The unlikely fix: treating heroin addiction with heroin

Fentanyl is powerful and often deadly, and street heroin is increasingly laced with it. Over 1,000 people have died of illicit drug overdoses in B.C. since the beginning of 2016.

So, if you're addicted to heroin, how do you stay alive?

You can go to a safe (or "supervised") injection site, where if you overdose, you'll be revived. Or, you can try to get off heroin using a traditional treatment like methadone, but that doesn't work for everyone.

At the Crosstown Clinic in Vancouver, there's another approach: providing users with unlaced, prescription heroin.

The Heroin Clinicis the story of the Crosstown Clinic and the heroin addicts whose lives depend on it.

This documentary was produced by Sam Fenn and Gordon Katic, with Travis Lupick and Alexander Kim, in collaboration with Cited Podcast andThe Georgia Straight.

About the producers

SamFennis co-host of theCitedpodcast, a documentary radio program about research and higher education.

He has produced radio documentaries aboutMennonites who hang out with high risk sex offenders, aJapanese American baseball playerwho was interned during World War II, andthe rise and fall of Vancouver's world-class drug policy. He has written forThe Georgia StraightandThe Tyeeand has aMAin Canadian history from the University of British Columbia.

GordonKaticis co-host ofCited.

He has produced radio documentaries about the myth of the American "Superpredator," a fight over how to teach Canadian historyand the push for sex ed reform in Ontario. Gordon is taking a MA in journalism at the University of British Columbia.

Alexander Kimis a journalist and radio producer based in Vancouver.

He is a producer forCitedand an associate producer for CBC Radio. He has reported for CBC Aboriginal, Arctic Deeply, Discourse Mediaand Canadian Psychiatry Aujourd'hui. He is also the host and producer ofTheoretically Speaking, a podcast about absurd science.

Travis Lupickis a staff reporter at The Georgia Straight.

Hehas written countless stories about Vancouver's politics and social movements as they relate to mental health, addictionand housing affordability. He has a particular interest in where those issues intersect. His other areas of focus include drug-policy reform, police accountability, immigrationand climate change.