Known as the Insite decision, the Supreme Court of Canada held that the federal Health Minister’s decision to withdraw the supervised injection’s facility’ exemption to Section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act was unconstitutional. In the words of the Court, the Minister’s decision was:

arbitrary, undermining the very purposes of the CDSA, which include public health and safety.  It is also grossly disproportionate: the potential denial of health services and the correlative increase in the risk of death and disease to injection drug users outweigh any benefit that might be derived from maintaining an absolute prohibition on possession of illegal drugs on Insite’s premises.

Marjorie Brown represented the British Columbia Nurses’ Union, who intervened on behalf of Insite.