Heroin For Dummies
Taking the Sun to task and solving the heroin crisis in less than 2,000 words
August 7-13, 1998

When most middle-class Canadians consider a 20 percent reduction of jiggle power within the ranks of the Spice Girls a crisis, you've got to wonder about how they're reacting to the 201 fatal heroin overdoses so far this year. I decided to use the Vancouver Sun's Zeitgiest-o-meter to better delineate the empathy situation for residents of the East End (TM).

Ryan Introduces Subtext Theatre (TM)
In this corner, weighing in at less than a pound, is the Monday, July 27 Vancouver Sun. May I direct your attention to the leftmost column News In Context, which proudly shouts, "Heroin Overdose Ended Dreams of Stardom."

Skimming the article reveals a cookie-cutter column: Mother beomans loss of daughter/aspiring actress to demon drug heroin. Altruism makes a cameo appearance with her final quote, "If this story can save one other person, it will be worth it."

But re-reading the article reveals some particularly ugly business. Witness, "Samantha's mother, Elizabeth rolls, who lives outside Toronto and teaches at Humber College, wants people to realize not all those who have died of heroin overdoses had lived dead-end lives in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside."

"Some, like Samantha, were good kids who made bad choices, she says."

Hmm. I guess the drug scourge is transformed from natural selection to serious issue when it starts taking the lives of attractive people.

Continuing on, the next bit of gristle I choked on was, "The mother knew her daughter smoked pot and rank. Smantha also told her mom she had tried cocaine in Vancouver. But there was no mention of heroin."

Okay, the sympathy meter takes a nose dive here. The good daughter gene in action. Why worry momski about jabbing yourself with a needle or two? I know I certinaly don't. It also begs the question: Had Samantha died of a cocaine overdose, would Mrs. Rolls have been as bereaved? Would she have had any right to be?

Last, but certainly not least, "Coroner Denver Snider, who estimated death occurred at 5 a.m., remembers walking into the room and seeing Samantha that morning, Feb. 3, 1996.

'She was a pretty girl,' he says. 'I thought, What a bloody waste. It drove me around the bend.'

I couldn't agree more. One aspiring actress from Toronto is worth four or five worthless deadbeats selected at random from Main and Hastings, especially considering that she died over two years ago and thus has nothing to do with the current epidemic. And lest you think I have no decorum whatsoever, you'll note that despite have seen Kissed last Monday, I restrained myself from making a joke about necrophilia, out of genuine respect for the dead.

By now, if you're still reading, you're probably disgusted, and rightly so. I've trampled the feelings of Mrs. Rolls, insulted a coroner, and danced along the libel line for eight paragraphs. But if you want to see something truly anger-inducing, then consider Catherine Ford's editorial from the Saturday, July 25 Sun.

Exhibit B
"Heroin addicts are dropping on the streets of Vancouver and I'm supposed to care.

In that case, give me a reason to give a damn. Because right now, I don't.

Until the people on the street dealing with wasted lives can find the method of making me care, the death toll will keep rising."

Ms. Ford's point, which she eventually makes, is that she gladly supports drug prevention, but has no sympathy for addicts dying from pure-grade heroin.

There are so many confusing things about Ms. Ford's column, I'm unsure where to begin. It's taken from the Calgary Herald, perhaps because Alberta is considred a passably safe distance from the problem. I imagine the reporters down at 200 Granville are awaiting delivery on some sort of over-sized plastic ball -- like the bubble from The Prisoner -- so they can investigate the East End (TM) without fear of touching or smelling anything unsavoury.

And why is an Albertain telling us how to run our city? Do we tell them how to raise cattle and act like biogted homophobes? One less pretty girl to fuck in Vancouver is bad, but when Calgarians start insulting Lotusland, there's obviously a real problem afoot.

But the problem is, well, not exactly new. Sky-is-falling articles about increased heroin purity comining with everday low pirces have appeared in the Sun in 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 and 1997.

And now, 1998 has become yet another year of living dangerously.

But what's a concerned citizen like myself to do? I'm as liberal as the next guy, assuming the next guy supports decriminalizaton and treating drug addicts with compassion, even if that means putting more money towards treatment, harm reduction and hip/happening [tm] heroin cafes. In fact, sign me up for whatever beliefs I'm supposed to automatically subsume by nature of not being Right-wing. I'm glad to blindly support the cause of oppositional politics that the Left seems so adept at wallowing in. Their wheels might be spinning in mud, their political vehicles are out of gas (which was definitely not purchased at Shell) and the engine's blown, but the Left keeps bravely waving to passersby, constantly hammering on the horn, since it's the only thing that still works.

So here's a few things worth considering. Honk. Honk.

As a percentage, the number of heroin addicts dying has gone from roughly six percent in 1991, to between 10-12 percent this year, assuming the death rate has remained constant. That's a problem. But can all heroin deaths be neatly attributed to heroin? An August 7, 1996 Sun article featured a study by SFU student Michael Brandt who analyzed the 654 heroin deaths between 1984 and 1993 and found that 70 percent were not caused solely by the drug. He cited factors such as hepatitis, HIV, liver disease and consumption of deadly drug cocktails as working in conjunction with heroin. The other 30 percent, he concluded died as a direct result of heron purity.

Fine. It's still pretty clear that correlation and causation are doing more than french kissing. Increased heroin purity is obviously linked to the increase in heroin overdoses. But heroin purity has been an issue for over six years. Heroin can only get so pure, and according to the media, China White was introduced in 1993 -- perhaps a lot earlier. So something else is going on here.

That something else is the inconsistency of said purity, which can be traced mainly to dealers. John Turvey, executive director of DEYAS, belives that, "This is a marketplace driven by dealers who will cut heroin to gain any advantage they can. If the competition is selling heroin that's 10 percent pure, someone else may raise it to 40 or 50 percent."

Then, consider there are dealers who sell people cocaine and say it's heroin and you've got a group of people who are slightly less savoury than the Board of Directors of Bre-X. The situation is dangerous for both addicts and (especially) occasional users, since they aren't in touch with the marketplace on a daily basis.

There is however, a solution rarely mentioned. Turvey notes that, "there are federal agents who buy heroin in major US cities and analyze the purity. Then, a few times a year, they release the results, going so far as to include the street names for vaious types of heroin, as part of an overall initiative to reduce deaths."

I like this idea. I like it a lot. And let's face it, something needs to be done. The situation needs to be resolved for occasional users, it needs to be resolved for addicts, and it needs to be resolved so tourists -- who may be our only growth industry, given the continued slump of the dollar -- aren't scared of our bad rap sheet. We need to end the heroin panic once and for all.

And I have a cunning plan.

Fascinating Historical Tidbit Creates Dramatic Tension
On July 17, 1985, Mike Harcourt stepped onto the pristine sand of Jericho Beach with his four- year-old son Justin and took a dip into difficult political waters. The metaphor was both literal and figurative. Responding to fears that the Vancouver saltchuck was unsafe for swimming, Mikey decided to make a bold gesture to shush the tongue-waggers and took a 10-minute swimmny-swim. Beyond the calculated spectacle and the guranteed photo-op existed a clear and prsent danger. Mike was putting his mouth (along with his bald head) where the coliform counts were. Which is pretty rare these days. We have to look no further than Mr. Burns spitting out his first bite of Blinky, the three-eyed fish, to see how quickly a media spectacle can sour.

Can Ya See What's Coming? (TM)
Picture Mayor Philip Owen holding a press conference in Blood Alley. He shoots up to prove that the horse we ride in on is peachy keen. If you try hard enough, you can imagine his teeth clenching the tourniquet, needle poised, a smile of contentment moments away. (Best case scenario: he survives and the media panic is quashed. Worst case scenario; Owen dies and... well... I guess this is what's called a win-win situation).

The stunt would be meant to underscore the fact that shooting heroin of a known purity makes a dangerous drug a lot safer. The Owen gambit would drive this particular piont (ouch!) Home and pave the way for a little initiative of mine. Remember when the taxi drivers were forced to take good citizen classes if they wanted to keep their licence? Well, why can't we do the same thing with drug dealers? Think of it as a better business bureau for heroin. We're viciously proud of our pot, we only buy BC hothouse brand tomatoes and cucumbers, so why not create BC- approved herion?

I picture a couple of guys on Lexington standing around, saying, "Up or down." Our hapless hero and heroin addict "Lou" approaches the corner, and goes straight to the guy who's all dressed in black with a big straw hat -- the uniform that certifies that the dealer is government approved -- and conducts his business in a polite and safe manner. "Lou" makes an informed and reasonable decision about the heroin he's buying and leaves happy, knowing that his biggest problem will now be waiting for his man.

It'll mean that Vancouver Sun readers will no longer be bothered by overdose victims clogging up the front pages, and I'll no longer be bothered by ignorant Calgarians.

And if that isn't an improvement, I guess, I just don't know what is.