Libertarian ping! To be added or removed freepmail me or post a message here.
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."
Exactly that... And, FYI, smokable opium was strictly a Chinese relaxation. No one else used it that way. Opium mixed in elixirs and what not was exempt from the law. But boy did those chinese debauch our white women... just as black jazz musicians did in the 1930s when Harry Anslinger was trying to get hemp outlawed. Kinda makes a body feel real proud of our government over its history... both state and federal.
According to Lurker’s post I may be less than correct here. Others MAY have used smokable opium. Which does not negate the rest of the info.
Yes it has.
Same tactics were used to get a ban on marijuana in the 1930s, except that time the target was blacks, not Chinese.
The only time I recall “notwithstanding” being invoked, it was done by the Quebec legislature to preserve the language laws.
I think it has been used a couple of times in Saskatchewan and Alberta.
Ontario hasn’t used it because no one in the Doofus’s government can figure it out, or spell it.
Libertarian ping! To be added or removed freepmail me or post a message here.
Contrary to providing historical documentation that the Feds had no authority you cite instances where Congress HAD been involved to a major extent and had Constitutionoal authority for specific reasons.
The Feds would have never become involved at all if it were not for the severity of opium usage.At the time the number of users was close to 250,000 in a population of 76 million.
For that reason and the Hague Convention, the Harrison Act became law and was eventually upheld by the USSC, based on the fact the law originated with a foreign treaty which under Article VI, gave it authority over the X Amendment.
It’s just as well that Ontario hasn’t used it. The thought of McDoofus having the power to revoke Charter rights is scary.
So you're in favor of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg view of the Constitution then. Interesting.
Wrong, but interesting.
You might want to google up a little thing called "the Supremacy Clause". Then look into Seery v United States and Reid v Covert.
L
You`re getting lost. I`m in favor of Article VI :
“...and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land...”
R v C and S. v USA were specific in regards to an executive agreement and not a treaty. You`re regurgitating pages right from lp.org.
Comparing overly ambitious executive agreements, properly struck down, with the Hague treaty is an attempt at legal equivalence much in the same manner leftists attempt to argue moral equivalence, it is never successful.
Well then you and I have a fundamental disagreement. You appear to be willing to allow 'treaties' to supercede the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. That's something I'm, shall we say, unwilling to do.
Under your interpretation of things, Congress and the President could sing and ratifiy a Treaty which abrogated the entire Bill of Rights.
If that's the interpretation of the Constitution you're willing to live with.....well best of luck to you my friend. The way you look at things, President Obama could sing a Treaty with Cuba disavowing the 2nd Amendment.
So it appears that you and I have some very fundamental disagreements. Your worldview posits that Congress can destroy any of the Constitutional Rights enumerated in the BOR if they ratify some stupid treaty.
I say that's untrue.
L
That is the exact same argument the gun-grabbers make.
You need to read up on Ben Franklin.
You are completely wrong. Treaties that do not abrogate or abridge the Constitution are Constitutional under Article VI.Your specious argument is that ALL treaties are unconstitutional making you yourself the enemy of it`s original intent.
I`m in the Mark Levin camp where in certain instances there must be rational interpretation by conservatives judges. You are obviously in the libertarian camp that has such an ideologically stratified approach it would ignore modern progress and the need for an FAA or FCC.
Libertarians would allow porn shops and hookers on every street, crack dens and open borders with drugs being openly driven in on 18 wheelers.
There`s a reason the libertarian party will always be on the fringe, because it is.
Irrational and untrue. There were handguns then and there is the 2nd Amendment.
You and Mr. Levin leave us at the mercy of irrational liberal ones with such thinking.
L
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