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Friday, September 22, 2006 12:00 AM

The needle and the damage undone

Vancouver has halted a drug epidemic by helping street addicts shoot up in safety. Will U.S. cities -- and Bush's drug czar -- learn from the Canadians' success?

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  • Friday, September 22, 2006 08:02 AM

    Why I Love Canadian Politics

    ... the very end of this very wonderful article. The man was against it, saw the benefits the safe-injection site ended up offering to the neighborhood, and now supports its expansion.

    Say something like that in the US, and you're labelled as a "flip-flopper". And God Forbid you ever, ever say you were wrong about something you campagined on.

    It is nice, however, to see public health concerns actually triumphing for once. Especially with a population (drug users) that is so easiliy marginalized and written off.

    I have a feeling, however, that it was easier to get the site established in Canada because of the Universal Health Care. The populace can understand that the country as a whole will have to swallow the $150,000 treatment of a HIV patient. In the US, it's just as easy to say "they made their bed; they can lie in it".

    Unfortunately.

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