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Free heroin? Unusual clinic offers ‘chance at being human again’ (Crosstown)

Twice a day Kieran Collins, 39, injects prescription-grade heroin at the Crosstown Clinic in Vancouver. (Nick Purdon/CBC)
Twice a day Kieran Collins, 39, injects prescription-grade heroin at the Crosstown Clinic in Vancouver. (Nick Purdon/CBC)

When I first met Kieran Collins in Vancouver three years ago, he had a $100-a-day street heroin habit that he fed any way he could.

“You’re doing things that you don’t really want to do — things that you weren’t raised to do,” said Collins, who was 36 at the time. “You know they are wrong, but you get accustomed to having to feed it.”

Twice a day, Collins visits the Crosstown Clinic in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. A nurse hands him a syringe of prescription-grade heroin.

Read the full story on CBC News.

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