Harm Reduction, ’50s Style

In the recent hullabaloo over Insite, Vancouver’s safe injection site for drug users, critics of the facility are doing their best to create the impression that harm reduction is the recent product of radicals. Their machinations have apparently been so successful that harm reduction is now orthodoxy, while dissenters are marginalized and can even lose their jobs just for questioning Insite. This conspiracy theory might be more convincing if Insite’s supposedly silenced critics didn’t have such a loud voice in the national and local media, or didn’t hold such non-marginal positions as Health Minister of Canada. Continue reading →