Longtime Downtown Eastside activist John Turvey, who established Vancouver's first needle exchange program, passed away Wednesday on Vancouver Island after being ill for several years.

Turvey, 61, had become addicted to heroin when he was just 13, but managed to turn his life around by the time he was in his early 20s.

John Turvey, seen here in 1991, worked in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside for 35 years.
John Turvey, seen here in 1991, worked in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside for 35 years.
(CBC)
For the next 35 years, he worked in the Downtown Eastside, founding the needle exchange and the Downtown Eastside Youth Activities Society, which provided services to young people living on the streets.

He was forced to retire after being diagnosed three years ago with mitochondrial myopathy, a disease that interferes with muscle function, making it difficult to walk and talk.

In 2004, he was awarded the Order of B.C., and in March of this year, he was awarded the Order of Canada for his years of public service on the streets of Vancouver.

The Order of Canada presentation was made in Comox, where Turvey lived with his wife, because he was too ill to travel to Ottawa.

Started needle exchange with his own money

At that ceremony, the ailing Turvey was lauded by Lt.-Gov. Iona Campagnolo, who called him "fearless in his belief that only by squarely facing all the attendant factors in the tragedies and trauma of drug addiction could positive change be realized."

Lou Demerais, the director of Vancouver's Native Health Society, said the world has lost a tremendous person.
 
He said Turvey launched the needle exchange program on his own, without any government assistance.

"The needle exchange didn't start with him writing a proposal to government. It started with him taking some of his own money and loading up as many rigs as he could buy, as many syringes, and putting those in a little knapsack and walking around in the Downtown Eastside and saying, 'Look, if I give you these rigs, will you give me as many back the next time I see you?'

"And you know what he was doing actually back then was against the law. And he just said it needs to be done, and he went out and did it."