Vancouver, Canada is home to one of the worst epidemics of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) in the developed world. Injection drug users are the most affected persons; as many as 40 percent of them in Vancouver's impoverished Downtown Eastside are living with HIV/AIDS. On April 7, 2003, the Vancouver Police Department launched a major crackdown in the Downtown Eastside of which the stated purpose was to clear the streets of drug dealers. Health and social service providers, some government officials, and many injection drug users fear that one of the main consequences of this aggressive crackdown will be to fuel a new wave of transmission of HIV and other blood-borne and sexually transmitted diseases as well as to increase the risk of complications from overdose, including death.
