In Montreal, journalist Louis-Philippe Messier travels mostly on the run, his desk in his backpack, on the lookout for fascinating subjects and people. He speaks to everyone and is interested in all walks of life in this urban chronicle.
Montrealers are increasingly seeing people smoking crack or fentanyl in parks, downtown or in corners of the metro… and that is not likely to change anytime soon.
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You are not dreaming if, while driving in or around the Berri-UQAM station, you have the impression of seeing more people smoking crack in small tubes or crystal meth in Pyrex bubbles.
Some buildings look like smokehouses. I’m thinking of the rue Berri exit.
Unlike cigarettes or joints which burn for a long time, crack rocks burn quickly.
Smoking your crack can be done in 15 seconds.
It is a much less complicated operation than injection by syringe.
This relative convenience perhaps explains the drug’s growing popularity.
Photo Louis-Philippe Messier
“Crack use is currently exploding in Montreal,” Alex Berthelot, director of community services at Cactus, a harm reduction organization that manages a supervised injection site, confirms to me.
As skyrocketing rents continue to force new populations into homelessness, drug use is increasingly taking place in public places.
It’s sad to say, but from the 1er Next July, the street will probably have new recruits…
“We are surprised to see more people consuming outside, but, crime, there is no housing!” says Martin Pagé, the director of Dopamine, an organization in Hochelaga which works with drug users.
“We have a superposition of crises: there is the housing crisis, there is that of inflation and that, finally, of contaminated drugs,” he analyzes.
“Social problems that were inside are finding themselves more and more often on the streets,” says Mr. Berthelot.
Most homeless consumers do their best to hide themselves out of consideration for passers-by, often using a corner of a wall as a screen.
Photo Louis-Philippe Messier
Immune to inflation
While putting a roof over your head or stocking your pantry becomes more and more expensive, a drug like crack seems “immune” to inflation.
“Crack rock has cost $20 for 30 years,” Mr. Berthelot explains to me.
There are changes in consumption habits.
The heroin that was once present has almost disappeared… while crack is on the rise!
In 2021-2022, the Cactus organization was asked for 36,500 tubes (which we use for crack) by consumers.
By 2022-2023, demand had increased to 60,600 tubes… almost double.
In 2023-2024, the organization plans to distribute 85,000.
As for the glass “bubbles” used to smoke the crystal meth or fentanyl, Cactus distributed 16,300 in 2021-2022, 24,500 in 2022-2023 and plans to distribute 38,000 in 2023-2024.
“Smoking fentanyl has already been happening for several years in the West and it is happening more and more here,” laments Mr. Pagé.
In a column a few weeks ago, I told you about Berger Street in the city center, sadly nicknamed “crack alley,” but the consumption of hard drugs in the open is not limited there.
If the city center hires an army of security guards to suppress consumption, it will move… and the problem will not be solved.
Established injection sites are considering adding “supervised inhalation rooms” which will require ventilation and air purification systems… which could reduce the “visibility” of consumption.
But for that, subsidies will be needed…
Louis-Philippe Messier
