Vancouver is a gorgeous city, but what not everyone knows is that it is a port for drugs, including pure heroin. Heroin is a popular drug of choice in the city of Vancouver. It is common that once people begin using heroin, it is difficult for them to stop, as it is for other drugs, but heroin users almost always go back to using. Addicts do what they must in order to receive their fix and that could be anything from using bad drugs or needles to selling themselves for the money or potentially committing crimes to receive that money needed for the drugs themselves.

Due to the heavy and rather dangerous use of heroin in this city, Vancouver decided to experiment with the addicts. They gave some people methadone and they set up something called Insite which is a safe zone for other addicts. These safe zones are somewhere for the addicts to go to receive their doses of heroin, and they are safe from the police and can not be arrested for it. These sites provide the addicts with not only a safe place for them to do heroin, it provides them with clean needles and they now provide these addicts with heroin. The methadone was not nearly as effective as the clinics for users to go to receive heroin.

Vancouver is attempting to treat these addicts but the approach is like nothing I have ever heard of. It does not make much sense on the surface, but what is under the surface of the idea is what matters. They believe they are really helping those with severe addictions because they are giving them a safe, clean, and ‘healthy’ way of getting the heroin these people need to basically function with every day life. Some of these people have addictions that are so bad that they really do need heroin doses to function properly. Vancouver is attempting to help get these people free and sanitary way of taking an illegal drug, but it keeps these people off the street drugs and prevents them from committing crimes in order to get their fix.

It does not seem that what Vancouver is doing for these people, but in the long run it really may have a positive effect on this city and its people all across the board.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/11/25/prescription-heroin-vancouver-salome_n_6215188.html

http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-02-04/vancouver-combats-heroin-giving-its-addicts-best-smack-world