Back Alley on East Hastings, Vancouver¹

 

Main and Hastings, Vancouver, Canada: A dessert of dirt, garbage, and the concrete dust remains of human misery. A country within a country; block after block of dull washed away brick, chapels, bent shopping carts, ‘truly’ free markets, and relief societies. Here, sleeps the soul of Canada’s tropical paradise; a wasteland of death behind the mirage of salvation. Needle-by-needle, theft-after-theft, the dust storms pick up speed.

A short, balding woman, covered in dust, paces up and down the trash-riddled alley. She glares me in the eyes, fidgets uncontrollably, and fixes a manikin-like gaze near my shoes. I take three steps to the left. She…takes one forward, hunching near the pavement. Three more to the left. Then, before I can glance back, she is crouched in the corner behind me. Another takes notice. It speeds towards her in a drunken vampire frenzy. They share. Before it is time for me to leave, deja vu. Both creatures are pacing up and down that very same street; I’d swear it was the matrix, but they aren’t trembling anymore.

Where do you find hope in the midst of a hell like this? Perhaps a tiny place called Insite: North America’s only safe injection facility. For those of you unaware of this facility, it stands as a safe haven in Vancouver’s worst area. It provides clean syringes, keeps medical staff on hand, saves hundreds of lives, prevents the spread of HIV and Hepatitis, lowers public drug usage, and reduces sidewalk needle disposal. Violence, theft, and drug use have remained stable. But perhaps most damaging of all: many addicts have pursued successful addiction treatment through the facility - possibly using health care funds.

Now, for reasons I’m sure must be related to health care, Insite is under attack.

It is under attack by Canada’s conservative government, lead by crusading cowboy Stephen Harper; it is under attack by the UN; it is under attack, as logic dictates, by most of the United States government. But now, finally, reasonable people are beginning to retaliate. It seems the last remaining glimmer of hope on this God forsaken continent lies on the foundation of our separation of power.

Two drug addicts, along with Insite itself, have launched a court case asserting that Insite plays a vital role in the health of east Vancouver residents. Therefore, they claim, closing the site would violate their right to ’safety of person’². It is a classic Ideology V.S. Human Rights battle. The health minister flashed his smile immediately after, claiming that new evidence casts doubt on the benefits of Insite. Doctors and scientists denounced the minister’s claims as bogus, citing a complete lack of reputable studies to contradict a heap of research supporting Insite’s benefits.

It seems Vancouver’s Olympic-drunk mayor, Sam Sullivan, had the foresight to predict a pesky inconvenience to his desperate attempts at cleaning up the city’s drug problems. His new solution: drugs. Thats right, alternative drugs. Similar to illegal drugs, but in pill format. No telling yet what these ‘alternatives’ might be - I just wanna know, where do you sign up?

This all makes perfect sense of course. Illegal drugs are illegal and people use them despite this fact. Furthermore, these illegal drugs are even more dangerous because they are unregulated, expensive, and prevent you from finding work if caught using them. So…put a band-aid on a bullet hole; offer clean needles to patch the problem. Then, make addicts addicted to something else, something regulated; cause bleeding somewhere else, to divert the flow of blood. Accept that drugs cannot be annihilated, but keep trying.

The one thing we can’t do is regulate drugs. We are bound by our word, back in the 1920’s, when claims of marijuana turning people into murderers were considered ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. There are signed agreements on these things. And if there is one principle worth the lives of innocent people, it is honor. Honor to our word. We have sworn to fight drugs - certain ones anyhow - and by God, we will do it if we have to kill people.

We must treat the War on Drugs with the same respect that Stephen Harper gives Kyoto and George W. Bush gives UN invasion policy.

Onward, noble soldiers.

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1. http://www.flickr.com/photos/stollerdos/143573967/ [↩]
2. Globe and Mail Article entitled “Court fight launched to save safe-injection site“ [↩]