REALITY OF CRACK ADDICTION

I've owned and run businesses in the Gastown/Downtown Eastside area
of Vancouver for years.

Crack addicts have no respect for themselves, their surroundings or
for anyone else. This idea of free crack-pipe mouthpieces is the
icing on the cake for absurd answers to drug issues.

Most who agree with this "solution" have never spent time in the DTES.

Let's try this: I come to your comfortable apartment in suburban
Vancouver. I defecate and urinate on your front doorstep and then pass out.

Next, I ask people coming to your door for spare change and threaten
them if I don't get anything.

I break into your friends' cars for a quarter or for something shiny
on the floor.

Then I start banging on a 45-gallon steel drum at all hours of the
night, mimicking the sound of dumpster lids opening and closing.

Every morning, you find your patio and planters full of glass pipes,
rubber tubes and needles.

Until you live a day in the life, you have no idea what it is like to
be part of this neighbourhood.

Nick Cardarelli,

Vancouver