Become the electoral issue Vancouver injection site

Vancouver controversial safe injection site became an election issue Monday after yet another published study that he saved lives, by encouraging the author of the study said conservative policy on the site has no basis in fact.

Critics demanded drop of Prime Minister Stephen Harper opposition of his Government to the clinic and abandon their efforts to make it close.

Harper was in Yellowknife Monday where he regarded its strategy anti-drug, saying: it is based on the prevention and treatment.

But the Conservative Government has said in the past that he is not close our eyes to the site of safe injection and claims that it encourages addiction.

The latest study was published this week in the influential medical journal The Lancet. It was written by Dr. Thomas Kerr, with his colleagues of the urban Initiative in health research at the Hospital of Saint Paul in Vancouver.

"Canadians should be concerned with how the Federal Government approached problems such as drug addiction - that they are really not base their decision on science, they based on ideology,"Kerr said."".

The clinic, Insite, opened in 2003 as the first of its kind in North America. It allows addicts to inject their own medications in a healthy environment under the supervision of a nurse, but it requires an exemption from federal legislation of Health Act to operate.

The study concluded the site has helped reduce the number of fatal overdoses in the notorious Downtown Eastside of Vancouver by more than a third.

"It is evidence showing that Insite achieves its objectives [and] it is very important because it shows it prevents death," said Kerr.

Researchers followed fatal overdoses in the immediate vicinity of the clinic over a period of 33 months before the facility opened in September 2003 and 27 months after its opening. The rate of fatal overdose plunged 35 per cent after the opening of the site, the study concluded, while the number of fatal overdoses in the rest of the city fell by all nine percent during the same period.

But the Conservative Government has indicated that he wants to put an end to the exemption and see the supervised injection site closed.

Supporters of the clinic successfully challenged the Federal Government, winning a decision of the Supreme Court of British Columbia Colombia later confirmed by the Court of appeal Colombia-British in January 2010 which found Insite is a health care facility and therefore falls within the provincial jurisdictionFederal steps.

Federal lawyers appealed appeal, however, arguing that Insite makes it easier for people to break the law.

This drew the criticism of the then-Minister of health of British Columbia Colombia Kevin Falcon, which emphasized the large body of independent research supporting the clinical.

The Supreme Court of the Canada should hear the arguments on the issue next month.

Kerr, said Monday that the position with the Conservatives on the issue is unlit.

"We really let one not back by trying to use a war on drug United States style, which is a well documented political failure," he said.

"Insite has also been shown very profitable." If you are concerned with the economy, it is clearly something that you need to support. ?

Janice Buchanan, Vice President of the BC Nurses' Union, called the Harper Government to abandon its appeal on the Lancet study, saying that the study shows contributes to Insite drug addicts in detox and retrieve.

"Instead of wasting the taxpayers money on lawyers and the courts to try to stop this service legitimate health care, the Conservatives - and all other political parties - should use this moment as an opportunity to ensure that their health care policies are based on evidence"buchanan""said in a press release.

The Government of the spent approximately 3 million per year on Insite, a pillar of the harm reduction strategy battle.

Studies of more than two dozen in various medical journals welcomed the installation as a success, suggesting that it reduced deaths by overdose, HIV and hepatitis rate and crime in the poor Downtown Eastside 10-block radiuswhere drug users are concentrated by the intravenous route of the city. The Centre of British Colombia for Excellence in HIV / AIDS said that since the opening of Insite, it has been an increase of 30 per cent of the number of drug abusers in detoxification.

Other Canadian cities, such as Victoria and Toronto, have said they want to open their own clinics safe-injection, modelled on Insite.

Liberal MP Hedy Fry, a physician whose electoral district of Vancouver Centre includes the Downtown Eastside, said that Harper must act on evidence.

"If you recognize that addiction is a disease and it is a medical problem, and you must deal with medical solutions, one of the most important things is the prevention of death," said Fry. "[Insite is] this goal in a remarkable manner.".

FRY said that the site is an effective tool for public health.

"Stephen Harper lives in the flat earth society." The evidence, this is what you watch. It works? Good. ?

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Libya could become the new Somalia: former Minister of Foreign Affairs

The initiate of higher profile break with the regime of Muammar al-Gaddafi, since the beginning of the conflict in the Libya has warned that his country would become engulfed in civil war as Somalia.

Ex-étrangers Minister Moussa Koussa, making his first public statement since he fled in Tripoli, left his position and arrived in England on 30 March, called Kadhafi and opposition of the country Monday to show restraint.

"I ask everyone, all parties to work to avoid taking the Libya in a civil war." "This will lead to bloodshed and make the Libya a new Somalia," said KUSA, who spent almost two weeks in a place not to be disclosed in interviews with British intelligence officers and diplomats.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Britain, said KUSA is not held by the authorities, but declined to repeatedly discuss the details of his debriefings or comment on his whereabouts and goings.

' We refuse to divide the Libya. The Libya unit is essential to any solution and any settlement in Libya. The solution in Libya come from the Libyans themselves, by discussion and dialogue. democratic '-Moussa Koussa, former Minister of Foreign Affairs the Libya

The former loyalist of Gaddafi read out a statement prepared for the BBC Arabic television and took no questions. The BBC did not disclose where he had filmed KUSA.

KUSA did not have any explicit Gaddafi, but said criticism that he had left after it became more and more concerned about the recent events. He confirmed that today ' today, it has no contact with the regime of the dictator Tripoli.

"My country lives in a difficult period." This is the worst. When the Libyans began to lose the security and stability, I decided to resign, said KUSA.

Also an ex-libyen intelligence Chief, KUSA said that more than 30 years he has been devoted to his work for Gaddafi and confident, that he had been in the service of the Libyan public.

"But after these recent events changed things and I could not continue." This is why I made this decision. Not because I am waiting for what, but because I know that what I was doing to resign will also pose problems, but I am ready to make this sacrifice on behalf of my countrySaid KUSA.

He rejected suggestions to divide the Libya between East held by the rebel and the Gadhafi strongholds in the West of the country, asking instead of talks between the regime and the opposition.

"We refuse to divide the Libya." The Libya unit is crucial to any solution and any settlement in Libya, "KUSA said, according to a translation provided by the BBC." "The solution in Libya will the Libyans themselves, by discussion and democratic dialogue."

Koussa also called on the United Nations to deliver food aid, medicine and assistance to the Libyan people.

"We hope that the Security Council will have a humanitarian responsibility," he said.

Last week, Scottish prosecutors interviewed KUSA as a witness in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, 1988 which killed 270 people, most of them Americans. Libya acknowledged the responsibility of the terrorist attack in 2003, and the leaders of the opposition have long claimed that Koussa was closely associated.

KUSA acknowledged that he had already worked closely with overseas intelligence agencies as the West sought to return to the international fold Libya, in the 1990s the sequence of terror attacks which has tainted the reputation of the country of the North Africa.

"Personally, I have relations and good relations with so many Bretons.". We have worked together against terrorism, and we have succeeded. "We have worked together to prevent terrorism and we have worked together on the dismantling of weapons of mass destruction, he said." "" This is excellent work, this is great work and it makes the world safer. ?

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