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Actually it is not a false choice to say that funds used for one program will necessarily take funds from another. The funding for drug programs are finite, and as any addiction counselor will tell you, the problem with rehab isn't customers its beds. Addicts don't need a safe injection site to learn about rehab programs. They are painfully aware of rehab programs and can't get into them due to limited funding. While it would be wonderful to fully fund every social program, there are finite resources for every government especially Canada.
That being said, it is just as much writing people off to let them shoot for death's door or shoot themselves into oblivion in a safe environment, as it is to let them do so in the gutter or locked away in a prison. Insite may be more humane but the final outcome isn't different. The health care providers have made a choice to ease the suffering of these dying people instead of treating their disease. It is a valid choice to make in the health care system, but it requires writing off the life as not worth saving.
I am certain the numbers are good for this program, and I am certain that it will become a model for Canada and perhaps America in time, but that does not change the underlying reality of the program. This is a program to end lives in a tidy fashion, and not to help people overcome their problems. Helping these people to get clean in a safe environment will do more for the people and society than letting them die in a safe environment. But I am sure, letting people die a pleasant clean death out of the view of the citizens of Vancouver is probably very cost effective, and so, economics saves the day yet again.
