CASE SUMMARY
Supreme Court of Canada orders Minister of Health to exempt supervised injection site from criminal prohibition on drug possession Attorney General v. PHS Community Services Society, 2011 SCC 44 (Supreme Court of Canada)
Sandra Ka Hon Chu analyses the decision by the Supreme Court of Canada which ordered the federal Minister of Health to grant Insite, North America’s first supervised injection site, an extended exemption from the criminal prohibition on drug possession in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA), thus permitting the health facility to continue to operate. In its September 2011 decision, the Court held that while the CDSA provisions were applicable to Insite as valid exercises of the federal government’s criminal law power, the Minister’s refusal to extend Insite's CDSA exemption violated the Canadian constitution.
Citation
Ka Hon Chu,Sandra, 'Supreme Court of Canada orders Minister of Health to exempt supervised injection site from criminal prohibition on drug possession' (2011) 2 Human Rights and Drugs, 65.
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