![]() ![]() ![]() "But now, some days I wake up and it's like whoa, I am lucky to be alive." ![]() "Before, it felt like I was almost just existing," Collins explains. So we can feel what it is to have a chance at being human again. "They just give us enough so that we are not a mess. "They're not medicating us to the point where we are like 'arghhhh,'" he says throwing his head back and rolling his eyes. On the way I ask Collins how his life has changed since he began getting his heroin from the clinic. When Collins is cleared to leave the clinic, he thanks the staff and heads off to meet his father who works across the city in a design studio. ![]() "We need to get away from thinking this is a criminal problem - it is a medical problem and it is a chronic, manageable illness." 'A chance at being human again' "This is a treatment for a chronic relapsing illness, just like diabetes and high blood pressure," he says. Scott MacDonald, the lead physician at the clinic - the only one in the country that prescribes diacetylmorphine, the medical term for heroin - says the way to curb the crisis is to stop viewing opioid addiction as a criminal problem. Kevin McGarragan says the Crosstown Clinic has saved his life by allowing him to avoid street drugs. ![]()
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