from: the Globe and Mail

Just weeks before the spotlight hits Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, a landmark medical study is set to begin, drawing attention to the one class of Vancouverites that the city doesn’t want to showcase: heroin addicts.

The four-year trial will provide 322 chronic addicts at a private Vancouver clinic with heroin or a legal substitute opiate, Hydromorphone.

“This could revolutionize heroin treatment internationally,” said Trish Walsh, executive director of the InnerChange Foundation. “It’s exciting to start this before the Olympics; we think it’s a great opportunity treat the root cause of homelessness in the Downtown Eastside.”
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