December 14, 2024 • 26 mins
This video is for educational and documentary purposes only. It contains material that may be disturbing or offensive to some viewers, but it is presented in a truthful and non-exploitative manner. The views expressed in this video do not necessarily reflect the views of the creator. Those interviewed in the video do NOT represent either the creator.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Vancouver, British Columbia, the epicenter of Canada's overdose
epidemic and where drug addicts come to die.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I can buy my vent all right up, my doctor, man.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
I've been smoking crack all day.
Speaker 4 (00:11):
It's not not here, it's the drug user. We've gone
so far as to provide drugs to people from a
vending machine.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
In January twenty twenty three, British Columbia became the first
and only province in Canada to decriminalize small amounts of
hard drugs. All drugs are good and valiant body made
in an effort to destigmatize drug use, reduce criminal prosecution,
and encourage drug users to seek out medical help.
Speaker 5 (00:37):
I mean these people are in change. Think you have
no life to begin with? Oh wow, and it's done
in the open.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
One year into the experiment, though, BC drug overdose stats
reached record highs, with seven people dying every day, prompting
the government to recriminalize the use and possession of drugs
in public in April twenty twenty four. But was Canada's
decriminalization experiment a complete failure or was it just missing
a few other critical pieces in this puzzle of solving addiction.
(01:04):
I pulled up to downtown East Hastings at night. You
see if people were still using drugs in public and
what the solution to this epidemic might be. And with
bongs and shisties available on every corner store, I was
curious what some of the business owners in East Hastings
thought about the situation. All right, now, I want to
welcome you to Paraphernalia Bazar. We got shisty's, we got bongs,
(01:27):
we got it all infinite drug paraphernalia to use drugs?
Do a lot of people come in here and buy
bong for like math f and all that sort of thing? Most?
Most probably, how is it safe out here as a
business owner and an employee? Not? The thing is if
you are good to these people, they are good to us.
West Yo, how you doing? Do you get boosted often? Yes?
Did you have to put that door in so people
(01:48):
stole us? Yes?
Speaker 6 (01:49):
It's the boss put that in.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
And is that a new phenomenon or is that new
when the past couple of years? Okay, do a lot
of drug users come in here at buy bong, smoke
some fennel in it? I? Okay? I heard, Do we
got gangsters coming in here buying chisties and look at this,
le'renn expose them? We got thief, thief, thief, thief. Question
for you guys, do you guys get boosted from people often? Sometimes?
(02:14):
Do you see it end up right on the streets afterwards?
Speaker 7 (02:17):
No?
Speaker 1 (02:17):
But they can run it that okay? Do the police
do anything right now?
Speaker 7 (02:21):
They tried to help but yeah, it's a little bit late.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
But tried to help us to ye.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Is it like a daily occurrence? Would you say something?
Speaker 8 (02:28):
While?
Speaker 1 (02:28):
For sure?
Speaker 3 (02:29):
You know it all depends on their activities to show
so much in drugs.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
They don't know what they do.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
This has it gotten better or worse last four or
five years? It's getting worse now once again it is
quite easy to get some drug paraphernalia. And of course
you got the food desert items right here. Got three
cereal boxes for fifteen bucks, knives only twenty five dollars,
all hats only twenty five dollars. Spend fifty on a
bong and torch, get free but tane three but tane
for only ten dollars. How is it running a shop
out here? Is it getting a little shisty sometimes? Or no?
(02:55):
It get crazy. Yeah, are these here to prevent like
a robbery or what?
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Yeah, do you get boosted from often?
Speaker 4 (03:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Yeah, this place is looking pretty dilapidated right now. More bonds,
more bonks, bob as bong as bond as ball as bunks.
It's easier to get a bong out here than it
is a monster. And not to mention needles, foil and
anything else you might need to support your crippling drug addiction.
It's almost like nonprofits and NGOs are incentivized to help
keep these people addicted to drugs rather than guiding them
(03:23):
towards rehabilitation and sobriety. And I've been smoking crack all.
It's not hearing.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
It's the drug user.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
My question though, is produce the harm, keep that person alive.
But if there's no emphasis on helping that person detox,
getting the rehab at some point, if you can get
acutely poisoned much faster at something like this, then maybe
alcohol is my argument. Government's not going out handing out
vodka shots.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Rights didn't face these problems. And I'm fifty six years old.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah that looks crazy. It is.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
I don't want to go after deep end on conspiracy theories.
Please do the government controls the drug trade and Noisehounse.
You go back to the East India Trading Company and
the opium mooie. You know what we did to India
and China back in the day. What the which the
empire did? But why would they ever give up the
most valuable commodity.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
On the planet.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Do you think this is the reverse of the opium War.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
It's interesting to consider China as the number one supplier
of fentanyl. I don't know that that's true, though. It's
good propaganda. So let's let's make people like me the
bad guy. Let's make people like them the bad guy.
Let's make the unwanted middle children the bad guy. Yeah,
let's let's discriminate against them junkies homelessly. They'd rather complain
about the ship in the finale then give a supportive body.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I get your point, right, Why discriminate these people? Why
stigmatize the people. But it seems questionable to not stigmatize
the drug use, right? Why not sigmatize the activity that's
causing people to die?
Speaker 3 (04:37):
You know, well, we're supporting law enforcement agendas by electing
these governments and allowing these governments to pursue law enforcement
agendas that criminalize drugs, and while doing so, we've created
a black market economy that enables terrorists.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
What do we have right here? Is this a little
boosted market here? No judgment, curious, no.
Speaker 7 (04:53):
Stuff that I own? And well, yeah, because I had
to come up with some money to help somebody. She's
in big, big trouble, and I've come up with now
sixty five dollars, okay, and she needs seventy.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
She's paying off debt side, So you bet you how
common is that? Because I hear it, Well, for Wednesday,
that's when you get checked in, like.
Speaker 7 (05:11):
If you get debts and well for you don't get
the pain. Yeah, they give you some time, right and
if you pay one third of it or something that
she is, I'm helping her. She's going to get an
extension of time and she can go sell her ass.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
From whatever you know, gets on her body.
Speaker 7 (05:24):
Yeah, selling your body or whatever. Yeah, I told you
I'd give it to eighty long.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
We're gonna do. We're to make it seventy. Appreciate you,
thank you man. How are the streets these days? What's
going on? A lot of gang running it that's what
we hear a lot of Montreal East Coast gangs have
come in no noble the other ones has been here
role along, so so local gangs is what you're seeing.
That's why I see. Is it safe out here as
long as you don't have big debt that you haven't
skipped on? How long have you lived out in the streets?
If I'm asked, I'm not. I live in oh SR. Yeah.
(05:49):
How is the SRO? We've heard a lot of different things.
I didn't really crappy one for like sixteen years. I
hate it. It was very unhealthy, unclean. I'm in a cleaner
one now, but it's got other crap. The social issues
are a little more of an issue.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
The safe actually side doesn't do nothing. You know, they
say we wanted to save these people harm reduction, army
reduction and save their life. You know, they have no
life to begin with. I mean, these people are insane.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
So you think that the government's investing in people who
are too far gone? Is that a recovery program basis
on detox rehab treatment? Do you have to ingest on this?
You know, okay?
Speaker 5 (06:21):
And get rid of they injection site whatever you called it.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Or peking which as we speak. Some man is uh
pulling out the torch and he is going to light
some meth fentanyl, heroin maybe.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
Oh wow, And it's done in the open. But it's
exactly legal in a way, you know.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, apparently it's been recriminalized though, oh is all right,
But do you still do exactly and they don't do anything.
So I'm asking folks their thoughts if the sort of
harm reduction is helping a hurting it's kind.
Speaker 6 (06:48):
Of enabling in a way, but at the same time
it is Uh, it could be run differently, but way
it would help if it.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Was done properly, said us. Do you use anything.
Speaker 6 (06:57):
Fentanyl and a little bit of math here and there?
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Small eat every day? Though? How many times have you died?
B that's our question, man, it's a crazy question. But
every time I ask it, de Fenel user the answer
two threes man, thousands.
Speaker 6 (07:10):
Yeah, not just from dope, from everything in my life.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Man, it can be done to fix all this. Do
you think if someone offered you like yo, you want
to get in detox right now? You take them up
on it? No, because I don't think that works. Man.
You have to be ready. It's it's your decision.
Speaker 6 (07:23):
You're like, yeah, you can't help anybody who doesn't want
to help themselves, right.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Do you think the housing first approach works, like get
in the house? Have you seen a lot of people
overdose eeing those houses and SROs they've been given.
Speaker 6 (07:32):
I live in the most down on Hasting's Main, right
in the center of it all, and we've had a few.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
I mean in the last two years.
Speaker 6 (07:39):
It's going to happen anywhere the drugs are, right, Yeah, oh.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Well, the drug problem is really bad.
Speaker 9 (07:43):
I think there's always been somewhat of a problem, but
since twenty sixteen it's become an epidemic and it doesn't
seem to be getting much better.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Hopefully it will. Do you think the harm reduction has
helped people get off the drugs out here? Or is
it kind of worsen the situation?
Speaker 8 (07:57):
I don't know. A man sixty one happened the other right,
I'm come from a city where the heart reduction is
few and far between, and that doesn't help a scene either. Right,
So it's like it is there over abundance maybe, but
when it comes to like quick access, quick accesses, quick
access right there, you're just gonna use Yeah, No, one's
getting clean and safe thanness they want to right.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Do you know many people who use safe injection sites
out here? Are that's pretty good? Or I've worked that
one yet? How was that experience? That's good?
Speaker 8 (08:17):
I find those to be very helpful, especially for the
type of drugs that get used down yet a heavy
set up type drugs. To have a safe injection site's
huge for females. I would imagine.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Is this a boosted little setup we have here? Absolutely?
You know, this is all my personal stuff.
Speaker 6 (08:29):
I used to do that until it became hard on
my heart.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
What are your thoughts on the harm reduction out here?
Is that working or is it not working?
Speaker 6 (08:36):
It's a good thing. Actually, I couldn't imagine living sharing
needles and getting by that way.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
It's how long you've been out here in the East
stay six my whole life.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
It's born in New West, which is where I come
to sin.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
And Disneyland of drugs out here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Has
it always been that way since you've been here?
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Two different degrees?
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Fifteen years ago it was like kind of light hard
and heroin and uh no, it's hell pantanyl truly, I
don't think it's healthy for you. Yeah, it's really bad.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
We've seen alaxen and trunk out here too.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, and I'm crippled. They can barely walk now because
of that usin.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Your back hurt. Does not look comfortable for.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Me to go to your three blocks. It takes an hour.
It's not fun.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Did you know that this would be the side effect
the backbending? Like, if there's any kid out there who's
trying fentyl, would you recommend they tried axen or trank?
Speaker 8 (09:27):
No?
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Never.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
How many times have you died out here?
Speaker 2 (09:30):
I've got a weird thing. I'm really immune to run.
I haven't I don't overdose. I've been doing it for
thirty years.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
What's the biggest choice out here right now? Fenal?
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Probably spending all and coke and speed, and it's crackheads everywhere.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Yeah, yeah, I guess My last question is have you
had any friends or family die out here? You've seen?
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Oh yeah, the building I live in. Every week, somebody's
bumping off a SR. Yeah, it's hell's. I got a
drug dealer and a hooker girlfriend, and I live in
between the two of them.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
You wanted to get sober and an SRO. Would it
be close to impossible? You think yeah, just because you're
close to so many active drug users and drug dealers exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, down here, you know, you can't get it that way.
Your doctor will give you the drug. I can buy
my vent and all right off my doctor.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
More people out here using drugs since like twenty sixteen or.
Speaker 10 (10:21):
Yeah, a lot less people out here using drugs because
a lot of people have died with the fentanyl crisis
and all that has gone on. You can od and
die from taking a dragon, where with heroin that would
hardly ever put you down by dragon. You mean, when
you smoke like a little bit on tinfoil, it's right
over there.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
They gave me some foil and some needles.
Speaker 10 (10:39):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's like it's called the harm reduction.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Yeah, I mean it's helping the situation or helping more
people die.
Speaker 10 (10:45):
Actually, no, that's the argument, right. You can be looked
at it either way, and it's people are dying here.
It's escalating, and that's kind of what the dark side
of what's going on here in the past couple of
years is what's happening. And I don't believe that the
police are purposely trying to go out and kill people,
but they're looking the other way while people are dying
and allowing it to happen.
Speaker 9 (11:06):
But let me tell you the thing that people don't
know about this area. It's really important my face isn't
shown because there's lots of extortion. The women are actually
the people that run this street, and they're all very
mentally ill and they're very erratic, and you don't know
if you're just gonna get clipped off the side of
the head when you're just sitting there money in your
own business. I got this beaten out of me. It
was a couple of days before welfare day. It was
(11:27):
around eight pm. I was walking through that tinnel thing
over there, and she just beat the living shit out
of me, like my eyes for a well, she wanted
my bag, and she's been harassing me for months and
months because she's a lesbian. I don't know what her
deal was. And I was black and covered in blood,
and then the cops were sitting right there and I
was running to them, yelling, please help, please help, covered
(11:48):
in blood. It's stung so backcau the blood and the tears,
it really hurts, and the cop is like, well, we're
here on something else. I'm like, well, I don't.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Have a phone.
Speaker 9 (11:56):
I'm broke welfare. It won't pay me for the past
three months. It's a fair are dangerous. You shoplift and
you try to not hurt people as much as you can.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Right as I walked through alleys full of limp corpses
hi other little pop up shops full of stolen goods,
we had a little Chinatown market right here. We had
some wares tically the wares and the occasional rat yo
double rat am. You know you're in it when you
got rats. You have to wonder how any of this
is really compassion. Have we as a society just given
(12:24):
up on these people and decided that giving them the
tools they need to overdose until they finally die is
the best option available Before I go deeper into East Hastings.
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Back to the streets question for you, boss, you lightened
fent fent? Yeah, all right, I lightened the little fent
to end the night out here, hopefully not permanently. What
(13:50):
are you spoking at?
Speaker 4 (13:51):
What is it?
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Think? As anyone with an IQ over eighty that's not
in denial can realize that the infinite number of bombs
available for sale on nearly every core or of East
Hastings are being used for mostly anything butt weed or tobacco.
You understand that East Hastings is a black hole. It
gives drug addicts everything they need to destroy themselves, and
it was clear that the recriminalization of drug use and
(14:12):
possession in public did not seem to observably reduce any
of it. I'm here with that, I'm I'm there. How
long you've been out here?
Speaker 7 (14:20):
We've here Grenville fifty sixteen years?
Speaker 10 (14:21):
Sold?
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Has it gotten better or war since you first got here?
I'm so bosted the.
Speaker 10 (14:30):
Old pretty bad guy here man.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
It's mostly fentol. It's cause a lot of problems out.
Speaker 10 (14:36):
Here, I really, honestly and honestly not only finding a
lot of lazy parenting too.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Spake your kids more often put on life.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
It is.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
We see these bongs everywhere too. Are most people buying
the bongs and using it to spoke like fentanyl, heroin?
That sort of thing? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
His thoughts on the harm reduction out here? Is it
helping it hurting folks?
Speaker 10 (14:52):
Fifty fifty? I think enabling people at the same time
people the same time.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
I think a lot of lives, but you know they
hurt a lot of lives too, Right, what's up?
Speaker 1 (15:01):
We're his interviewing folks there? Bad news?
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Are right here? Or just in general?
Speaker 4 (15:06):
Just okay?
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Yeah, we're just taking sure everyone school with them before choice?
What do you mean? Peace loving guys?
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Me there?
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Okay, we're chilling. We're trying to talk about harm reduction
and if it's benefiting or hurting folks out here. But
I think low key, he's gonna kill us. Maybe if
we keep.
Speaker 11 (15:21):
Going it is he chill, then he won't do that.
He can't do that because I won't let.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Him across the street. I see insight right here? Right?
Is that a good thing or a bad thing? What
do you think?
Speaker 11 (15:29):
Great thing? Ever since it's been up, many lives have
been saved. I haven't heard of anybody ever od and
pass away in there yet.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
I wishables and enjoy use or is it mostly all
good and and helps keep people safe when they do OD?
Speaker 11 (15:41):
I think it's a bit of both. It is enabling
in some it does, right. I came down here when
I was nineteen, and I remember I used to visit
my mom down here. I've seeing all the parties happening everything,
And I saw all the parties in my mom had.
And as soon as I was nineteen, I was only
supposed to go to the dentist here my appointments in
the afternoon. I cut here in the morning and I
gotta go meet my mom's friends. And I have been
(16:02):
here ever since I was nineteen and never left. My
dad passed away down here.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah, drink them.
Speaker 11 (16:07):
They tried doing harm reduction for alcohol as well, you know,
as seriously it has saved lives. I wish there was
a lot more that people would understand, you.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Know, And you think it was misunderstood right now that
it's saving lives. Is it too easy to get drugs
out here right now? Or is it You're going to
get them somehow, Might as well make it easy and
make it safe. What do you think it's easy?
Speaker 11 (16:24):
And it's not easy down here for thirty years. You
know you've done here thirty years.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
You earn your.
Speaker 11 (16:28):
Respect down here. Back in the day then, people never
used to steal off each other down here. Anybody that
did that, they were kicked off the block then. But no,
it's just crazy. But I really want to get cleaned
myself and beat down here because I went to school
to be addiction time. So you and I had two
times and two rewrites and know what happened with topoma.
I relapsed. That was when my mom passed away. And
I'm going to get cleaned and beat on here and
(16:49):
help other people.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Have you asked for detox?
Speaker 4 (16:52):
No?
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Yeah, you're not ready yet.
Speaker 11 (16:53):
I'm pretty close to me. Yeah, we're standing straight. I'm
not going I mean over.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
In your room. Yeah. Did I do the drink?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Yeah? And I want to you know, you.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Want to get neared in.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
You know. I mean I hope you get sober one day,
if that's what you want. You know, I think I
don't want to see you die. You don't want to
die on here? Yeah. I think your story can inspire
a lot of people too. Yeah. No, I believe in Neil.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
But you feel like you know specific.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yeah, I know it's it's it's a crazy world, right,
and yeah, you're gonna do it. Yeah. I want you
to get clean. I want you to get sober. I
don't want you to die. I just met you, but
you see, my sweetheart, that's all right. Well, the harm
reduction is theoretically here to help prevent overdoses, save lives,
and reduce the spread of disease. I can't help but
(17:45):
wonder if in Vancouver's attempt to copy the Portuguese model
of handling drug addiction, they've forgotten that harm reduction is
a means to an end, one of many tools used
in an incentive based approach to help encourage drug addicts
to reintegrate into society, get a job, reading their addiction
as a health crisis rather than criminal activity. If only
there was a highly qualified doctor who has studied this
(18:06):
issue for the last twenty years that might have a
practical solution to treating Canada's drug epidemic. I want you
to tell me about the research you were conducting, how
it eventually was ordered to be destroyed, and what you
found throughout that research.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
That first mentor that I mentioned Bruce Alexander, people who
know addiction will likely link his name with some studies
that were known as the rat Park experiments. What Bruce
showed in that work and it had a big influence
on me, was that rats living in isolation given a
choice between morphine and chow, tended to consume quite a
bit of morphine. But if you took those same rats,
(18:39):
even after they became dependent on morphine in isolation, and
you move them into a park like setting where they're
living with other rats and they've got lots of stuff
to do, they will switch their preference and instead orient
to chow. It's like a natural intervention. Part of what
inspired this was when Vietnam veterans had been identified in
the seventies as addicted to heroin. The nutshell story is
(19:01):
that they returned and very few of them had ongoing
problems with heroin, and very few of them who made
that change access any form of treatment. Again, it was
the result of the environment. And even if they have
access to morphine, you expose them literally to better things
to do. That's an involuntary type of intervention. What about
intervening voluntarily? Could we simply go up to people on
(19:22):
the street and say, Hey, you're clearly struggling with a
bunch of things. I've got some things to offer you.
Does any of that sound good. One of the studies
that we did along these lines involved offering people choices
of housing in intact buildings where the sort of the
social mix was already established. It was people paying rent
going about their lives, and our responsibilities was to make
(19:43):
sure that our clients who moved in were sufficiently supported
so that they would be successful.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
How did that play out?
Speaker 4 (19:48):
People with clinical backgrounds were some of the most pessimistic
that this is not going to work. People are not
going to change landlords aren't going to rent to you.
If they do, they're going to regret it. Again. This
is like from the people who are supposed to be helping.
But we went ahead and did it and it was successful.
We randomly assigned people who had been homeless turned out
(20:09):
for about ten years. We randomly assigned people to receive
usual care, which here in BC costs about fifty five
thousand dollars per person per year. Shelters Street Outreach supports
those kinds of things. Then we randomly assign people to
the intervention I described, where they're given choices and responsibilities
and support. A third condition was people being housed all together.
(20:31):
We had a one hundred and seven people all living together
in the same building with a team on site.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
That's kind of like the SROs right.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
It's SROs on steroids. Though, what if we were to
do as we did, shift the incentives, shift the things
on the positive side of the ledger that would be
incentives for change. So, yes, you can move into this apartment,
but if you're going to move into this, you can't
be having dealers and other people over to the apartment
to use drugs because that's going to get you in
trouble with your neighbors. Over time, they start to think about, well, gosh,
(21:02):
you know, returning to work. One of the things that
struck me as most poignant was when people would think
about reconnecting with their kids, and those kinds of thoughts
about my potential future self are closely related to people's
motivation for changing their use of drugs. If people are arrested,
brought before a judge, and are not presented with choices,
(21:23):
but are instead say look, you can either go to jail, sure,
or you can go through this intensive treatment program. It's
going to take about a year, and you must remain
drug free throughout. They really need to be separated from
drug using and the drug scene urgently and immediately in
order to have a good chance of survival.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
What did the government do in response to your research,
which seems like a solution to a lot of these problems.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
This research built up over twenty years. Several investigators, a
lot of PhD trainees developed their research and adding to
this pool of data, and we got to the point
of drawing it all together and saying, we put together
a proposal to begin scaling up effective supports for people
(22:07):
in multiple regions of BC and evaluating what we were doing,
and we presented that to the government. And what I
didn't know when I made this recommendation this presentation, is
that the government had already committed financially to a massive
expansion of housing people all together and providing them with drugs.
(22:27):
Because I'm an honest person and I thought I was
speaking to people with integrity, I said, one of the
things we're going to be able to do with this
updated information is evaluate some of the public services that
have been operating through the COVID years during which we
had expanded this model of congregating people together. One week
after or I made this presentation to Deputy ministers, we
(22:51):
received a letter from the government ordering us to immediately
destroy all of the data and sanitize hard drives.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Twenty years of work down the drain.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Well the massive data holdings covering like about a quarter
of a million people that would.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Have effectively helped anyone in this situation.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Currently here in BC, our government committed very heavily to
a frontier in the use of pharmaceuticals, and this is
taking the model of prescribing drugs and decoupling it from
any kind of a long term program or plan that's
designed to help people socially reintegrate. We've gone so far
(23:30):
as to provide drugs to people from a vending machine
type of device right here. Sava and the government wrote
about this as the beginning of a kind of a
global revolution. So far, the results are as predicted terrible.
If all you do is provide someone who's homeless, struggling,
psychologically unemployed, estranged painfully from their families with an alternative
(23:52):
source of medication, we call that treatment, it's never going
to achieve any kind of meaningful change. The Portuguese were
already on top of this, and because they built out
the system prior to enacting their decriminalization step, they were
able to engage people through dissuasion commissions in robust forms
of support that got them out of the settings where
(24:13):
they were living in strife and at risk. Because of
how they went about it, they did not need to
introduce a single drug consumption site. If what you're chiefly
concerned about is reducing the transmission of diseases, then a
consumption site will help achieve that. But that's pretty much
all it's going to be achieve.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
And here's what they look like inside a sorry, yeah
you want to. I don't know if I feel fully.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Okay with your hand?
Speaker 1 (24:41):
What do you call yourself?
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Your life?
Speaker 1 (24:49):
You do not do this?
Speaker 8 (24:50):
Okay?
Speaker 11 (24:53):
The people will be doing something okay, and then you
gotta go.
Speaker 9 (24:57):
That's what you get.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
We don't do that.
Speaker 8 (25:05):
You're welcome to the table if you want.
Speaker 11 (25:07):
We have a table company.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
I think harm reduction is an incredibly powerful and essential
component of how we structure our system, how we engage people.
Recognize that harm reduction as a bottom up, interpersonal way
of helping people is an essential practice. But it's got
to lead to the ultimate goal of wellness. It's become
(25:32):
linked with crazy stuff like drug use. Is it's not
an addiction. We need to defend people's bodily autonomy rather than.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
A means to an end. It became the end in
and of itself.
Speaker 4 (25:44):
Became an end in itself, and people became protective of that.
Then you get this kind of opportunity for predation. So
this is economic predation. Tell me about some of these
bad actors, but they're only they're only bad actors. If
you have a credit view of capitalism.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
In what sense do you say that?
Speaker 4 (26:03):
Well, for instance, if you and I are running a
global pharmaceutical company and we look around you know, US
and other countries, and we see that there are these
mandatory disclosure laws, Sunshine Act and things like that about
you know, if we were to pay doctors to do things.
But if we look up in Canada, we don't have
laws like that. Okay, it's voluntary. When we have people
who are currently in crisis, as we do now, we
(26:25):
need to fast track everything that we know we can
do to enable social reintegration and connecting people with lives
that inherently matter to them, are inherently valuable. We're already
committed to a model that we know is not performing well.
It's not only the scientific evidence, it's the evidence in
(26:46):
our communities. They'll go for a walk, go for a walk.
It's clearly not working right. Let's have the courage to
admit that we've we've made some mistakes, and let's have
the courage to shift our direction.
This is Vancouver, British Columbia, the epicenter of Canada's overdose
epidemic and where drug addicts come to die.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I can buy my vent all right up, my doctor, man.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
I've been smoking crack all day.
Speaker 4 (00:11):
It's not not here, it's the drug user. We've gone
so far as to provide drugs to people from a
vending machine.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
In January twenty twenty three, British Columbia became the first
and only province in Canada to decriminalize small amounts of
hard drugs. All drugs are good and valiant body made
in an effort to destigmatize drug use, reduce criminal prosecution,
and encourage drug users to seek out medical help.
Speaker 5 (00:37):
I mean these people are in change. Think you have
no life to begin with? Oh wow, and it's done
in the open.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
One year into the experiment, though, BC drug overdose stats
reached record highs, with seven people dying every day, prompting
the government to recriminalize the use and possession of drugs
in public in April twenty twenty four. But was Canada's
decriminalization experiment a complete failure or was it just missing
a few other critical pieces in this puzzle of solving addiction.
(01:04):
I pulled up to downtown East Hastings at night. You
see if people were still using drugs in public and
what the solution to this epidemic might be. And with
bongs and shisties available on every corner store, I was
curious what some of the business owners in East Hastings
thought about the situation. All right, now, I want to
welcome you to Paraphernalia Bazar. We got shisty's, we got bongs,
(01:27):
we got it all infinite drug paraphernalia to use drugs?
Do a lot of people come in here and buy
bong for like math f and all that sort of thing? Most?
Most probably, how is it safe out here as a
business owner and an employee? Not? The thing is if
you are good to these people, they are good to us.
West Yo, how you doing? Do you get boosted often? Yes?
Did you have to put that door in so people
(01:48):
stole us? Yes?
Speaker 6 (01:49):
It's the boss put that in.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
And is that a new phenomenon or is that new
when the past couple of years? Okay, do a lot
of drug users come in here at buy bong, smoke
some fennel in it? I? Okay? I heard, Do we
got gangsters coming in here buying chisties and look at this,
le'renn expose them? We got thief, thief, thief, thief. Question
for you guys, do you guys get boosted from people often? Sometimes?
(02:14):
Do you see it end up right on the streets afterwards?
Speaker 7 (02:17):
No?
Speaker 1 (02:17):
But they can run it that okay? Do the police
do anything right now?
Speaker 7 (02:21):
They tried to help but yeah, it's a little bit late.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
But tried to help us to ye.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Is it like a daily occurrence? Would you say something?
Speaker 8 (02:28):
While?
Speaker 1 (02:28):
For sure?
Speaker 3 (02:29):
You know it all depends on their activities to show
so much in drugs.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
They don't know what they do.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
This has it gotten better or worse last four or
five years? It's getting worse now once again it is
quite easy to get some drug paraphernalia. And of course
you got the food desert items right here. Got three
cereal boxes for fifteen bucks, knives only twenty five dollars,
all hats only twenty five dollars. Spend fifty on a
bong and torch, get free but tane three but tane
for only ten dollars. How is it running a shop
out here? Is it getting a little shisty sometimes? Or no?
(02:55):
It get crazy. Yeah, are these here to prevent like
a robbery or what?
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Yeah, do you get boosted from often?
Speaker 4 (03:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Yeah, this place is looking pretty dilapidated right now. More bonds,
more bonks, bob as bong as bond as ball as bunks.
It's easier to get a bong out here than it
is a monster. And not to mention needles, foil and
anything else you might need to support your crippling drug addiction.
It's almost like nonprofits and NGOs are incentivized to help
keep these people addicted to drugs rather than guiding them
(03:23):
towards rehabilitation and sobriety. And I've been smoking crack all.
It's not hearing.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
It's the drug user.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
My question though, is produce the harm, keep that person alive.
But if there's no emphasis on helping that person detox,
getting the rehab at some point, if you can get
acutely poisoned much faster at something like this, then maybe
alcohol is my argument. Government's not going out handing out
vodka shots.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Rights didn't face these problems. And I'm fifty six years old.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah that looks crazy. It is.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
I don't want to go after deep end on conspiracy theories.
Please do the government controls the drug trade and Noisehounse.
You go back to the East India Trading Company and
the opium mooie. You know what we did to India
and China back in the day. What the which the
empire did? But why would they ever give up the
most valuable commodity.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
On the planet.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Do you think this is the reverse of the opium War.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
It's interesting to consider China as the number one supplier
of fentanyl. I don't know that that's true, though. It's
good propaganda. So let's let's make people like me the
bad guy. Let's make people like them the bad guy.
Let's make the unwanted middle children the bad guy. Yeah,
let's let's discriminate against them junkies homelessly. They'd rather complain
about the ship in the finale then give a supportive body.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I get your point, right, Why discriminate these people? Why
stigmatize the people. But it seems questionable to not stigmatize
the drug use, right? Why not sigmatize the activity that's
causing people to die?
Speaker 3 (04:37):
You know, well, we're supporting law enforcement agendas by electing
these governments and allowing these governments to pursue law enforcement
agendas that criminalize drugs, and while doing so, we've created
a black market economy that enables terrorists.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
What do we have right here? Is this a little
boosted market here? No judgment, curious, no.
Speaker 7 (04:53):
Stuff that I own? And well, yeah, because I had
to come up with some money to help somebody. She's
in big, big trouble, and I've come up with now
sixty five dollars, okay, and she needs seventy.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
She's paying off debt side, So you bet you how
common is that? Because I hear it, Well, for Wednesday,
that's when you get checked in, like.
Speaker 7 (05:11):
If you get debts and well for you don't get
the pain. Yeah, they give you some time, right and
if you pay one third of it or something that
she is, I'm helping her. She's going to get an
extension of time and she can go sell her ass.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
From whatever you know, gets on her body.
Speaker 7 (05:24):
Yeah, selling your body or whatever. Yeah, I told you
I'd give it to eighty long.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
We're gonna do. We're to make it seventy. Appreciate you,
thank you man. How are the streets these days? What's
going on? A lot of gang running it that's what
we hear a lot of Montreal East Coast gangs have
come in no noble the other ones has been here
role along, so so local gangs is what you're seeing.
That's why I see. Is it safe out here as
long as you don't have big debt that you haven't
skipped on? How long have you lived out in the streets?
If I'm asked, I'm not. I live in oh SR. Yeah.
(05:49):
How is the SRO? We've heard a lot of different things.
I didn't really crappy one for like sixteen years. I
hate it. It was very unhealthy, unclean. I'm in a cleaner
one now, but it's got other crap. The social issues
are a little more of an issue.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
The safe actually side doesn't do nothing. You know, they
say we wanted to save these people harm reduction, army
reduction and save their life. You know, they have no
life to begin with. I mean, these people are insane.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
So you think that the government's investing in people who
are too far gone? Is that a recovery program basis
on detox rehab treatment? Do you have to ingest on this?
You know, okay?
Speaker 5 (06:21):
And get rid of they injection site whatever you called it.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Or peking which as we speak. Some man is uh
pulling out the torch and he is going to light
some meth fentanyl, heroin maybe.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
Oh wow, And it's done in the open. But it's
exactly legal in a way, you know.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, apparently it's been recriminalized though, oh is all right,
But do you still do exactly and they don't do anything.
So I'm asking folks their thoughts if the sort of
harm reduction is helping a hurting it's kind.
Speaker 6 (06:48):
Of enabling in a way, but at the same time
it is Uh, it could be run differently, but way
it would help if it.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Was done properly, said us. Do you use anything.
Speaker 6 (06:57):
Fentanyl and a little bit of math here and there?
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Small eat every day? Though? How many times have you died?
B that's our question, man, it's a crazy question. But
every time I ask it, de Fenel user the answer
two threes man, thousands.
Speaker 6 (07:10):
Yeah, not just from dope, from everything in my life.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Man, it can be done to fix all this. Do
you think if someone offered you like yo, you want
to get in detox right now? You take them up
on it? No, because I don't think that works. Man.
You have to be ready. It's it's your decision.
Speaker 6 (07:23):
You're like, yeah, you can't help anybody who doesn't want
to help themselves, right.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Do you think the housing first approach works, like get
in the house? Have you seen a lot of people
overdose eeing those houses and SROs they've been given.
Speaker 6 (07:32):
I live in the most down on Hasting's Main, right
in the center of it all, and we've had a few.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
I mean in the last two years.
Speaker 6 (07:39):
It's going to happen anywhere the drugs are, right, Yeah, oh.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Well, the drug problem is really bad.
Speaker 9 (07:43):
I think there's always been somewhat of a problem, but
since twenty sixteen it's become an epidemic and it doesn't
seem to be getting much better.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Hopefully it will. Do you think the harm reduction has
helped people get off the drugs out here? Or is
it kind of worsen the situation?
Speaker 8 (07:57):
I don't know. A man sixty one happened the other right,
I'm come from a city where the heart reduction is
few and far between, and that doesn't help a scene either. Right,
So it's like it is there over abundance maybe, but
when it comes to like quick access, quick accesses, quick
access right there, you're just gonna use Yeah, No, one's
getting clean and safe thanness they want to right.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Do you know many people who use safe injection sites
out here? Are that's pretty good? Or I've worked that
one yet? How was that experience? That's good?
Speaker 8 (08:17):
I find those to be very helpful, especially for the
type of drugs that get used down yet a heavy
set up type drugs. To have a safe injection site's
huge for females. I would imagine.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Is this a boosted little setup we have here? Absolutely?
You know, this is all my personal stuff.
Speaker 6 (08:29):
I used to do that until it became hard on
my heart.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
What are your thoughts on the harm reduction out here?
Is that working or is it not working?
Speaker 6 (08:36):
It's a good thing. Actually, I couldn't imagine living sharing
needles and getting by that way.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
It's how long you've been out here in the East
stay six my whole life.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
It's born in New West, which is where I come
to sin.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
And Disneyland of drugs out here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Has
it always been that way since you've been here?
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Two different degrees?
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Fifteen years ago it was like kind of light hard
and heroin and uh no, it's hell pantanyl truly, I
don't think it's healthy for you. Yeah, it's really bad.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
We've seen alaxen and trunk out here too.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, and I'm crippled. They can barely walk now because
of that usin.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Your back hurt. Does not look comfortable for.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Me to go to your three blocks. It takes an hour.
It's not fun.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Did you know that this would be the side effect
the backbending? Like, if there's any kid out there who's
trying fentyl, would you recommend they tried axen or trank?
Speaker 8 (09:27):
No?
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Never.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
How many times have you died out here?
Speaker 2 (09:30):
I've got a weird thing. I'm really immune to run.
I haven't I don't overdose. I've been doing it for
thirty years.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
What's the biggest choice out here right now? Fenal?
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Probably spending all and coke and speed, and it's crackheads everywhere.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Yeah, yeah, I guess My last question is have you
had any friends or family die out here? You've seen?
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Oh yeah, the building I live in. Every week, somebody's
bumping off a SR. Yeah, it's hell's. I got a
drug dealer and a hooker girlfriend, and I live in
between the two of them.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
You wanted to get sober and an SRO. Would it
be close to impossible? You think yeah, just because you're
close to so many active drug users and drug dealers exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, down here, you know, you can't get it that way.
Your doctor will give you the drug. I can buy
my vent and all right off my doctor.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
More people out here using drugs since like twenty sixteen or.
Speaker 10 (10:21):
Yeah, a lot less people out here using drugs because
a lot of people have died with the fentanyl crisis
and all that has gone on. You can od and
die from taking a dragon, where with heroin that would
hardly ever put you down by dragon. You mean, when
you smoke like a little bit on tinfoil, it's right
over there.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
They gave me some foil and some needles.
Speaker 10 (10:39):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's like it's called the harm reduction.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Yeah, I mean it's helping the situation or helping more
people die.
Speaker 10 (10:45):
Actually, no, that's the argument, right. You can be looked
at it either way, and it's people are dying here.
It's escalating, and that's kind of what the dark side
of what's going on here in the past couple of
years is what's happening. And I don't believe that the
police are purposely trying to go out and kill people,
but they're looking the other way while people are dying
and allowing it to happen.
Speaker 9 (11:06):
But let me tell you the thing that people don't
know about this area. It's really important my face isn't
shown because there's lots of extortion. The women are actually
the people that run this street, and they're all very
mentally ill and they're very erratic, and you don't know
if you're just gonna get clipped off the side of
the head when you're just sitting there money in your
own business. I got this beaten out of me. It
was a couple of days before welfare day. It was
(11:27):
around eight pm. I was walking through that tinnel thing
over there, and she just beat the living shit out
of me, like my eyes for a well, she wanted
my bag, and she's been harassing me for months and
months because she's a lesbian. I don't know what her
deal was. And I was black and covered in blood,
and then the cops were sitting right there and I
was running to them, yelling, please help, please help, covered
(11:48):
in blood. It's stung so backcau the blood and the tears,
it really hurts, and the cop is like, well, we're
here on something else. I'm like, well, I don't.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Have a phone.
Speaker 9 (11:56):
I'm broke welfare. It won't pay me for the past
three months. It's a fair are dangerous. You shoplift and
you try to not hurt people as much as you can.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Right as I walked through alleys full of limp corpses
hi other little pop up shops full of stolen goods,
we had a little Chinatown market right here. We had
some wares tically the wares and the occasional rat yo
double rat am. You know you're in it when you
got rats. You have to wonder how any of this
is really compassion. Have we as a society just given
(12:24):
up on these people and decided that giving them the
tools they need to overdose until they finally die is
the best option available Before I go deeper into East Hastings.
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(12:44):
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Back to the streets question for you, boss, you lightened
fent fent? Yeah, all right, I lightened the little fent
to end the night out here, hopefully not permanently. What
(13:50):
are you spoking at?
Speaker 4 (13:51):
What is it?
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Think? As anyone with an IQ over eighty that's not
in denial can realize that the infinite number of bombs
available for sale on nearly every core or of East
Hastings are being used for mostly anything butt weed or tobacco.
You understand that East Hastings is a black hole. It
gives drug addicts everything they need to destroy themselves, and
it was clear that the recriminalization of drug use and
(14:12):
possession in public did not seem to observably reduce any
of it. I'm here with that, I'm I'm there. How
long you've been out here?
Speaker 7 (14:20):
We've here Grenville fifty sixteen years?
Speaker 10 (14:21):
Sold?
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Has it gotten better or war since you first got here?
I'm so bosted the.
Speaker 10 (14:30):
Old pretty bad guy here man.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
It's mostly fentol. It's cause a lot of problems out.
Speaker 10 (14:36):
Here, I really, honestly and honestly not only finding a
lot of lazy parenting too.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Spake your kids more often put on life.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
It is.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
We see these bongs everywhere too. Are most people buying
the bongs and using it to spoke like fentanyl, heroin?
That sort of thing? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
His thoughts on the harm reduction out here? Is it
helping it hurting folks?
Speaker 10 (14:52):
Fifty fifty? I think enabling people at the same time
people the same time.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
I think a lot of lives, but you know they
hurt a lot of lives too, Right, what's up?
Speaker 1 (15:01):
We're his interviewing folks there? Bad news?
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Are right here? Or just in general?
Speaker 4 (15:06):
Just okay?
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Yeah, we're just taking sure everyone school with them before choice?
What do you mean? Peace loving guys?
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Me there?
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Okay, we're chilling. We're trying to talk about harm reduction
and if it's benefiting or hurting folks out here. But
I think low key, he's gonna kill us. Maybe if
we keep.
Speaker 11 (15:21):
Going it is he chill, then he won't do that.
He can't do that because I won't let.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Him across the street. I see insight right here? Right?
Is that a good thing or a bad thing? What
do you think?
Speaker 11 (15:29):
Great thing? Ever since it's been up, many lives have
been saved. I haven't heard of anybody ever od and
pass away in there yet.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
I wishables and enjoy use or is it mostly all
good and and helps keep people safe when they do OD?
Speaker 11 (15:41):
I think it's a bit of both. It is enabling
in some it does, right. I came down here when
I was nineteen, and I remember I used to visit
my mom down here. I've seeing all the parties happening everything,
And I saw all the parties in my mom had.
And as soon as I was nineteen, I was only
supposed to go to the dentist here my appointments in
the afternoon. I cut here in the morning and I
gotta go meet my mom's friends. And I have been
(16:02):
here ever since I was nineteen and never left. My
dad passed away down here.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah, drink them.
Speaker 11 (16:07):
They tried doing harm reduction for alcohol as well, you know,
as seriously it has saved lives. I wish there was
a lot more that people would understand, you.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Know, And you think it was misunderstood right now that
it's saving lives. Is it too easy to get drugs
out here right now? Or is it You're going to
get them somehow, Might as well make it easy and
make it safe. What do you think it's easy?
Speaker 11 (16:24):
And it's not easy down here for thirty years. You
know you've done here thirty years.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
You earn your.
Speaker 11 (16:28):
Respect down here. Back in the day then, people never
used to steal off each other down here. Anybody that
did that, they were kicked off the block then. But no,
it's just crazy. But I really want to get cleaned
myself and beat down here because I went to school
to be addiction time. So you and I had two
times and two rewrites and know what happened with topoma.
I relapsed. That was when my mom passed away. And
I'm going to get cleaned and beat on here and
(16:49):
help other people.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Have you asked for detox?
Speaker 4 (16:52):
No?
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Yeah, you're not ready yet.
Speaker 11 (16:53):
I'm pretty close to me. Yeah, we're standing straight. I'm
not going I mean over.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
In your room. Yeah. Did I do the drink?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Yeah? And I want to you know, you.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Want to get neared in.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
You know. I mean I hope you get sober one day,
if that's what you want. You know, I think I
don't want to see you die. You don't want to
die on here? Yeah. I think your story can inspire
a lot of people too. Yeah. No, I believe in Neil.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
But you feel like you know specific.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yeah, I know it's it's it's a crazy world, right,
and yeah, you're gonna do it. Yeah. I want you
to get clean. I want you to get sober. I
don't want you to die. I just met you, but
you see, my sweetheart, that's all right. Well, the harm
reduction is theoretically here to help prevent overdoses, save lives,
and reduce the spread of disease. I can't help but
(17:45):
wonder if in Vancouver's attempt to copy the Portuguese model
of handling drug addiction, they've forgotten that harm reduction is
a means to an end, one of many tools used
in an incentive based approach to help encourage drug addicts
to reintegrate into society, get a job, reading their addiction
as a health crisis rather than criminal activity. If only
there was a highly qualified doctor who has studied this
(18:06):
issue for the last twenty years that might have a
practical solution to treating Canada's drug epidemic. I want you
to tell me about the research you were conducting, how
it eventually was ordered to be destroyed, and what you
found throughout that research.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
That first mentor that I mentioned Bruce Alexander, people who
know addiction will likely link his name with some studies
that were known as the rat Park experiments. What Bruce
showed in that work and it had a big influence
on me, was that rats living in isolation given a
choice between morphine and chow, tended to consume quite a
bit of morphine. But if you took those same rats,
(18:39):
even after they became dependent on morphine in isolation, and
you move them into a park like setting where they're
living with other rats and they've got lots of stuff
to do, they will switch their preference and instead orient
to chow. It's like a natural intervention. Part of what
inspired this was when Vietnam veterans had been identified in
the seventies as addicted to heroin. The nutshell story is
(19:01):
that they returned and very few of them had ongoing
problems with heroin, and very few of them who made
that change access any form of treatment. Again, it was
the result of the environment. And even if they have
access to morphine, you expose them literally to better things
to do. That's an involuntary type of intervention. What about
intervening voluntarily? Could we simply go up to people on
(19:22):
the street and say, Hey, you're clearly struggling with a
bunch of things. I've got some things to offer you.
Does any of that sound good. One of the studies
that we did along these lines involved offering people choices
of housing in intact buildings where the sort of the
social mix was already established. It was people paying rent
going about their lives, and our responsibilities was to make
(19:43):
sure that our clients who moved in were sufficiently supported
so that they would be successful.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
How did that play out?
Speaker 4 (19:48):
People with clinical backgrounds were some of the most pessimistic
that this is not going to work. People are not
going to change landlords aren't going to rent to you.
If they do, they're going to regret it. Again. This
is like from the people who are supposed to be helping.
But we went ahead and did it and it was successful.
We randomly assigned people who had been homeless turned out
(20:09):
for about ten years. We randomly assigned people to receive
usual care, which here in BC costs about fifty five
thousand dollars per person per year. Shelters Street Outreach supports
those kinds of things. Then we randomly assign people to
the intervention I described, where they're given choices and responsibilities
and support. A third condition was people being housed all together.
(20:31):
We had a one hundred and seven people all living together
in the same building with a team on site.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
That's kind of like the SROs right.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
It's SROs on steroids. Though, what if we were to
do as we did, shift the incentives, shift the things
on the positive side of the ledger that would be
incentives for change. So, yes, you can move into this apartment,
but if you're going to move into this, you can't
be having dealers and other people over to the apartment
to use drugs because that's going to get you in
trouble with your neighbors. Over time, they start to think about, well, gosh,
(21:02):
you know, returning to work. One of the things that
struck me as most poignant was when people would think
about reconnecting with their kids, and those kinds of thoughts
about my potential future self are closely related to people's
motivation for changing their use of drugs. If people are arrested,
brought before a judge, and are not presented with choices,
(21:23):
but are instead say look, you can either go to jail, sure,
or you can go through this intensive treatment program. It's
going to take about a year, and you must remain
drug free throughout. They really need to be separated from
drug using and the drug scene urgently and immediately in
order to have a good chance of survival.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
What did the government do in response to your research,
which seems like a solution to a lot of these problems.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
This research built up over twenty years. Several investigators, a
lot of PhD trainees developed their research and adding to
this pool of data, and we got to the point
of drawing it all together and saying, we put together
a proposal to begin scaling up effective supports for people
(22:07):
in multiple regions of BC and evaluating what we were doing,
and we presented that to the government. And what I
didn't know when I made this recommendation this presentation, is
that the government had already committed financially to a massive
expansion of housing people all together and providing them with drugs.
(22:27):
Because I'm an honest person and I thought I was
speaking to people with integrity, I said, one of the
things we're going to be able to do with this
updated information is evaluate some of the public services that
have been operating through the COVID years during which we
had expanded this model of congregating people together. One week
after or I made this presentation to Deputy ministers, we
(22:51):
received a letter from the government ordering us to immediately
destroy all of the data and sanitize hard drives.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Twenty years of work down the drain.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Well the massive data holdings covering like about a quarter
of a million people that would.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Have effectively helped anyone in this situation.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Currently here in BC, our government committed very heavily to
a frontier in the use of pharmaceuticals, and this is
taking the model of prescribing drugs and decoupling it from
any kind of a long term program or plan that's
designed to help people socially reintegrate. We've gone so far
(23:30):
as to provide drugs to people from a vending machine
type of device right here. Sava and the government wrote
about this as the beginning of a kind of a
global revolution. So far, the results are as predicted terrible.
If all you do is provide someone who's homeless, struggling,
psychologically unemployed, estranged painfully from their families with an alternative
(23:52):
source of medication, we call that treatment, it's never going
to achieve any kind of meaningful change. The Portuguese were
already on top of this, and because they built out
the system prior to enacting their decriminalization step, they were
able to engage people through dissuasion commissions in robust forms
of support that got them out of the settings where
(24:13):
they were living in strife and at risk. Because of
how they went about it, they did not need to
introduce a single drug consumption site. If what you're chiefly
concerned about is reducing the transmission of diseases, then a
consumption site will help achieve that. But that's pretty much
all it's going to be achieve.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
And here's what they look like inside a sorry, yeah
you want to. I don't know if I feel fully.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Okay with your hand?
Speaker 1 (24:41):
What do you call yourself?
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Your life?
Speaker 1 (24:49):
You do not do this?
Speaker 8 (24:50):
Okay?
Speaker 11 (24:53):
The people will be doing something okay, and then you
gotta go.
Speaker 9 (24:57):
That's what you get.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
We don't do that.
Speaker 8 (25:05):
You're welcome to the table if you want.
Speaker 11 (25:07):
We have a table company.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
I think harm reduction is an incredibly powerful and essential
component of how we structure our system, how we engage people.
Recognize that harm reduction as a bottom up, interpersonal way
of helping people is an essential practice. But it's got
to lead to the ultimate goal of wellness. It's become
(25:32):
linked with crazy stuff like drug use. Is it's not
an addiction. We need to defend people's bodily autonomy rather than.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
A means to an end. It became the end in
and of itself.
Speaker 4 (25:44):
Became an end in itself, and people became protective of that.
Then you get this kind of opportunity for predation. So
this is economic predation. Tell me about some of these
bad actors, but they're only they're only bad actors. If
you have a credit view of capitalism.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
In what sense do you say that?
Speaker 4 (26:03):
Well, for instance, if you and I are running a
global pharmaceutical company and we look around you know, US
and other countries, and we see that there are these
mandatory disclosure laws, Sunshine Act and things like that about
you know, if we were to pay doctors to do things.
But if we look up in Canada, we don't have
laws like that. Okay, it's voluntary. When we have people
who are currently in crisis, as we do now, we
(26:25):
need to fast track everything that we know we can
do to enable social reintegration and connecting people with lives
that inherently matter to them, are inherently valuable. We're already
committed to a model that we know is not performing well.
It's not only the scientific evidence, it's the evidence in
(26:46):
our communities. They'll go for a walk, go for a walk.
It's clearly not working right. Let's have the courage to
admit that we've we've made some mistakes, and let's have
the courage to shift our direction.
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