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.