PROSTITUTES, ADDICTS TOO STRUNG OUT TO CARE

VANCOUVER -- "What pig farm?"

At the corner of Main and Hastings Streets, many of the drug addicts,
pushers and prostitutes swarming on the streets yesterday at noon
hadn't heard about the breakthrough in the case of the 50 women who
have disappeared from the neighbourhood.

At the down-and-out epicentre of Vancouver's seamy Downtown Eastside,
most had more urgent matters to attend to. Like the woman down on her
knees trying to inject heroin into her friend's neck as people walked
by.

The second woman, sprawled on her back, certainly wasn't in any mood
to chat. "Ahh," she screamed, bolting upright, as her partner missed
the jugular vein, again.

A middle-aged man who introduced himself only as George suddenly made
the connection.

"Oh, that pig farm," he said, swaying back and forth unsteadily as
his eyelids started to droop.

"There's nothing to talk about," he said, spitting a fat gob of
phlegm onto a sidewalk already awash in needle wrappers, ketchup
packages and cigarette butts. "It's all been blacked out by the
police."

Myles Meetoos, a security guard with the Carnegie Community Centre,
looked over at a young man sucking on a crack pipe a few steps in the
other direction and shook his head.

There had been a few people at the drop-in centre talking about
whether there was a connection between the missing women of the
Downtown Eastside and a farm in Port Coquitlam, he said. But not
many. "If you're down here, you got other things on your mind."

Josey is a 34-year-old prostitute with scabs all over her face, the
result, she said, of a bad batch of cocaine cut with Ajax. She saw
the news about the farm on TV, but hadn't talked to anyone about it
yet.

"I just came out now," she explained, as she wandered over to a
friend who supplies pipes. Crack pipes, that is, which Josey hawks on
the corner for $2 a pop.

Josey said she and a few girlfriends were sitting around last week,
wondering what happened to the bodies of the missing women. "Fifty
girls missing and no bodies? Kind of strange.

"When I heard on the news about that farm, man, it sent a cold chill
down my spine."

Josey knew many of the missing, most of them casually; one
intimately. "We had just started dating," Josey, who is bisexual,
said. "She went out one night and never came back."

Yes, it does scare Josey to think that she could easily have been one
of those missing women. Two years ago, she went out on a bad date.
Just as she was reaching for the car door, the man grabbed the money
back out of her hand and slashed her across the forehead.

She lifted her bangs to display a long deep scar.

Like many prostitutes in the area, Josey didn't report the incident
to the police. "I'm just another East Hastings ho' to them. What do
they care?"

Nor did she hold out much hope for the investigation. "I hope they
find some of the women on that farm," she said, shaking her head
sadly.

"But all 50? I bet there are copycats."

We rounded the corner, past the Contact Centre, an outreach progam
that helps people get into detox programs. A young man was stabbed
there a few days ago. A few steps into the alleyway, a different
young man was sitting on a garbage bin fingering a yellow flyer.

Was it a warning about the "bunk?" Bunk is the street name for fake
drugs. Lately, a lot of crack made out of wax has been sold on the
streets.

"I don't know," the man said. "I can't read." He handed down the
flyer. "Heroin users beware!" it read. "Strong powder around. Don't
accidentally overdose."