Did you sign your organ donor card?
The Downtown Eastside (DES) is a neighbourhood in Vancouver, B.C., with a reputation for the most poverty-stricken and crime-ridden streets in North America, and the DES comes by the reputation honestly. The area is carefully policed and closely surveilled but it's strictly a matter of containment. The causes of poverty and crime are examined as often as the poverty and crime are disparaged and wished away.
Every alley is a drug emporium. The drugs available span the spectrum with crack cocaine leading the list, followed by fentanyl, heroin, morphine, oxycontin, percasette, other pills, and the rest.
The drug sales are made on the streets, in the alleys, and in front of police on East Hastings. The drugs of all sorts are consumed in the open air under close surveillance, often in front of police who make very few arrests. They tell drug users to drop what they are doing and step on it. The drug users scowl in defiance and step on the glass pipe, enraged that a hit has been erased. Few charges are laid.
