North America’s first legal safe-injection site for addicts will open later this year in Vancouver under a federally funded mandate that will help protect IV drug users from overdoses and diseases spread by needle-sharing. Can you imagine such a compassionate approach south of the border?

(John) Walters, the White House Director of National Drug Control Policy, said in a telephone interview Thursday the program shows an appalling indifference to addiction.

“Drug abuse is a deadly disease,” Walters said. “It’s immoral to allow people to suffer and die from a disease we know how to treat.”

He also called the concept “a lie,” saying “there are no safe injection sites.”

This comes on the heels of Canada’s decriminalization of the possession of small amounts of marijuana, another move that met with irritation from the people in Washington who feel it will jeopardize homeland security®.