A new survey finds that 55 percent of Canadians approve of the Insite safe-injection facility for heroin addicts and similar numbers believe it should stay open, even as Canada's conservative government moves to close the program, the Vancouver Sun reported June 7.

The poll by the Canwest News Service and Global National found that a majority of Canadians think Insite is a "good thing" and should not be shut down.

"I think this actually offers the government an opportunity to decide whether it wants to present itself as a law-and-order government, versus a compassionate, sensitive government," said John Wright of the polling firm Ipsos Reid. "It's a tricky issue for them, it's not an overwhelming majority (of Canadian support) and it is fraught with contradictions."

Forty percent of those polled called Insite a "bad thing" while 5 percent did not know or did not answer. Half of the respondents also endorsed replicating the Vancouver program in other parts of Canada, while 44 percent objected.

The poll was conducted shortly after a judge ordered the government to continue to let the program operate under a waiver of Canada's drug laws; the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper is appealing that ruling.