It’s the day of the month many people in the Downtown Eastside wait for with desperation and dread – Welfare Wednesday.
Those on social assistance received their cheques Wednesday and many who live and work in the Downtown Eastside worry that as the money goes out, the number of overdoses goes up.
“It’s going to be scary today. You hear the ambulance and fire trucks,” addict Calvin Larocque said.
Still, addicts admit to using their welfare money to buy drugs right away.
“This is why we’re keeping Insite open 24 hours for the day before Welfare Wednesday and the three days after to give people more access to harm reduction services,” Dr. Mark Lysyshyn of Vancouver Coastal Health said of the supervised injection site.
There are also unsanctioned, volunteer-run tents that dispense clean needles and, in the event of an overdose, life-saving naloxone.
Carfentanil discovered in Vancouver
Now a drug 100 times more toxic than fentanyl has been found on the streets. Carfentanil looks like salt and is used by vets to sedate elephants. Health officials are increasingly worried.
“We’ve known these analogs have probably been on the streets since the beginning of this crisis, but this is the first time we’ve really had one detected,” Lysyshyn said. “It’s particularly concerning because in the past few weeks we’ve also seen realy high numbers of overdoses at Insite and a high number of overdose presentations in our emergency rooms.”
In Surrey, the ramp-up to Wednesday saw 39 overdoses in just four days.
Back on the Downtown Eastside, Sheldon Wilson knows his next hit could kill him but the addiction is just too powerful.
“I don’t think about that, what goes through my mind before I smoke this is I’m not going to feel the pain,” he said.
“Don’t come down here.”
– With files from John Hua