# World's First Opioid Vending Machine Opens In Vancouver

**URL:** <https://onehack.st/t/worlds-first-opioid-vending-machine-opens-in-vancouver/70300>\
**Category:** News & Articles\
**Tags:** tools, technology\
**Created:** [February 18, 2020, 3:42pm UTC](https://onehack.st/t/worlds-first-opioid-vending-machine-opens-in-vancouver/70300 "2020-02-18T15:42:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Aina](https://onehack.st/user_avatar/onehack.st/aina/32/167469_2.png) [@Aina](https://onehack.st/u/Aina)\
**Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 3:42pm UTC](https://onehack.st/t/worlds-first-opioid-vending-machine-opens-in-vancouver/70300/1 "2020-02-18T15:42:30Z")

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: _A vending machine for powerful opioids has opened in Canada as part of a project to help fight the Canadian city’s overdose crisis. The MySafe project, which resembles a cash machine, [gives addicts access to a prescribed amount of medical quality hydromorphone](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/feb/17/opioid-vending-machine-opens-vancouver-mysafe-canada), a drug about twice as powerful as heroin. Don Durban, a social worker from Vancouver, is one of 14 opioid addicts using the MySafe vending machine. After being prescribed opioid-based painkillers in the early 2000s, the father of two developed an addiction and now feels unable to cope without a daily dose of hydromorphone._

 

_Unlike most addicts, Durban, 66, does not have to break the law by sourcing his fix through drug dealers. Instead he is prescribed Dilaudid – the brand name for hydromorphone – and, for the past couple of weeks, has been able to collect his pills from a vending machine near his home in Eastside, a rundown neighborhood with a large homeless community. “This is a godsend,” he told the Guardian during one of his visits to the machine. After verifying his identity with a biometric fingerprint scan, the machine dispensed Durban with three pills for each of his four daily visits, in line with his prescription. “It means I don’t have to go and buy iffy dope,” he said. “I have a clean supply. I don’t have to deal with other people so much. You’re treated like an adult, not some kind of demonic dope fiend. We’re just people with mental health issues.”_