Canada's laws prohibiting possession and trafficking of drugs were struck down as unconstitutional Tuesday by the B.C. Supreme Court, in a case focusing on the plague of drug addiction in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
However, Justice Ian Pitfield gave Ottawa until June 30, 2009, to fix the law and bring it in line with the constitutional principle of fundamental justice.
The ruling, in a case challenging the federal government's jurisdiction over Insite, Vancouver's controversial safe-injection site, goes well beyond the site itself.
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"The court ... affirmed the right of people with serious addictions to access the health care they need to deal with the addictions and the coincidental health affects of those addictions," Monique Pongracic-Speier said.
My hope is that this is the beginning of a new way of legislating drug law. Eventually, I'd like to see this attitude prevail throughout North America. I think it will. For one, possession laws have to change: the States is running out of room in the prisons!
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