Pubdate: Wed, 15 Aug 2001
Source: Vancouver Courier (CN BC)
Copyright: 2001 Vancouver Courier
Contact:  http://www.vancourier.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/474
Author: Sandra Thomas

STREETS WILL GET MEANER IF DRUG RUMOUR TRUE

Drug users in the Downtown Eastside are being warned through flyers at 
shelters and community outreach centres that a large shipment of cocaine 
cut with fibreglass is on its way to Vancouver streets.

Judy McGuire, manager of health outreach services at the Downtown Eastside 
Youth Activities Society, which issued the alert, said the group was tipped 
off by clients from the street. "Everything that comes in we take seriously 
and put it out there. It helps people better take care of themselves."

A flyer on the bulletin board of the Lookout Emergency Aid Society warns 
users that fibreglass is toxic, and possible side effects of injection 
include fever, an increase in the number or severity of sores, skin 
irritations or rashes. Inhaling fibreglass through smoking could have the 
same side effects, along with bleeding lungs.

McGuire said because street drugs like cocaine and heroin are illegal, 
there's no testing facilities for them and because they don't fall under 
the Health Protection Branch, there's no way to monitor them.

In the last year, she said, ambulance service workers were sure some street 
drugs were being cut with strychnine because they started seeing temporary 
paralysis in street users.

Shipments of heroin have sometimes been so pure that overdoses surged, but 
McGuire said that doesn't happen often because the more pushers cut their 
drugs, the more profit they make. "You never know what's been cut into the 
drugs, but there's no easy way to test them," she said. "It's a difficult 
situation. As long as these drugs are sold on the black market, it's always 
going to happen. It even happened during prohibition when alcohol was 
illegal. People were being poisoned. If they're illegal there are no 
standards and no way of ever knowing what's really in them."

Const. Dave Dickson, who's been walking the streets of the Downtown 
Eastside for 21 years, said rumours like this usually originate on the 
street, often with the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, which keeps an 
eye on the drug scene.

"Sometimes it's something they've read in the paper and then they spread 
the word," he said. "For example, they'll read about something that's 
happened in the States and hear the shipment is headed this way. Then 
they'd put out a warning."
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D