This is a building in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver where intravenous drug users can go and inject drugs in a safe/clean environment and be referred to drug treatment programs. Use of intravenous drugs (heroine,morphine, etc.) on the property is legal.
Since InSite's creation, HIV/AIDS infection rates have dropped dramatically in Vancouver, this is likely due to the fact that the organization supplies not only a safe place to inject drugs, but also sterile needles for use outside the facility.
There have been more than 600 drug overdoses there since it's start up in 2006 but no deaths as the facility has an army of medical personnel.
Through frequent visits drug users are pushed towards all sorts of programs for rehabilitation.
Is it right?
Are we just enabling addicts, removing the horror stories of living on the streets of Vancouver and giving them a warm place to use their drugs? They say you have to hit rock bottom before you can get clean, is that possible when going to InSite?
$1.8 million was spent on this program last year. But is it right to pick who dies? Food banks are still understocked, are we saving drug addicts rather than the starving working man?
Or is it so hard to get some of these users off drugs it is better for us to give them an opportunity to live with the disease that is drug use.
And yes, drug addiction is a disease. Being that prolonged use of heroine alters brain chemistry it can be classified as a disease. But they bring it upon themselves don't they?
Alright this has gogten really off topic, and I am using my 1 extra life on this topic to attempt to ressurect it
Drug use is illegal. Is it right to give drug users a place where they can use, even if you think you are giving yourself an opportunity to get them into rehabilitation programs?
Is it really making a dent? Won't the just take those free sterile needles out onto the streets and share them which defeats the purpose?
