Substance Abuse

In downtown, eastside Vancouver BC drug addicts congregate at East Hastings and Main to score the drugs that they use. Not much is done, to round them up, to send them on their way.

In fact the locality of East Hastings and Main is quite a tourist attraction - tourists flock to see the bizarre and colorful people that live Downtown, Eastside (DTES), perhaps shop, and have some lunch. Then it is back to mainsteam Vancouver, with tales of adventure in DTES to tell to friends, neighbors and family upon a return to the safety of home, and civilization as we know it.

They say it’s the drugs that have brought down Eastside Vancouver, bringing disease, disorder and crime. How ordinary people can manage to live in DTES, we don’t know, and we wonder,why they don’t leave.. Obviously the people who live in the vicinity of East Hastings and Main are attached to the way of life – or surely they would move on.

Century 21, that sells properties in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia is fully aware that it is not easy to promote sales of residential and commercial properties in a community whose only claim to present day fame is that it is considered to be the poorest postal code in Canada, with widespread substance abuse.

In fact, even that claim can be refuted, as there are several First Nations communities in Canada that are poorer and that have considerably higher rates of substance abuse and addiction.

Indeed, if it wasn’t for Google Maps, and a few intrepid, adventurous tourists, it could be that the locality would be much like a mysterious “black hole” that people in general don’t want to go near, for fear of what might “happen”, a source of infinite reassurance to successful Vancouverites that no matter how bad things might seem to be, they are worse in DTES.

Century 21 however, has not given up on this area, and has prepared a potted history of DTES Vancouver that records the social dislocation and problems that have historically occured, leading to what is currently a predominantly drug addicted, itinerant and socially challenged downtown, eastside population.

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On the one hand there is a community that is rich in history, architecture and diversity, on the other a ghetto where civilized folk fear to venture alone, particularly at night.

Downtown Vancouver was the original hub of local industry, a sea port, boasting a proud civic center, complete with City Hall, a courthouse, the markets, a library, and numerous theatres and restaurants. DTES was a terminus for local transport, including the local steamship that generated thousands of people per day on the streets, supporting a vibrant shopping precinct.

But industry moved away, relocated. In 1958, the street car service was closed, as was the station, and the North Shore ferries. People stopped coming to DTES, and the area became depressed, as shops closed down due to lack of sales.

The price of residential accomodation fell, attracting both the chronically unemployed, and those on some kind of a pension. DTES received and housed many a psychiatric patient that had nowhere to turn to when cuts in public funding closed down psychiatric institutions.

A home for the homeless, a home for the poor. There are said to be many homeless in DTES, the reality is that DTES is their home.

Obtaining low price accomodation, or making a life on the streets, that comes with the taint of failure. DTES is an area affordable to low income groups that have little choice but to go there.

But that is not the end of the DTES story. Although few have got out, and made it, into mainstream society, those that remain have seen improvements in the way of community housing projects, and have also formed the Downtown Eastside Residents Association (DERA) that together with the DTES Revitalisation program are putting in the hard yards to get DTES back on track, with ideas for community development.

They don’t lack inspiration, enthusiasm or energy – all they lack is the funding.

Before writing DTES off to drug use and poverty, it needs to be understood that many residents care about the quality of life in DTES, and that to the best of their ability they are striving to put things right, to make DTES a thriving and healthy community.

What DTES needs most, as do the substance abusers, is a message of hope that just as addiction can be overcome, by using practical, comprehensive methods, so the malaise and depression that pervades DTES can be remedied and recovered from.

Recovery will not be achieved by giving people a shot glass of methadone, access to a free alcohol lounge, or to a safe site for drug injection. In fact, under the guise of harm reduction, these methods continue to promote, to maintain continued drug dependence and addiction.

There is money and funding to be obtained, to provide “assistance” to the people of DTES, money that would be better spent on direct contributions to genuine community initiatives for the improvement of community resources, and in assisting people to complete comprehensive alcohol and drug addiction recovery programs – that have the ability, and the intention, to get people clean and drug free…that are drug recovery orientated.

People of DTES need to achieve a new confidence in themselves, to achieve their aims and ambitions both in their own lives and for the community that they live in.

Comprehensive drug programs support people to get drug free, and teach people more effective, productive approaches to problems and conflicts in their lives.

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Graduates of comprehensive drug addiction recovery programs are happy, healthy people who can constructively look at community issues – and work with social and cultural problems to bring about positive change.

On 6 December 2011, Vancouver BC officially began handing free crack pipes to addicts.

By 3 January 2012, there were cracks appearing in the system.

The supply provided, of 60,000 kits, intended to last for eight months would be used up already if supplies had freely been given to all of the addicts who want them.

Vancouver Coastal Health appears to have seriously underestimated the demand for clean crack pipes in Vancouver BC.

In a pack you will find mouth guards, pipes, pipecleaners and alcoholic swabs. The intention is if not to provide a clean, new pipe every day, that addicts should have, at least, a pipe that is in good condition, for their own use, and not have to share.

Not having to share pipes lessens health risks, particularly around those people using crack who share pipes, who have communicable diseases.

On 3 January 2012, the Edmonton Sun ran an article saying that Vancouver is running out of free crack pipes. To make the crack pipes last, they will have to be distributed at the rate of 250 per day.

VANDU – the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users is now handing our crack pipe kits at the rate of 50 a day, with addicts being turned away.

PHS – the Portland Hotel Society that is in charge of the InSite safe injection scheme, was given 3,000 crack pipe kits and had distributed them all within 3 days,  PHS in fact runs its own free crack pipe distribution service – routinely handing out as many as 20,000 crack pipe packs per month.

PHS co-founder Mark Townsend says that the crack pipe sets available are nowhere near enough to meet demand - handing out around a 1,000 packs a day might be nearer the number required to ensure that the demand from crack addicts is more or less being met.

It has to be wondered what is happening to all the pipes supplied that are said to be resistant to breakage - and whether and how a continued supply will be provided at the end of this eight month pilot program. Clearly it is not a case in which clean implements can continue to be provided on the basis that users pay for them.

Certainly, people who use crack have money to pay for their habit – but as most crack use is funded by criminal activity – charging for clean crack pipes would only potentially incite more criminality in Vancouver.

see article:

As the people of Vancouver applaud the public benefit of issuing free crack pipes, in the name of harm reduction , seeing that the city is firmly upholding at least one of the Four Pillars of drugs policy in Vancouver that are - Prevention, Treatment, Enforcement – and Harm Reduction, -

Sgt Mark Tonner, a Vancouver police officer posts an opinion that calls into question the extent to which the Four Pillars policy is being implemented, and whether the policy is actually getting addicts clean in Vancouver.

In the opinion of Sgt Tonner harm reducers seem to have stumbled en mass into the Stockholm Syndrome, where the tormented, lacking the inherent power to overcome the oppressor, to overcome the status quo, fall into a pattern of apparent acceptance of the situation and actually begin to support and assist the tyrant.

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As Sgt Mark Tonner points out: – the rest of society has not grown to love the drug addicted crime wave - do not see free needles and free dope, such as is routinely provided on drug maintenance programs, and in the form of medications, as being the answer to life negating tragedy.

The aim and purpose of society today should be to create a drug free world – not a world awash with free and subsidized drugs.

Every endeavor to win the war that colludes with the drug suppliers, to that extent negates power in the drug users, and enhances the position of the dealers. It is very much a case in which those not for us, are against us, when it comes to winning the war on drugs.

see article:

As the article says, for most addicts their life is a haze of drug seeking and using behavior – with small windows of opportunity that arise, when addicts are willing and ready to move into a drug free life, and achieve drug free addiction recovery. Mainstream medicine and rehab problems simply don’t have the programs required to support willing addicts through the journey.

There is no publicly funded advertising in Canada that encourages addicts, ready and willing to give up their addiction, to use the comprehensive residential alcohol and drug recovery programs in Canada that have proven to be successful for many years.

Comprehensive addiction recovery models are both 100% drug free, and recovery focused.

Using wholly natural methods graduates of the programs achieve complete recovery from substance abuse and addiction free.

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Sgt Tonner may well be right in his somewhat paranoid suspicion that some harm reduction devotees seem to be more interested in maintaining a client base, than to see them free of substance abuse.

Networking is the buzz word of commerce today – perhaps more of a spider’s web when we hear of VANDU looking at visiting primary schools – to teach infants how to safely inject.

Comprehensive programs in Canada focus on effective prevention programs and effective alcohol and drug addiction recovery.

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The community in Vancouver wants effective prevention and effective treatment for the problem of drug addiction.

The need for enforcement and harm reduction diminishes with the implementation of successful drug use eradication programs.

People in favor of a drug free society, instead of the free drugs brigade need to support and encourage public funding and recognition of comprehensive programs – quietly out there, doing the job.

Vancouver BC is home to many “down and out” alcoholics, people who appear to have hit rock bottom, who remain unable to stop their drinking, who drink illicit alcohol.

Members of EIDGE, the Eastside Illicit Drinkers Group for Education are an offshoot of VANDU – the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, VANDU having promoted, supported and against the odds succeeded in establishing in Vancouver the Insite “safe house” to which injecting drug users can go, to use their illicit drugs.

Although Insite has come under fire for it’s “promotion of illicit drug use”, all that Insite does in fact is to provide a safe, supervised place for existing users of illicit injecting drugs to hit up on their drugs, using clean needles provided, and supervision designed to prevent deaths from overdose, and the avoidable transmission of communicable diseases.

Despite its many critics, the Insite facillity effectively fulfils it’s goal which is drug related harm reduction in the interest of public health.

Now Vancouver residents are somewhat perplexed, amused, amazed or rendered speechless by recent activities on the part of EIDGE members who have announced that they want to establish a free alcohol lounge in Vancouver, British Columbia, for down and out alcoholics.

With a choice of free sherry, high alcohol beer or vodka, the intention is to provide a welcoming place for alcoholics who normally live on the street, who being homeless and impoverished would otherwise be into substance abuse – using illicit alcohol drinks derived from such products as hand sanitizer, mouthwash, rubbing alcohol or methylated spirits, that are relatively cheap to produce and extremely toxic to drink.

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There is in fact a pilot scheme already in place – Vancouver Coastal Health treats alcoholics who have relapsed after detox to top ups of quality alcohol on a hourly basis for up to twelve hours, under the Managed Alcohol Program - a method of keeping recently relapsed alcoholics away from illicit alcohol sources and out of emergency services for severe alcohol toxicity or the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal.

The cost per alcoholic per month of being treated is around $350.00, far less than the cost incurred when relapsing alcoholics get free use of and become a burden upon community emergency services. The aim of MAP is substance abuse control, and to reduce the cost to the community of chronic alcoholism.

For the 20 – 40 members of EIDGE, the thought of a free alcohol lounge to help them keep on the straight and narrow, after alcohol relapse, must sound like seventh heaven.

A free alcohol lounge might be considered to be an acceptable suggestion, to be of some merit, by those in the community who believe the plight of alcoholics to be hopeless, that there is in our community no effective program or method that alcoholics can use – and acheive complete freedom from alcohol abuse, complete addiction recovery.

The promotion of alcohol maintenance programs is based on the same mindset that promotes the widespread use of methadone programs, for “recovery” from illicit opioid use.

People with the same fatalistic approach, towards substance abuse and addiction, are looking at ways to develop drug maintenance programs for abusers of stimulant drugs.

The same depressed, and depressive attitude rejects natural, drug free and recovery orientated drug programs out of hand.

Negative attitude towards possible addiction recovery effectively, and insidiously keeps drug addicts enchained to and dependent upon the use of those toxic substances that are provided to them via drug maintenance programs.

People addicted to alcohol in Vancouver, British Columbia have a choice – to continue to use the alcohol and see yourself gradually become more dependent and enslaved by chronic alcohol abuse, or take the path that leads you away from drug abuse and addiction – towards independence, contentment and genuine freedom of choice.

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It is well and often said that there is no such thing as a free lunch – free lunches always come with, sometimes invisible, strings – and much the same thing must be said of the proposed free alcohol lounge.

To someone using illicit liquor, the chance of getting high quality grog at a free alcohol lounge might seem enticing.

Who, with the opportunity to have a happier life, would choose to keep facing his demons on a daily basis, warding them off by topping up with alcohol, on an alcohol maintenance program.

The demons that alcoholics fear, use alcohol to escape are nothing more than negative feelings that relate to earlier trauma, or abuse in life that we have not been able to fully work through and process.

Getting free of alcohol use is the first stage of the journey towards understanding and mastery of the demons, towards freedom from compulsive behavior and from substance abuse.

Every day is the first day of the rest of your life – your actions shape your future.

You can limit your future options to a choice between sherry, vodka or beer - or use a comprehensive alcohol addiction recovery program to put alcohol use behind you – and begin to live a drug free, contented life.

Substance abuse is a type of behavior, and in places such as downtown Vancouver, in British Columbia – more people than the national average engage in substance abuse.

Mark Klieman has co-authored a book, published in mid 2011, that takes a refreshingly clear look at the issue of substance abuse, policy, and law enforcement – entitled Drugs and Drug Policy – What Everyone Needs to Know.

In a description of the book, by Oxford University Press – it is outlined that whereas there have always been norms and customs around the use of drugs – explicit public drug policies, in the form of regulations, taxes and prohibitions, are a relatively recent development.

As the book points out – one of the major side effects of the criminalisation of substance abuse is that it tends to drive the control of drugs into the hands of organised crime, the considerable profits of the drug trade being used to perpetuate drug abuse and for other anti-social purposes. It is said that under current drug policies – neither a drug free world, nor a world of free drugs seems to be on offer.

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Mark Klieman himself, a drug expert of some repute, has made it clear in past editorial that a “war on drugs” policy tends to polarize attitudes about substance abuse so that a neutral position is hard to find. People tend to take a black and white approach to the issue of what to do about drugs – views tending to polarized as between the disease model of drug abuse and addiction, in which drug users need help and support, and the view that drug users deliberately engage in drug using behavior – and need to be punished, and stopped.

Klieman says that some people who promote the “disease” theory of substance abuse and addiction ignore the fact that drug abuse is a disorder of the will. In his view : disease and bad habits are completely consistent descriptions of the same behavior.

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When people have a “disease” they lack effective control over their own behavior due to having the disease. It is not the case that substance abusers have no control whatesoever about making it their “choice” to keep on substance abusing. However, this is not to say that the choice to keep on using drugs is freely made. Issues about substance abuse will continue to rage until there can be an official view taken that drug abuse is a willed choice – by a person acting under duress – in response to stress and adverse influences in their life.

The problem with taking this viewpoint is that it means drug use and its associated problems cannot be confined to issues about “what to do with the drug user” – is he to be punished or supported. If we take the viewpoint that drug use is a choice that we might make in response to certain pressures – clearly the way to deal with substance abuse is to look at ways of relieving the stress and pressures that substance abusers see themselves as being under.

Drug users invariably say that given the choice and ability, they would get out of the whole drug environment. For people born into areas such as downtown Vancouver, BC, life style options and the “chances” of avoiding the lure of drug use are considerably less, than in more affluent areas, where other options are generally more accessible.

When people have limited personal skills, and limited social  options, they might choose to deal in drugs for profit, or to get relief from the emotional pain of living in a “poor” environment.

The challenge of dealing effectively with drug use is that very often it is the status quo, in family relationships, and in society that is presenting the problem. Drug abuse by parents in the home, living in a geographical location where there is widescale unemployment, both act so as to make a person feel relatively disempowered, compared with others in the world, and drugs are seen as providing a means of empowerment.

As it is unlikely that those responsible for unfairness in life situations will make changes, ultimately it is the responsibiliy of the person with drugs in their life, to do domething about their situation.

The existence of safe drug using facilities, such as Insite, Vancouver are seen by some as doing too much to enable drug users, others see it as not doing enough to really enable drug users to get themselves out of the cycle of addiction.

In Vancouver, British Columbia, drug users who want to get free of drug influence can use traditional programs that generally have a very low success rate, or they can use a comprehensive drug addiction recovery model, based on personal and social empowerment.

Treating the whole person for their drug use, and helping them to get release from conditions that are blocking them from making better life style choices, is not easy but it is the only way that people can get genuine freedom from drug influence in their life.

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When people in Vancouver BC make the decision to become drug free – they will be best supported in their endeavors by using a Narconon program - that is designed to achieve complete substance abuse recovery, and the improvement of social skills.