expires June 30 and the site needed Ottawa's blessing to remain open beyond that date.
While Pitfield's decision striking down two sections of the federal drug laws doesn't take effect until next year, he granted Insite an immediate exemption, allowing it to remain open.
Federal Health Minister Tony Clement issued only a brief statement on the ruling: "We are studying the decision."
A spokesman for Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day declined comment and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson was not immediately available for comment.
The lawyer for the Portland Hotel Society, which runs Insite, said the judge recognized the site provides a necessary service to people battling addiction.
"The court ... affirmed the right of people with serious addictions to access the health care they need to deal with the addictions and the coincidental health affects of those addictions," Monique Pongracic-Speier said in an interview.
Pongracic-Speier said while the decision was based on the situation in the Downtown Eastside, it has implications across the country.
"So if the Parliament of Canada decides that it's not going to amend the laws ... then those laws are off the books," she said.
"They (supporters of the safe-injection site) don't want to see open-season on trafficking, and it would be my expectation that the federal government will update the laws."
John Conroy, lawyer for the other plaintiff, the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, said Ottawa must now update its laws to ensure provinces are free to provide health-care services to addicts.
"The government's options are to now create a better exemption process that recognizes the provincial health jurisdiction," he said. "So when the province is carrying out a genuine health service ... there isn't a dependence on the whim of the federal minister to exempt people."
The Portland Hotel Society celebrated the ruling.
"What he's saying is, well, yes, if this service is withdrawn, people will die," said Mark Townsend, executive director.
"It's very important that you control drugs and heroin and trafficking, but it's overboard to then condemn people to die, is basically what he's saying."
Federal lawyers argued before the court that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms doesn't protect the right of drug addicts to shoot up.
They told the B.C. court that the future of Vancouver's supervised-injection site is a matter of political policy, not law.
But the site has a long list of supporters who have lobbied Ottawa for its continued operation, including health and medical experts, Vancouver's mayor and the provincial government.
"We are encouraged by the judgment," said B.C. Health Minister George Abbott.
"We are strongly supportive of Insite as part of the continuum of mental-health and addictions services in this province."
Neil Boyd, a B.C. criminologist who was hired by the federal government to study the impacts of Insite, said the ruling reinforces a changing way of looking at drug addiction.
"It does seem to make the point that over the last two decades has been made again and again: That the problems of drug use are best understood as public health problems ... and not as problems for the criminal law," said Boyd, who teaches at Simon Fraser University.
Boyd noted that there are still several levels of appeal available to the federal government, but he said the B.C. ruling does offer yet another opinion supporting Insite that will put more pressure on Ottawa.
"As a lawyer, I think I have to be cautious and say it's not the end of the story," said Boyd.
Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan also predicted Tuesday's judgment won't put an end to the issue.
Sullivan said he expects the federal government to appeal, setting off a protracted legal battle that could take years to resolve. And he said he's glad Insite will be allowed to stay open in the meantime.
"We need to try new approaches, we need to respect that some people are simply ill and are not able to deal with drug addiction the way we'd like them to. ... It's very important to us that Insite remain open."
Sounds like the Supreme Beings on the Supreme Court have had too many beers and donuts, eh?
Liberalism … a monster that is eating us alive.
Canadian laws are a bit different. It is the Feds
that write most of the crimminal laws not individual
Provinces, except for Quebec.
BC has overstepped big time. Drug dens disguised as
“safe injection sites” !? Please.
Cogley: I’d be delighted to, sir, now that I’ve got something human to talk about. Rights, sir, human rights—the Bible, the Code of Hammurabi and of Justinian, Magna Carta, the Constitution of the United States, Constitutional Principle of Fundamental Justice, Fundamental Declarations of the Martian colonies, the Statutes of Alpha 3—gentlemen, these documents all speak of rights.
Sounds more like people are getting wise to the war on some drugs... and deciding enough is enough. Can’t say I’m at all in favor of government-provided health. But striking down their drug war laws is most surely a good thing.
So.......being a criminal is an illness and thus arresting them violates their civil rights. Ooooookayyyyyy.
BCSC said heroin dens are a denial of health care !?
That`s some f****d up reasoning there and THE
quintessential definition of Judicial Activism.
That’s why the city is called Vansterdam.
Ha. But gay marriage was envisioned in their constitution. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
I wish just one time I could take one of these so-called “judges” out with me to interview a 23 year old, “single mom,” meth addict with four kids, the oldest being five, running around the house unsupervised. It took me 45 minutes to get one of the kids to open the door. Another 20 for her to come out of the bedroom. I don’t know if she still has those kids because that wasn’t my job and I couldn’t do anything about it. What I saw wasn’t a pretty sight.
I was in Vancouver a year or two ago.
I was approached by smack dealers three times, asking me if I wanted to buy “a bag”- if you met me you would not think junkie.
The nice park in the bay was full of people in sleeping bags as it grew dark.
There were “head shops” here and there.
Oddly enough, when they put in shooting galleries, they seemed to be surprised that there were lots more heroin and addicts around town! Who could have guessed that!
Now, the dope laws there are “unconstitutional”? This will be interesting to see how it plays out. Our northern border may need attention as much as our southern one.
No, being a drug user is an illness and arresting them is (in THIS country) a violation of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, neither of which grant government the necessary authority to ban anything whatsoever, but especially does not grant authority to keep folks from ingesting the recreational substance of choice, be it beer, pot, tobacco or heroin. On the OTHER hand, LOCAL governments do have the legitimate authority to regulate PUBLIC behaviors, including behavior while intoxicated by ANY substance. And to prohibit any activity in public places while intoxicated which would prove dangerous to others such as driving under the influence. That is ALL such authority government legitimately has or needs. None of the other parts of the war on some drugs can pass strict constitutional muster. Never have, never will... despite the connivance of the legislature, the executive and activist judges who ALSO suck at the public teat.
PING
I have a standing offer of $1,000.00 to any individual who can find a single word in the US Constitution authorizing the Federal Government to forbid any citizen from possessing any 'drug' whatsoever.
My money is safe unless and until a Constitutional Amendment is properly ratified and enabling legislation is passed into law.
L
For at least 50 years, the Vancouver Police have claimed(more or less truthfully) that there are about 12,000 junkies in Vancouver.
A couple of hundred die each year, a few hundred leave that life, and a thousand fresh victims join it.
It’s sad, but nothing has ever changed it, for the worse or better.
Legalize drugs. Period.
In my opinion, even a Constitutional amendment would not be legitimate, as our RIGHTS are not granted by the Constitution, only PROTECTED by it... and attempts to infringe, whether by legislative fiat or Constitutional amendment are equally repugnant to a free society. It would be not unlike trying to repeal the Second Amendment or the First, even. Since government is not the SOURCE of our rights, government may not legitimately abrogate them. The SOLE exception being that certain rights may be held in abeyance during such time as one is serving a prison sentence as the result of due process court proceedings, but such rights must be fully reinstated when the sentence is completed. (If the sentence is not completed or if the miscreant is considered yet a danger, then sentence him properly and KEEP him in prison until he’s COMPLETED doing his time.)
(If the sentence is not completed or if the miscreant is considered yet a danger, then sentence him properly and KEEP him in prison until he’s COMPLETED doing his time.)
BINGO! We have a winner!
such as technology (FAA/FCC)and the breakdown of morals,
so of course the topic of heroin isn`t found in the
Constitution although laws date back to the 1800`s.
If they did have a crystal ball the Constitution and
Bill of Rights would be thousands of pages thick.
Jefferson and Adams could only allude to what could
happen, “ Can the liberties of a nation be sure when we
remove their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds
of the people, that these liberties are the gift of God?...
We have no government armed with power capable of
contending with human passions unbridled by morality and
religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would
break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale
goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a
moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the
government of any other.”
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