VANCOUVER: Canada's Pacific province of British Columbia was already battling an opioid epidemic when the new coronavirus hit, compounding the ...
17 Apr 2020 04:34AMVANCOUVER: Canada's Pacific province of British Columbia was already battling an opioid epidemic when the new coronavirus hit, compounding the threat to drug users, many of whom are homeless and particularly vulnerable during the pandemic.
The Downtown Eastside is where the majority of Vancouver's homeless population resides. In 2019, the city had 2,223 homeless residents, about a third of whom live with opioid or methamphetamine addictions. Cheyenne Johnson, co-interim executive director at the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use, said the region's illicit drug supply was already tainted.
For people using the highly potent opioid fentanyl or heroin on the street, doctors can provide the prescription opioid hydromorphone along with methadone. Dexedrine or Ritalin are available to people who would otherwise be using cocaine or crystal meth. At the corner of Vancouver's Main and Hastings streets, a typically busy intersection in a neighborhood where hawking pills is common, some sections of the sidewalk were virtually empty in early April.
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