Marshall Smith has been held up as the architect of the ruling United Conservative Party's approach to the drug overdose crisis.

While the face of addiction has become the mean streets of the Downtown Eastside, thousands of faceless others are silently fighting to get clean in treatment centres, and learning to live sober through recovery programs.

The arrests of three Canadian Forces members and one cadet instructor in the same week this summer was a coincidence, says the Department of National Defence.