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The legal battle over Vancouver’s supervised injection site will continue in B.C.’s top court today.

Lawyers for the federal government are expected to seek to overturn a B.C. Supreme Court ruling last year that granted Insite, the Hastings Street injection facility, a constitutional exemption to stay open.

In effect, the ruling found that elements of federal drug laws against possession and trafficking were unconstitutional where they concerned Insite users and staff, a decision that surprised even some Insite advocates in its thoroughness.

But Insite isn’t the only health facility that will be involved in this week’s legal wrangling.

The people behind the Dr. Peter Centre, which also operates a much less publicized supervised injection service as part of its care for people living with HIV/AIDS, will act as an intervener in the proceedings.

“We understand [the case] may have implications,” said Maxine Davis, executive director of the Dr. Peter AIDS Foundation.

“We know that additional service [injection supervision] makes a difference in people’s health,” Davis said.

“You can’t just pick and choose the nice stuff that’s going to help someone. This is about being true to yourself and your mission, despite the fact that it’s become a controversial issue in the public.”

Davis said there are many health care providers, perhaps eager to offer injection supervision but wary of the legal issues, who will be watching the case intently.

“It will open the door to many other organized health care organizations across the country feeling a lot more comfortable with moving forward,” Davis said.

“They’re waiting to see how this plays out.”

SFU criminologist Neil boyd was commissioned by the federal Conservative government to assess Insite's impact on public safety in the surrounding community.

“When we interviewed a combination of people who live in the area – service providers, police, business owners – a very strong majority believe that Insite has value in terms of its ability to assist people who are addicted,” Boyd said.

“There’s so much evidence [to keep Insite open]. There are positive health outcomes for people who use Insite.”

But the federal Conservatives, particularly under former Health Minister Tony Clement, have been openly skeptical about the facility, resisting calls to allow Insite to operate permanently.

“I don’t think the Conservative government is particularly interested in what the science says,” Boyd said. “They have an ideologically driven view of Insite. And they respond based on that, not on what the evidence tells them.”

Last year’s ruling by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Ian Pitfield found that an that an Insite drug user’s rights to life and security took precedence over federal drug laws.

"[The law] prevents healthier and safer injection where the risk of mortality resulting from overdose can be managed, and forces the user who is ill from addiction to resort to unhealthy and unsafe injection,” Pitfield wrote, granting Insite an exemption from drug laws until June 30, 2009.

That's when he expected lawmakers to reconcile the apparent conflict between drug laws and drug users' charter rights.

Lawyers for the Canadian government had argued a drug user's charter rights are not violated because Insite users aren't there "for the purpose of treating an illness, but merely to satisfy the craving for an illegal drug."

Pitfield didn't agree.

"Denial of access to Insite and safe injection for the reason stated by Canada amounts to a condemnation of the consumption that led to the addiction in the first place, while ignoring the resulting illness," Pitfield writes in his ruling.

"While there is nothing to be said in favour of the injection of controlled substances that leads to addiction, there is much to be said against denying addicts health services that will ameliorate the effects of their condition."

Pitfield compared the situation to how smokers and alcohol users are treated.

"Society neither condemns the individual who chose to drink or smoke to excess, nor deprives that individual of a range of health care services," he writes. "Management of the harm in those cases is accepted as a community responsibility. I cannot see any rational or logical reason why the approach should be different when dealing with the addiction to narcotics.

" ... Simply stated, I cannot agree with [the Canadian government's] submission that an addict must feed his addiction in an unsafe environment when a safe environment that may lead to rehabilitation is the alternative."