Heroin has become a very popular and widely used drug in the city of Vancouver. Many people are already addicted to heroin, while more and more people begin to use the drug as well. An addiction is really a battle that people fight, and tend to lose as well. If effects every aspect of these people’s lives. From their job to relationships to finances, it can really hurt them in the long run. Addicts eventually run out of heroin and then they run out of money to get more. They result to almost anything when it comes to committing crimes and hurting the people they love and care about. When addicts need a fix, they are usually willing to go to the extreme lengths that it may take to get it. This has left the city of Vancouver with a very high crime rate to deal with, as well as addicts covering the streets.

To help rid the city of the negative effects of having so many heroin users and addicts, they decided to set up clinics called Insite. These clinics are safe zones for heroin addicts to go and receive free heroin. The safe zones provide them with not only heroin, but it gives them clean needles and it gives them a place to feel safe. The thing about these safe zones are exactly what the name says, they are safe. Addicts can go here and shoot up heroin without the fear of being arrested like out on the street. This may be keeping addicts off the street, but it is hard to say how much good this system is really doing.

It may seem insane that the city of Vancouver is actually offering heroin to the people that live there, but it helps them more then we would come to think. They are getting good clean heroin, really they are getting some of the best heroin around instead of getting it off the street; so it is reducing the use of street drugs. While of course heroin is still heroin, the stuff they are getting in the clinics is better then what they were finding on the streets of Vancouver. It is extremely difficult to say that this heroin is better for them, because obviously no heroin is really good for a person, but it is better then street drugs by a long shot. Not only are they receiving some of the best heroin, but they are receiving clean needles which they use to inject the drug. While most addicts tend to live off the streets, they also tend to use dirty or contaminated needles. Contaminated needles could lead to all kinds of problems for these addicts, aside from the problem of using the needles in the first place. Dirty needles can lead to transmitted diseases or sicknesses, which usually just lands these addicts in the hospital. Unsanitary needles are not the only reason these addicts end up in the hospital. Since they are not being monitored in the streets are where ever they had been doing heroin before, there is always the risk of a dangerous overdose, which would also land an addict in the hospital. In the clinics, if an overdose does occur, there are people that are trained to deal with it and make sure the overdose does not end in a death. They do not always have the money to pay for the treatments they need, but they still get treated. Not only are these clinics keeping them off the streets, but essentially they are keeping addicts out of the hospital as well.

With a situation like this, where there is a positive side, there is always a negative side as well. It sounds absurd to give people drugs that can harm them, and basically kill them. The thing that needs to be recognized about these clinics is that their main purpose really is not to get people clean from the drug. For most addicts, that is the goal of course, but for others it is really just containing the addiction. Some addicts are to the point of their addiction that the continuing to use the drug is better then trying to get clean. They have become so used to and accustomed to it that their body needs it to function and live. The clinics are not killing these people by giving them heroin instead of giving them the things they need to get clean, the clinics are just helping these people contain their drug habit the safest and cleanest way possible.

The clinics really help the city of Vancouver by keeping crime rate down because it keeps the people committing the crimes off the streets. Providing them with free heroin and free needles and a safe place to shoot up is preventing them from committing crimes to get their hands on some heroin. It also helps the addicts themselves because it allows them to be a functioning person in society. Getting the heroin from the clinics and having to go there to receive it gives these people their lives back, in a sense. Instead of them waking up wondering where they can get their fix that day and how they will get it or what they have to do to get it, they can wake up and report to the clinic in order to receive their fix. This way, everything is not dedicated to getting heroin anymore because it is being given to them for free. The clinics have definitely improved people’s lives and have helped some get back on their feet. Giving these addicts the free heroin actually does more good then harm in this situation.