Editor: According to the Supreme Court ruling Friday, drug addicts now have constitutional rights to free medical treatment via drug treatment centres like Insite.
Vancouver’s Insite is funded by both B.C. Ministry of Health ($1.2 million per year) and Health Canada ($500,000per year).
The clinic provides free needles and free medical care to those addicted to drugs. The argument used by all nine Supreme Court judges was that closing the clinic would violate drug users’ constitutional rights and lead to “potential denial of health services and the correlative increase risk of death and disease.”
Using the same logic, shouldn’t people who have chronic illnesses, such as people with Type 1 diabetes, be given the same constitutional right to free life-sustaining medical supplies (i.e. insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitoring systems)?
These have been proven to be the best course of treatment, and they are currently not covered by the Medical Services Plan. Why do drug addicts deserve free medical treatment and care, while those with chronic diseases do not? Isn’t their right to life important?
Tracy Wu,
Cloverdale
