Home · Health · Public Health · Dealing with drug addiction
Dealing with drug addiction
Broadcast Date: May 13, 1959
Every day, Vancouver's 2,000 drug addicts wake up and ask, "What can I steal today?" Heroin addiction drives much of the petty crime in the city's downtown, and three young men have recently died of a drug overdose. It's a pathetic existence, says CBC correspondent Jack Webster on TV's Close-Up. In this clip, Webster talks to a police detective, a coroner, a social worker and an addict who says he tries to break the habit every time he is arrested.Dealing with drug addiction
• Close-Up was a weekly current affairs program that began as a spinoff of Tabloid in 1957. Until 1961 Close-Up was a half-hour program (with occasional hour-long versions); that year it was expanded to a full hour.• Pierre Berton called the show "the daddy of all the information shows like 60 Minutes, The Journal or The Fifth Estate. They all owe their life to Close-Up."
• Many episodes of Close-Up were one-on-one interviews with thinkers, political figures, writers and celebrities such as George Chuvalo. The show also tackled social issues such as racism, divorce, nuclear warfare, birth control and universal health care.
• In creating Close-Up, producer Ross McLean once said his goal was to create a program with "information masquerading as entertainment."
• A Toronto Daily Star review of this episode of the show said: "Drug addiction, crime and life generally on the skid row of Vancouver has been more than adequately covered by radio and TV in recent years. There is a fine line between sociological investigation and exploitation of misery for sensational effect and in the case of Vancouver's underworld I think the line has just about disappeared."
• Jack Webster was a seasoned journalist who immigrated to Canada from Scotland in 1947. He was the Vancouver correspondent for Close-Up and later for the CBC's This Hour Has Seven Days. He was also a regular guest panellist on Front Page Challenge, but his steadiest job was as a popular open-line host for 27 years on both radio and television in British Columbia. He retired in 1987 and died in 1999.
Dealing with drug addiction
Medium: Television
Program: Close-Up
Broadcast Date: May 13, 1959
Guest(s): Douglas Denham, Robert Halliday, Glen McDonald, Al Shepard
Host: J. Frank Willis
Reporter: Jack Webster
Duration: 20:23
Last updated:
March 16, 2011
Television
2:12
As part of a Vancouver performance art piece, a furry brown and white rat named Sniffy faces death by a 25-kilogram concrete block.
Radio
14:34
Vancouver tries to rid its image as the rotten tooth capital of Canada.
A Monday in 1959- Vancouver Turns 125
Destination Vancouver: Draft dodgers head north 
Protest and pepper spray at APEC Conference- Festivals and happenings: Vancouver's Human Be-in
- Hippie runaways in Vancouver: Their stories
- Vancouver politicians averse to hippies
- Parade of Fools in Vancouver
- Electric eels light up tree at Vancouver Aquarium
Dealing with drug addiction.
The CBC Digital Archives Website.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Last updated: March 16, 2011.
[Page consulted on Feb. 15, 2012.]