Local heroin

THE people queuing up at the Providence Crosstown Clinic are pioneers of a sort. They are heroin addicts whose habits have resisted conventional treatment. They hope to become the first in North America to get their fixes legally as part of a treatment programme rather than just for a clinical trial. “It’s heroin that you know is good,” says one addict waiting outside, who aspires to join the queue.

Some European countries, including Germany and Switzerland, prescribe heroin for the most severe cases of addiction. Patients taking heroin are less likely to use illicit drugs and drop out of treatment than those who use methadone, a substitute. Vancouver’s eagerness to follow is not surprising. It has long had Canada’s most liberal drug policies, and it has a big problem. Addicts congregate in Downtown Eastside, two derelict blocks right next to tourist attractions and the financial district. In the late 1990s the city had the highest rate of HIV infection outside sub-Saharan Africa.