Cargando…
Canada’s highest court unchains injection drug users; implications for harm reduction as standard of healthcare
North America’s only supervised injection facility, Insite, opened its doors in September of 2003 with a federal exemption as a three-year scientific study. The results of the study, evaluated by an independent research team, showed it to be successful in engaging the target group in healthcare, pre...
Autor principal: | |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2012
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3492113/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22817679 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1477-7517-9-34 |
_version_ | 1782249059793240064 |
---|---|
author | Small, Dan |
author_facet | Small, Dan |
author_sort | Small, Dan |
collection | PubMed |
description | North America’s only supervised injection facility, Insite, opened its doors in September of 2003 with a federal exemption as a three-year scientific study. The results of the study, evaluated by an independent research team, showed it to be successful in engaging the target group in healthcare, preventing overdose death and HIV infections while increasing uptake and retention in detox and treatment. The research, published in peer-reviewed medical and scientific journals, also showed that the program did not increase public disorder, crime or drug use. Despite the substantial evidence showing the effectiveness of the program, the future of Insite came under threat with the election of a conservative federal government in 2006. As a result, the PHS Community Services Society (PHS), the non-profit organization that operates Insite, launched a legal case to protect the program. On 30 September 2011, Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of Insite and underscored the rights of people with addictions to the security of their person under section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Charter of Rights). The decision clears the ground for other jurisdictions in Canada, and perhaps North America, to implement supervised injection and harm reduction where it is epidemiologically indicated. The legal case validates the personhood of people with addictions while metaphorically unchaining them from the criminal justice system. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3492113 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2012 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-34921132012-11-08 Canada’s highest court unchains injection drug users; implications for harm reduction as standard of healthcare Small, Dan Harm Reduct J Commentary North America’s only supervised injection facility, Insite, opened its doors in September of 2003 with a federal exemption as a three-year scientific study. The results of the study, evaluated by an independent research team, showed it to be successful in engaging the target group in healthcare, preventing overdose death and HIV infections while increasing uptake and retention in detox and treatment. The research, published in peer-reviewed medical and scientific journals, also showed that the program did not increase public disorder, crime or drug use. Despite the substantial evidence showing the effectiveness of the program, the future of Insite came under threat with the election of a conservative federal government in 2006. As a result, the PHS Community Services Society (PHS), the non-profit organization that operates Insite, launched a legal case to protect the program. On 30 September 2011, Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of Insite and underscored the rights of people with addictions to the security of their person under section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Charter of Rights). The decision clears the ground for other jurisdictions in Canada, and perhaps North America, to implement supervised injection and harm reduction where it is epidemiologically indicated. The legal case validates the personhood of people with addictions while metaphorically unchaining them from the criminal justice system. BioMed Central 2012-07-20 /pmc/articles/PMC3492113/ /pubmed/22817679 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1477-7517-9-34 Text en Copyright ©2012 Small; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Commentary Small, Dan Canada’s highest court unchains injection drug users; implications for harm reduction as standard of healthcare |
title | Canada’s highest court unchains injection drug users; implications for harm reduction as standard of healthcare |
title_full | Canada’s highest court unchains injection drug users; implications for harm reduction as standard of healthcare |
title_fullStr | Canada’s highest court unchains injection drug users; implications for harm reduction as standard of healthcare |
title_full_unstemmed | Canada’s highest court unchains injection drug users; implications for harm reduction as standard of healthcare |
title_short | Canada’s highest court unchains injection drug users; implications for harm reduction as standard of healthcare |
title_sort | canada’s highest court unchains injection drug users; implications for harm reduction as standard of healthcare |
topic | Commentary |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3492113/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22817679 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1477-7517-9-34 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT smalldan canadashighestcourtunchainsinjectiondrugusersimplicationsforharmreductionasstandardofhealthcare |