A researcher followed 20 young people living on Vancouver streets. Half of them died.

published on March 25, 2024 by Lori Culbert in Vancouver Sun

Dom, a charismatic and “painfully tired” 16-year-old, liked the video games he could play and the TVs he could watch in a specialized B.C. Children’s Hospital program for teens who’d had life-threatening overdoses.

In his short lifetime, Dom had been in countless drop-in centres, treatment programs, hospital wards, and even jail, but hadn’t been able to kick his drug dependency.

It was the winter of 2020, and the hospital prescribed Dom something new, Suboxone, a medication used to treat opioid addiction. It gave him some hope.

“This time, I’m trying something a different way, I guess?” Dom said, flashing a small smile at Danya Fast, an assistant professor in the UBC school of medicine.

The new medication, he thought, might get him stable enough to work, go back to school, and make “real” friends, including a nice girlfriend, Fast writes in her new book…