104: Heroin Town

Life of the Law

Heroin is illegal in Canada. And just like in the United States many doctors and treatment centers treat heroin addiction by providing a legal alternative, such as methadone. But methadone treatment doesn’t always work. So what do you do?

These people are currently injecting heroin in alleyways, facing overdose and risk of disease and causing all kinds of problems for the public. Why wouldn't you want them to be getting the heroin from a doctor to bring them in off the street and in contact with the health care system?

-- Martin Schechter, professor at the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia

Reporters Sam Fenn and Gordon Katic have this story about a small clinic in Vancouver BC that’s giving their patients legal access the very drug they are addicted to.

Production Notes

Heroin Town was reported and produced by Sam Fenn, Gordon Katic, and Alexander Kim of Cited Podcast in partnership with Travis Lupick and the Georgia Straight, and edited by Nancy Mullane, Life of the Law's Executive Producer.

The story's Senior Producer was Tony Gannon. Our Post Production Editors are Kirsten Jusewicz-Haidle and Rachael Cain.

We want to thank Josh Gabert-Doyon for his help with production.

Our engineer was Howard Gelman of KQED Radio in San Francisco. Music in this episode was composed and produced by Ian Coss.

Transcript of Heroin Town

This episode of Life of the Law was funded in part by grants from the Open Society Foundations, the Law and Society Association, and the National Science Foundation.

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