Scared Straight in Vancouver: Rural Youth Tour the Downtown Eastside

• By
• Lydia Millett

Image by Scared Straight Tour
The Scared Straight Tour takes rural youth to the Downtown Eastside

Vancouver’s scared straight program brings rural youth face to face with the realities of drug and alcohol addiction

Imagine you’re 15-years-old. You’ve lived in small town BC your whole life, you’ve experimented a bit with drugs and alcohol and you’re struggling to find your place in the world.

So you board a bus en route to Vancouver. You’ve never been to the city before—never seen the ocean and you've never heard of a 'skytrain'. After what feels like forever, you’re there— tired, hungry and probably a little nervous.

You’ve only ever seen buildings this tall on TV and have never seen so many people in one place at the same time. Within an hour of getting off the bus, you find yourself amongst the heroine addicts, sex workers and the homeless of the Downtown Eastside.

Moving to Vancouver without a plan: A reality check for rural youth

Sadly this is the grim reality for many young people who arrive in Vancouver. Fortunately, for 15 teenagers from northern BC, this is not their reality.

These teenagers are on the Scared Straight Tour, a Vancouver based drug and alcohol prevention and education program that takes young people on tours through the Downtown Eastside.

The program is available to local youth, however, a significant number of groups going through the program are from remote areas of BC and many are First Nations youth.

The Scared Straight Tour shows youth where drugs and alcohol can take you. (Image: Scared Straight Tour)

For any young person this experience is hard hitting, but for youth from small communities the experience is particularly valuable. Program founder and coordinator Pierre Morais says, "For the rural youth, I think it’s a bit more dramatic, they’re not used to seeing some of the stuff that the urban kids see living in the city."

Many of these youngsters romanticize city life. They come from sleepy towns and dream of bright lights, fast cars and a hopping nightlife, unaware of the consequences of moving to the city without a plan, or how easy it is to fall into the wrong scene and where drugs and alcohol become a part of daily life.

The realities of life on the streets of the Downtown Eastside. (Image: Scared Straight Tour)

Life on skid row: Addicts and sex workers share their stories

Despite the provocative name, the Scared Straight Tour is by no means a choreographed tour focused on intimidating young people. Instead, it takes a very humane approach, encouraging genuine interactions between the teenagers and the people living on the street.

The experiences youngsters have on this tour are spontaneous and it's surprising how many DTES residents are willing to strike up a conversation and share their stories, eager to ensure that the youngsters don’t follow a similar path. Stories of young women who hope every day that they will escape the sex trade and of addicts who are painfully aware of their addiction.

Youth hear stories from the Downtown Eastside. (Image: Scared Straight Tour)

A lesson in compassion

On this tour, the teenagers pound the pavement of the Downtown Eastside late into the night; and with eyes as wide as saucers; they see prostitutes soliciting, addicts shooting up and medics attending to emergencies. They pass people who are high and aimlessly walking the streets and others asleep on the sidewalk or passed out in the doorways of buildings.

The program participants are asked to bring donations—items such as cash, blankets and clothing—and often participants visit soup kitchens and serve food to the homeless. In this way the program is able to give something back to the people of the Downtown Eastside while at the same time teaching youth one of the most valuable lessons of all—compassion.

Youth serving food at a soup kitchen on the Downtown Eastside. (Image: Scared Straight Tour)

Don’t do drugs, stay in school

It's a hard hitting 48 hours and an experience that these youngsters will likely never forget. Morais says that most youth walk away from the experience realising that drug and alcohol use is a dangerous thing.

"They meet people who tell them that they never thought it was going to be a problem to smoke and drink when they were young and they say to the youth: Look where I am now."

Youth learn what not to do on the Scared Straight Tour. (Image: Scared Straight Tour)

One youngster said of the Downtown Eastside: “It's not a place I want to be.” Another simply said, “I hope to God I never end up on the streets.”

Many of these kids say they hope to go back to their hometowns and make a difference by telling their friends about what they’ve seen. The resounding answer to questions about what they’ve learned on the tour is: “Don’t do drugs" and "Stay in school.”