Wealthy Canadian city struggles to cope with deadly drug crisis

Sirens scream nonstop through the urban heart of Vancouver, as responders race toward drug addicts overdosing - and dying in such numbers that the city's morgues are full.

This wealthy Pacific coast city is the bleak epicenter of an opioid epidemic that has claimed thousands of lives in Canada, while next door in the United States, drug overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental death.

"There's not a single person down here that's chosen to be a junkie," said Martin Steward, a self-admitted drug user who manages a treatment facility in Vancouver's gritty Downtown Eastside neighborhood where the crisis is concentrated.