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I am amazed. Some cops get it! Here's hoping Toronto cops follow the lead :)
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/05/03/injection-police060503.html
The Vancouver police department has given its approval to a three-year extension of the city's safe injection site, which provides a place for drug addicts to shoot up. Many officers were highly skeptical when the groundbreaking clinic opened in September 2003 in the city's Downtown Eastside. But Insp. Larry Thompson credits the clinic staff with intervening in 200 drug overdoses, and helping steer more than 1,000 addicts into counselling. As a result, he says the department has just signed off on a new, three-year exemption to the clinic under the Controlled Drug and Substances Act.
Thompson says most police officers see the site as a health response in the battle against drug addictions and the transmission of diseases through dirty needles. "The police on the street, of their own volition ... frankly surprised me, by taking users to the site, and in some cases with their drugs in hand. In other words, they didn't seize narcotics. They took them with their narcotics to the site to use them there." Thompson says some officers remain critical of the initiative, believing the safe-injection site simply enables drug addiction. But he said he has adopted the philosophy of front-line health workers who say they can't treat dead addicts.
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/05/03/injection-police060503.html
The Vancouver police department has given its approval to a three-year extension of the city's safe injection site, which provides a place for drug addicts to shoot up. Many officers were highly skeptical when the groundbreaking clinic opened in September 2003 in the city's Downtown Eastside. But Insp. Larry Thompson credits the clinic staff with intervening in 200 drug overdoses, and helping steer more than 1,000 addicts into counselling. As a result, he says the department has just signed off on a new, three-year exemption to the clinic under the Controlled Drug and Substances Act.
Thompson says most police officers see the site as a health response in the battle against drug addictions and the transmission of diseases through dirty needles. "The police on the street, of their own volition ... frankly surprised me, by taking users to the site, and in some cases with their drugs in hand. In other words, they didn't seize narcotics. They took them with their narcotics to the site to use them there." Thompson says some officers remain critical of the initiative, believing the safe-injection site simply enables drug addiction. But he said he has adopted the philosophy of front-line health workers who say they can't treat dead addicts.
