8
street roots
March 2, 2012
P H O T O : R E U T E R S /A N D Y C L A R K
Lance, who asked not to use his last name, smokes m arijuana he is legally allowed to grow.
Vancouver, B.C.'s drug revolution
The Canadian city continues to push the envelope o f harm reduction and recovery
Megaphone in
Vancouver, B.C. is a
sister paper with
Street Roots through
the North American
Street Newspaper
Association and the
International
Network o f Street
Papers.
BY BEN CHRISTOPHER
vulnerable to HIV and Hepatitis B and C.
These recent developments, which led
oots, resistance, and survival in
author and recovering addict Peter Ferentzy
Vancouver’s war on drugs began
to dub Vancouver “the most enlightened city
when William Lyon Mackenzie King
in North America,” are underscored by a
came to Vancouver, B.C. in the spring of long and complicated history. It’s a history
1908. The battle, in some ways, continues
that has been written chiefly in the
to this day.
Downtown Eastside, where the impact of
The previous September, members and
addiction overlaps so messily with the
sympathizers of the newly formed Asiatic
depredations of poverty, illness and social
Exclusion League had descended upon
fragmentation. It’s a history written by cops
Chinatown by the thousands. Smashing
and community organizers, by healthcare
plate glass windows and ripping signs from
workers and academics, by politicians,
storefront overhangs, the rioters were
addicts and survivors. It’s a history of
finally repelled at Powell Street by club-
overdose, epidemic and societal neglect, but
wielding residents of Japantown. And so the
also political leadership, community
future prime minister found himself in
activism, and improbable, tentative hope.
Vancouver, assessing the damage claims of
aggrieved business owners.
The birth of harm reduction
What King found in Chinatown was a
thriving opium industry. Even more
In 1952, something had to give.
troubling to the deputy minister, the drug
Since Mackenzie King had warned of
was regularly being consumed by English-
conniving Chinatown opium peddlers in
speaking whites. Just a month later, a long
1908, federal anti-drug legislation had been
title bill, now known simply as the Opium
moving solely in one direction. In 1911,
Act, passed through both chambers of
stricter punishments were introduced for
Parliament with minimal debate. This was
opium users. In 1917, Vancouver’s Chief
Canada’s first anti-drug law — the opening
Constable, Malcolm MacLennan, was
salvo in a war on drugs that continues to
gunned down in an apartment shootout on
this day.
East Georgia. His killer was Bob Tait,
More than a century later, Canadian drug
described in the next day’s papers as a
policy is still being hashed out on the
“drug-crazed negro.” The incident helped to
streets of Vancouver. Last September, the
rile up local support for the flurry of
Supreme Court of Canada ruled
sometimes draconian anti-drug legislation in
unanimously to allow Insite, North
the 1920s.
America’s first legal supervised injection
“Up until the 1950s, if you were a regular
facility, to keep its doors open on East
drug user, you’d typically spend about a
Hastings. Two months later, Mayor Gregor
third of each year in prison,” says Vancouver
Robertson joined four of his predecessors in historian Lani Russwurm. “You had a
an open call for the legalization of
revolving door between prison and the
marijuana. Last month, Vancouver Coastal
street. It was expensive, and it wasn’t
Health began offering free crack pipes to
stopping the spread of the drug trade.”
stem the oral transmission of disease
And so, in 1952, the Community Chest
among users, whose crack use-related lip
and Council, a precursor to the United Way,
and mouth injuries can make them
formed a committee and published a report
S T R E E T N E W S S E R V IC E
R
on drug addiction.
“Narcotic addition,” the report read, “is a
medical problem.” The committee went on
to call upon the federal government to begin
dispensing drugs to addicts. A heroin user
with a steady supply of heroin, the report
argued, could live a stable, crime-free life
and, once in the program, could be ushered
towards rehabilitation.
Today, says Russwurm, we would call
such an approach “harm reduction” - the
novel idea that the first priority of drug
policy should be to keep people alive, safe,
and healthy. But in 1952, “it was just a
sincere and pragmatic attempt to deal with
the issue.”
Celebrated in editorials in both The
Province and Vancouver Sun, the
recommendations of the report were finally
quashed by federal opposition. It would take
another 40 years before this kind of thinking
was again given so much official credence in
Vancouver.
“Canada’s most notorious
underground rendezvous”
Now it’s called the Downtown Eastside.
In the years after World War II, it was called
Skid Road. It might be difficult now to
imagine the neighborhood as it was - a
seemingly incongruous overlap of vibrancy
and squalor. But the area still comprised the
downtown core. There was the streetcar,
the ferry terminal, the Interurban rail
station; there was Woodward’s department
store, the Pantages theater, and the library.
At the same time,” says Russwurm, “it
all coexisted with a seedy drug scene. It was
much more discreet. It wasn’t in your face
like it is now. But it was there.”
The decline of the neighborhood came
quickly. In the last few years of the decade,
See VANCOUVER, page 9