PunkAssBlog.com

I am pretty sure that Tory Health Minister Tony Clement has never had to live in a neighbourhood ravaged by drug-related crime. I’m pretty sure that he’s never had friends bounced between rehab and jail, unable to get proper treatment for their disease because drug use is considered a criminal, rather than a medical issue. I’m pretty sure of this because only a person so very, very sheltered from the effects of the War on (Some People Who Use Some Kinds of) Drugs could make the sorts of hateful, ignorant comments that Clement made yesterday:

“The supervised injection site undercuts the ethic of medical practice and sets a debilitating example for all physicians and nurses, both present and future in Canada,” he scolded in an address to the Canadian Medical Association general council meeting in Montreal. [...] “This is a profound moral issue, and when Canadians are fully informed of it, I believe they will reject it on principle,” the minister said.

Actual medical professionals (Clement is not one) know that harm reduction initiatives like Insite—the Vancouver safe injection site that Clement attacking in his speech—was save lives. They reduce the transmission of infections spread by dirty needs, reduce ODs, get drug use off the streets and away from the general public. Both Clement and his government don’t care about either the lives of addicts or the welfare of people in communities where drug use is rampant. They are much more concerned about appearing “tough on crime.”

After all, there’s an election coming up:

The new Conservative ad campaign picks up where Mr. Clement’s message leaves off with its call to “keep junkies in rehab and off the streets.” It includes pictures of the party leaders and asks which of them is on track to fight crime.

The text reads: “Thugs, drug pushers and others involved in the drug trade are writing their own rules. For too long, lax Liberal governments left gangs and drug pushers to make their own rules and set their own criminal agenda. Those days are over.”

The Tories have lower support among women, and pollsters for both Conservatives and Liberals have found that women and seniors feel vulnerable to crime. A promise to keep junkies away from children is a direct pitch.

Of course, women and seniors are also vulnerable to Tory policies, and have more to fear from our government than from unfortunate drug addicts. I can only hope that Clement and his party get tossed to the curb in the next election before they can do any more damage.