Once homeless and addicted to drugs, the premier’s chief of staff leads the province’s opioid response

Marshall Smith swiftly tells CBC News the story of his own decline into addiction, like a man who wants to prove he has skin in the game but also wants to move on to bigger policy issues.

He started drinking alcohol as a teenager: “I think some of the difference between me and my friends is that when they stopped drinking, I didn’t.”

In 2004, after he had started working with the B.C. Liberal government, someone offered him cocaine.

“That wound up with me hanging up my suit and tie and sort of vanishing into the streets of Vancouver,” he said.

“I slept in doorways, ate out of garbage cans, did all of the things that you would imagine people do as they’re trying to survive that ordeal.”