Mazier’s legislation is worthy of support

Riding Mountain Conservative MP Dan Mazier is concerned about the potential danger of having supervised drug consumption sites located in close proximity to places where children routinely gather. In order to address that issue, he has introduced a private member’s bill — Bill C-272 — in the House of Commons.

The legislation would prohibit the federal government from “allowing a site providing services in relation to the consumption of any controlled substance or precursor — or any class of either of them … to be located within 500 metres of an elementary or secondary school, a daycare centre or a playground.” It would also revoke the authorization for any site that is currently located within 500 metres of an elementary or secondary school, a daycare centre or a playground, and would make the authorization for a mobile safe injection site to be conditional that it not provide its services within 500 metres of those locations.

In support of his C-272, Mazier argues that parents all over Canada are being forced to shield their children from open drug use on the same streets where they walk to school. He says that “I don’t think the normalizing drug use beside a toddler and seeing someone smoke crack cocaine on the steps of their entry to their school is normal.”

He emphasizes that his legislation would not outlaw safe consumption sites, but would simply prevent them from operating in close proximity to some types of places where children typically gather.

That is a responsible and realistic position to take. Mazier’s legislation represents a reasonable balance between the rights of children to be safe from the dangers and repercussions of drug use by others, and the rights of drug users to consume their drugs in a safe manner that helps to protect them from perils such as overdoses and infections.

Viewed from that perspective, the legislation would protect the lives of both children and drug users — a point that Antoinette Gravel-Ouellette, a member of Moms Stop the Harm in Brandon, appeared to concede in her remarks to the Sun earlier this week.

That said, we note that Mazier strayed beyond the narrow scope of C-272 during his remarks at a press conference in Ottawa earlier this week. He characterized his bill as just a “good first step,” and said that safe consumption sites do not have minimum age limits. He alleged that “A teenager in a school next door … who is curious about trying drugs, facing peer pressure, can walk into a federally approved site and use hard drugs for the first time.”

If he is signalling that further legislation is coming that would prohibit safe consumption sites from being accessible to non-adults, such a measure would likely have the strong support of many Canadians who rightly want kids to stay far away from drugs. That view is buttressed by the fact that children and youth have neither the judgment skills nor the legal capacity to consent to drug use, even if their consent appears to be voluntary.

The problem, however, is that many youth are going to use drugs anyway, and advocates such as Gravel-Ouellette insist that safe consumption sites help reduce the risk of those kids dying from an overdose or serious infection.

That is a compelling argument, but it may contradict the conclusions of a recent study conducted by the Canadian Centre for Recovery Excellence in Alberta. It found that harm reduction therapy was just as effective as safe consumption sites in preventing overdose deaths in that province. More research must be done on that issue but, if the findings in the Alberta study are correct, they should cause all Canadian jurisdictions to reconsider the need for safe consumption sites, balanced against the risks they create.

As we wait for those additional studies to be conducted, the present danger of safe consumption sites operating close to where children gather cannot be ignored. Given that reality, we agree with Mazier’s Bill C-272. It is a valid and justified attempt to protect children, and is deserving of the support of all MPs.