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Essay about How to Fix the Skids

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Applied Law Enforcement | How to Fix the Skids | Instructor: Al “R.C.” Arsenault | | By: Stanley Lam | 4/5/2010 |

An academic essay written by Stanley Lam for the Applied Law Enforcement class regarding his thoughts and opinions on how to fix the skids located in the Downtown Eastside. |

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How to Fix the Skids
By: Stanley Lam

This paper will be regarding the topic on “How to Fix the Skids” for Applied Law Enforcement class instructed by Al “R.C.” Arsenault. “Skid row” or “the skids” is located on the 100-block of East Hastings Street in Vancouver, British Columbia; right between Chinatown and Gastown. The Downtown Eastside is also where the safe drug injection site …show more content…

Many drug addicts do not have jobs or any legal means of generating income; they resolve to criminal activities such as theft, robbery, or aggressive panhandling. Due to the addictive nature of drugs, the user will be compelled to want more and more in order to continue feeling “normal”. It is what fuels their addiction and as a result, a lack of motivation to do anything other than obtaining more drugs. The drug addict’s family suffers from the effects of the drug addiction as well through emotional stress and psychological decay. Drug addicts also encourage illegal drug trafficking by helping fund criminal organizations. In fact, drug addicts are the reason why the billion dollar drug industry is as lucrative as it is. Without drug addicts, drug traffickers would have no customers or buyers to help generate income. Huge amounts of tax revenue is going towards the war on drugs which includes money going into police departments, border agencies, harm reduction programs, and anti-drug campaigns. The tax money being used to fight drugs could be used to better our education or health systems; instead it is being used to fund harm reduction programs such as Insite.
Insite is the first legally supervised injection site in North America operated by the Vancouver Coastal Health and the Portland Hotel Society, located at 139 East Hastings Street. As a result of a harm reduction policy geared towards helping the area's drug addicted

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