Opinion

'The Dope Craze that's Terrorizing Vancouver'

The long, true history of hard drugs in Canada's poorest neighbourhood.

By Lani Russwurm, 13 Aug 2008, TheTyee.ca

Downtown Eastside

The Downtown Eastside, home to a century of narcotics trade. Photo by Lani Russwurm.

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I recently heard a senior city planner say that economic decline in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside preceded the drug problem now associated with the area. The point he was making was valid -- that the drug trade didn't cause the decline -- but his history was nevertheless skewed.

Similarly, Vancouver mayoral hopeful Peter Ladner recently contrasted today's 100 block of East Hastings with the one depicted in Fred Herzog photos from the '50s and '60s, lamenting that this used to be a "normal neighbourhood." The open drug scene, according to Ladner, "shouldn't happen here. We shouldn't be putting up with it."

The Odd Squad, a cop-run video production company, also promotes this misleading history by blaming harm reduction policies for today's drug problems in the Downtown Eastside.

Not only are these distortions of history, but coming from such influential folks, they also have significant implications for revitalization policy for the Downtown Eastside. If the drug scene is standing in the way of economic renewal, it follows that the junkies will have to go in order to attract new business and make it a "normal neighbourhood" once again.

Hard drug central

The Downtown Eastside has always been the centre of Vancouver's hard drug trade. In fact, Canada's first drug prohibition law originated here, introduced a century ago after Mackenzie King investigated compensation claims stemming from the 1907 anti-Asian riots in Chinatown and Japantown. Some of the claims happened to come from opium manufacturers and King became especially alarmed when he learned the opium scourge was spreading to white women and girls.

The drug scene never left this area and by the 1920s, drug use across the country was concentrated in poor urban neighbourhoods, something police did not discourage because it made tracking and arresting addicts easier. Beginning in 1939, Vancouver police were making regular inspections of skid road rooming houses looking for drugs and related paraphernalia.

The Downtown Eastside was also the largest drug scene in Canada. According to Catherine Carstairs in Jailed for Possession (University of Toronto Press, 2005), half of all drug convictions between 1946 and 1961 occurred in Vancouver. Chief Constable Mulligan estimated in 1955 that 70 per cent of all crime in the city was connected to the drug trade. By that time, there were 20 RCMP and 14 VPD officers dedicated to policing fewer than 1,500 addicts, a third of whom were incarcerated at any given time.

A 1955 Maclean's magazine article entitled "The Dope Craze that's Terrorizing Vancouver" estimated there were more like 2000 addicts in the city. The writer calculated that this amounted to "one addict for every two hundred and fifty citizens. This not only gives Vancouver the highest rate of drug addiction in the Western Hemisphere," he continued, "but means that if the city's rate of addiction continues to increase as at present, the crop of addicts now being born will constitute one in every sixteen Vancouverites."

The main strip for the drug trade in the 1950s was the 100 block East Hastings, just as it is now. A young lawyer named Harry Rankin described the view from his Main and Hastings office in 1958 as "a scene from Gorky's Lower Depths." This intersection is infamous today as the epicentre of the drug trade, but in the 1950s that distinction belonged to Hastings and Columbia, one block to the west.

'It never gets far from here'

According to Maclean's, Hastings and Columbia was known by the "drug racket" as far away as Montreal simply as "the Corner." The Broadway Hotel (now the Sunrise) did more than its share in cultivating the corner's ill-fame. "It is just as easy to buy drugs at this hotel," bemoaned police magistrate Oscar Orr, "as it is for a child to buy candy at a store."

The owner of the Broadway, Paul Ehman, resented criticism about drug activity in his hotel because he went out of his way to cooperate with the police. During a sting operation in which a Mountie spent two months posing as a junkie on the Corner, Ehman had the drapes removed so police could see inside from their lookout across the street in room 33 of the Empire Hotel (now the Brandiz). Drug dealers had been allowed to set up shop in the ground floor bar, where the Radio Station Café is today. Ehman also installed peepholes and a secret rear entrance "through which the police could rush in to nab a suspect."

The operation ended with 28 low-level dealers and addicts in custody and Ehman boasted that afterwards he chased the remaining addicts out of his establishment. The police were not as impressed with their apparent success. "The main street for drugs is still Hastings at Columbia," said one Vancouver police officer. "It never gets far from there. Between ourselves and the RCMP there's always someone watching it." Fifty years later and they're still watching.

There were also places outside the 100 block to score dope. Jimmy's Café, now a boarded-up non-descript gray building sandwiched between the Astoria and Ted Harris Paint, was a popular one in the '50s. All the dope-crazed hippies in the 1960s knew about Steamies at 50 East Hastings. It was still going strong as Kim's Kitchen in 1990 when Vancouver police Sgt. Bill Warwick described it as the city's "largest illicit-drugs drug store." The nostalgia-evoking Blue Eagle Café neon sign marks another spot where heroin could be bought for most of the café's 56-year existence.

Drug scene forced outdoors

The Downtown Eastside drug scene has gone through a number of significant changes over the years, notably with the rise of crack and HIV/AIDS. As areas such as Yaletown and Granville redeveloped, police helped by pushing street-involved people to the Downtown Eastside, which further intensified the concentration of the street drug scene. The loss of large numbers of low-income housing units in the last two decades has rendered a large portion of the Downtown Eastside addict population homeless, resulting in much more drug activity being conducted outdoors.

A parallel development was even more instrumental in pushing the drug trade outside, which is the single most conspicuous change since the supposed good-old-days when Herzog was snapping his famous photos. In the 1990s, the City of Vancouver went after "problem premises" with a vengeance, beginning in 1994 when it launched its award-winning Neighbourhood Integrated Service Teams to, among other things, coordinate enforcement resources and find creative ways of dealing with troublesome businesses.

At the end of 1999, Mayor Owen was able to boast that 20 business licenses were revoked in that year alone. The Blue Eagle, Kim's Kitchen, Jimmy's, the Broadway, the New Station and numerous other places where the drug trade used to be conducted discreetly and indoors no longer exist. Instead, derelict storefronts permeate the neighbourhood and give it its blighted appearance while users and dealers fill the streets and alleys. This is what makes the area scary for tourists and why businesses are reluctant to set up shop in the Downtown Eastside.

NDP imposes a curfew

For its part, the NDP government passed Bill 50 in 1998, allowing the city to restrict the hours Downtown Eastside businesses are allowed to operate. The curfew imposed under Bill 50 followed a long history of failed initiatives designed to curb substance abuse in the neighbourhood, including the closure of the liquor store at Main and Hastings and the removal of pay phones because they were being used for drug deals in the pre-cell phone era. Ironically, there's now little to do in the neighbourhood that's not drug or alcohol related after the city's only non-24 hours Waves Coffee closes at 10:00 pm.

The Downtown Eastside has been the country's most notorious centre for illicit drugs for a century now. During most of that time, the drug scene co-existed with legitimate business activity. Recent law enforcement campaigns have either been ineffectual or have simply shuffled drug activity onto the streets, creating the disorder we see in the Downtown Eastside today. It remains to be seen whether the current gentrification wave will succeed in pushing the drug scene elsewhere, but if it does, let's hope history doesn't become yet another casualty in the drug war.

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[Tyee]

Lani Russwurm lives, works, and is raising a daughter in the Downtown Eastside. He has an MA in history from Simon Fraser University and runs Past Tense, a local history blog, where a version of this article first appeared.

16 Comments:

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  • ME2

    3 years ago

    Terrorism.

    Vancouver is a seaport, and like Prince Rupert, Seattle, San Francisco, and other "gateway" ports to the Asiatic trade, has always had and always will have a problem with Heroin addiction. Short of outright shooting of addicts and dealers, most every method of control has been tried - here and in other places - and to date no method of prevention has worked.

    And strangely, until the US began hyping "The War Against Drugs" in the Fifties, no citizenry felt itself "terrorised" by the addict population, since it pretty much kept its problems to itself. But not so these days.

    IMO, the stupidity of criminalising pot, which because of its obvious relative harmlessness has become popular right across the breadth of mainstream society, has led to the creation of a huge quasi-criminal system of petty dealers, perfectly placed to spread the new chemicals which have become a genuinely indisputable threat to society.

    Have we learned from our mistakes? Not a whit. Can we learn? Not as long as the current crop of moralists is alive.

  • G West

    3 years ago

    No Worries ME2

    CEO Premier Campbell, speaking at a press conference in Beijing yesterday, told reporters he was invigorated and inspired by the opening ceremonies of the summer olympics and that, in the fullness of time, the 2010 edition of the 'games' will bring sweetness and light to Vancouver as well. Homelessness will no longer be a problem and the drug-trade along Hastings Street will be a thing of the past.

    http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/08/12/bc-vancouver-2010-campbell.html

    The CEO is on the job. Great news.

    He didn't respond, from what I've read, to the news that the Chinese Opening ceremonies were actually not quite what they appeared to be.

    I understand he's going to appear on NBC TV today to tell the Americans how 'inspired' he is.

    Remember that promise about not selling BC Rail?

  • bpither1

    3 years ago

    Zurich used to have "an open

    Zurich used to have "an open drug market" in a local park. They finally introduced harm reduction to stabilize users with significant funding of treatment. They were so successful in this city wide experiment that Swiss voters voted yes in a 1999 nationwide referendum to apply this model throughout the country. Today every middle size town has a safe injection site and facilities to help addicts move back into the mainstream as best they can; the purpose of which promotes something dear to their hearts: social order. This, by the way, wasn't mentioned in Margaret Wente's recent series of "instructive" columns in the Globe and Mail since it didn't fit very well in her smooth survey of failed harm reduction policies.

    Our country is one step behind the American myth of laissez faire, where if you succeed in society everything is yours, and if not, it's your fault. We love to think how much better we have it here when we are not radically different. Instead of genuflecting to the failed war on drugs down south we should adopt this more inclusive European model. Harper and Clement are proponents of the American version of "tough love" while the many who are on the addiction health front have seen what must be done and need the resources to treat rather than continuing with the status quo where government talk is cheap and reality means the unavailability of resources to promote reintegration. The Conservative "vision" means poverty and jail.

    And for those who still want to play out the drug war morality passion play consider this. It costs the average taxpayer $47,000 a year to sustain one addict by just letting him do his/her own thing without treatment. There are health costs (Aids and Hep C for starters) policing costs and your car getting broken into for the quarter sitting on your dashboard. Not the most expensive war in the world but it's bad enough. On the other hand how much would it cost the average citizen to just give him/her the drugs, provide supportive housing and job training?

    The cost conscious Swiss know the answer.

  • ThePosse

    3 years ago

    The Hawaiian drug connection

    The media keeps portraying the DTES drug problem and surrounding issues as derelicts in the street.

    Really, in reality the DTES situation is being worsened and spread by none other than ..

    http://tinyurl.com/5es4wj

    That is a clear and obvious case of suspected drug abuse.

    Quit pointing the finger at the poor, the disadvantaged and mentally ill and start focusing on the real problem, that's how progress can be made.

  • Dave2

    3 years ago

    Hastings at Columbia, 1958

    Hastings at Columbia, 1958

    http://www.equinoxgallery.com/works/16920.jpg

  • macsasquatch

    3 years ago

    Users and addicts...

    The young and the poor who use drugs do not have the money to support a big drug trade. There has to be a bulk of buyers with money to drive such a profitable enterprise. So it might be useful to think in terms of a continuum of users of illegal drugs that goes from the addicts (people in big trouble, drug manages their lives) to 'users.' I think that people who get in addiction trouble, can't manage, and so end up in the poor section of a community. But he real market is not the poor, it is all the rest of us. It's other parts of the community that can afford to provide the basis of the drug trade.

    If there were 1500 addicts in Van in the mid 1950s, I'm not sure if they are real addicts, if if that is a count of all users, or what it means. It doesn't sound like enough people to form a decent market for producers and distributers. There has to be good, and predictable returns to pay for the organization needed to produce and distribute, especially in an enterprise that is agains the laws.

  • ME2

    3 years ago

    WHO are the "users"?

    What you are alluding to, macsaaquatch, but did not make clear enough to the general public who has been propagandised otherwise, is that the by far greater majority of heroin "users" are people who hold down everyday jobs at all levels, and who have secure and trusted sources of supply. They are, as you suggest, the backbone of the heroin trade.

    These people have learned to regulate their daily dose, and even more are "chippers", who use only on weekends or special occasions.

    They are NOT the crazed, maniacal lunatics the media portrays. That image is totally wrong, for even the truly hopeless down and out addict wants only to be left alone, and resorts to crime only because he/she has no other source of money.

    This is a polar opposite to the use of Cocaine and other modern drugs such as the Methamphetamines, where the user seeks a high in which she/he becomes master of all he/she surveys, secure in invincibility, and reckless in judgement.

    To be sure, none of us would want to see a son or daughter or other loved one wired on either species of drugs, whether they can handle it or not, and so our fear of such is easily and justifiably aroused.

    That does not excuse, however, our ignoring of the fact that to date all our efforts at eradication of drugs have been dismal failures.

    And so a different approach is surely called for, especially in view of the continually escalating use of the extremely dangerous street chemicals.

  • anarcho

    3 years ago

    Addiction a class issue

    As with prostitution addiction has a class aspect. The drug addicts who are considered a problem are not the doctors, actors, CEO's, lawyers etc but the working class street addicts who are too poor to afford the drugs and have to steal and/or hook for them. If they could become registered addicts and get their drugs from a pharmacy, they would cease their criminal acts and drug addiction would no longer be a problem for the rest of us. Trouble is, half the cops would be out of a job and the Mr. Bigs of the illegal drug industry would be out of profits, so we will wait a long time for any rational changes.

  • nightbloom

    3 years ago

    Macsasquatch, I totally

    Macsasquatch, I totally agree. It's a continuum. The "open drug market" in Vancouver goes all the way up the echelons of society in Vancouver. The homeless addicts and street dealers are merely the most visible, concentrated, and pathetic segment. There's a lot of hard-core drug use going on in the condos and townhouses and suburban living rooms too, as well as in the swank nightclubs. The substances might change, but it's all part of the same economy. The whole city is a drug racket.

  • zalm

    3 years ago

    The two missing pillars

    Remember the four pillars? Where are housing and detox? Only a few more funded beds have opened up in Vancouver since Philip Owen's crusade got his political boat stove in (and a bunch closed down too - remember Sally Ann and their 22 or 26 beds?).

    And assuming you win the lottery and a detox bed is open for you when you decide you've had enough, AND make it through detox, what awaits you on the other side?

    ...Be out by noon, see the Ministry for a rent cheque if you qualify, but it's up to you to find a place. No wonder so many of them end up back in the same flop houses that they got addicted in in the first place. And so the wheel turns, and turns and turns....

    Which is why the House of Refuge at Fraser and 49th is going to be so important when we get it opened later this year. Housing for up to a year for up to 8 people to get them trained in living properly again. Continuous intake. No relapses allowed. Staffed 24/7. No funding from the Ministry or the City - we do it all ourselves for the money that the clients get from the Ministry for shelter allowance plus whatever we get in donations.

    Which is why "the defence of the realm" at Hastings and Carrall sounds so preposterous. It isn't where the real work gets done - it's just a quick'n'dirty maintenance measure to keep the poor sots alive til they get the chance to make a commitment. And policing is the safety valve. Both are useful, but ultimately not important. So why do we rely on them so much? Because we're cheaper bastards than the Swiss.

    I'll tell you what's making the DTES worse - the housing trade. Funny that a city planner can't see that.

  • gassyandy

    3 years ago

    violence

    The increase in violence in the DTES did not
    start until the late 90's when the city started
    to crack down (pun intended) on the open drug
    use in the area. when the police started
    shaking down dealers and taking their dope
    and money but would let them go is when
    the proverbial shit hit the fan.

    Even to this day there is a very oppressive
    attitude towards this cities poor. Well at
    least Mr. Camp Bell (gordo) went to China
    to ask them for advice on how to continue
    the oppression. You see Gordo earlier this
    year gave each and every citizen of BC $100
    but most people did not know that this meant
    only those who did taxes would get it.

    Most of the people in the DTES do not do taxes.
    I mean what for they do not make
    any money so it just becomes a hassle.
    Gordo knew this and so most of them did
    not get that Climate action whatever it's called.
    I went through the loops by sending the
    required info to the Ministry of Business
    2 months ago and they still have not
    processed it.

    Now he does the Open park boogie.
    Offering housing to those who
    camp out in Oppenheimer park. This all
    just a lick and a promise. If you want to
    fix these problems you start by giving them
    love first not hate and oppression then
    you restore the services you took away
    from them so you can have your Olympics.
    These people are sick because of the way
    they have been treated all of their lives.
    You should not expect them to change
    because you will punish them if they don't.

    The answer is simple give them back the
    dignity you robbed them of 100 years ago.
    Lets show the world that we can do this
    by treating this as the medical problem
    it is and perhaps by the time the Olympics come
    WE can all have something to be proud of!!

  • realisticman

    3 years ago

    gasyandy

    Quote:
    you robbed them of 100 years ago

    Say what?

    The Globe has been discussing this too:

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080815.whomeless16/CommentStory/National/home#comments

  • G West

    3 years ago

    Yep, lotsa nice stuff in that forum

    Such as, for example, from John Dixon of Vancouver:

    These people won't be getting 'back on track' They're meth addicts, mostly. They're basically already dead. They'll just be around for a few months before they stop breathing, stealing stuff and causing problems, tying up resources like ambulance and hospital services. The note about dealers in view of the police station is telling. This is the only way I can see of reducing this nightmare. Enforce existing drug laws with vigour and diligence. Crack down on panhandling and forcefully evict squatters. Not that I care a whit for how the city looks 'for the Olympics', but for the sake of all the crackheads-to-be the environment of the DES must be changed to make it impossible to exist. It's acting as a magnet for every wastrel in the country and it will soon overwhelm the city's ability to cope (I guess it already has.)

    Or from one of your former countrymen:
    I have never understood why Canada, a very rich country, puts up with so many beggers and vagabonds inhabiting its city centres. I travel the world, and I never see so many beggers and homeless in a developed country than I do in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver etc. Don't Canadians realise you are not doing these people a favour by letting them to live like this or develop these bad habits? Canada has plenty of work and they should be working, full stop.

    Don't think we're going to learn much from that particular forum

  • realisticman

    3 years ago

    Did you write this?

    Quote:
    F H from Canada writes: 'The solution for the adicts rests in an enforeced program where they are taken off the streets and into a workcamp where there health is restored first, then their addiction is worked on. '

    You are aware that this 'solution' has been tried in the past and has been an utter failure time and time again with an almost 100% occurence of recidivism, yes?

    It's basic knowledge that for an addict to beat their addiction THEY have to be ready to do so.

    I'm a former crack addict, so I know of which I speak. I'm also living proof that treatment centres work as I'm now happily married, have a great job in the government and have a wonderful life.

  • G West

    3 years ago

    realisticman

    I find that offensive - and I've notified the editors of that fact.

    You're the one who brought up the G&M comment forum - remember?

    And no, I didn't - DID YOU?

  • G West

    3 years ago

    Perhaps you've forgotten this

    From the Tyee commenting code of conduct:

    We ask you to reflect this spirit in your comments, to relate your comments to the subject matter of the preceding articles, and to refrain from personal insults towards authors or other commenters.

    bolding mine

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