A commentary by a former Times Colonist reporter who has been clean and sober since October 2002.
More than a decade ago, in a de-stigmatization effort, a British charity placed advertisements on the sides of some of London’s double-decker buses proclaiming: Nice People Take Drugs.
The ads were ultimately pulled but not before generating considerable debate and international media attention. A win, I guess, for the advertiser.
While it’s true that nice people take drugs, I’ve always thought the message was incomplete. A more accurate one might have been: Nice People Take Drugs but Then Many of Them Do Not So Nice Things — Like Neglect Their Children or Steal from Their Loved Ones or Break Into Cars and Houses to Feed Their Habit.
Of course that message wouldn’t have fit very well on the side of a bus (and wouldn’t have been on brand as far as the advertiser was concerned) — but it’s probably closer to the truth than what was used.
The old ad campaign came to mind as I read of the latest effort by federal and provincial authorities to de-stigmatize hard drug use by decriminalizing possession of small amounts of hard drugs including fentanyl, cocaine, crack cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and MDMA.
Of course, the change won’t make a whit of difference on the street where possession of small amounts of drugs has for years been de facto decriminalized as police turned a blind eye to it. (In fact, police have had no choice but to ignore possession as the province has licensed supervised consumption sites. They can’t very well arrest people carrying their illegal drugs into a consumption site where they are being encouraged to use them.)
But authorities maintain the move is an important step in de-stigmatization — that it will remove yet another barrier to someone in the throes of addiction from seeking medical care or help.
Maybe. Or maybe it’s just another step in the normalization of hard drug use.
When harm reduction was introduced more than 20 years ago, it was supposed to be one pillar of a four-pillar approach that also included education, enforcement and treatment. For example, a safe consumption site was to be an open door to anyone wanting treatment. That simply hasn’t happened. Not only is there no treatment on demand, there are months-long wait lists for detox. There is little if any education, and enforcement, as witnessed by this latest initiative, is going the other way.
Meanwhile, as authorities have fully embraced harm reduction as the primary tool in addressing “drug misuse,” society has been expected to become amazingly tolerant of that drug misuse and the collateral damage it inflicts on the urban landscape.
In Victoria we’ve warehoused hundreds of people in former downtown motels and seniors facilities without treating their addictions. Some of these government subsidized drug dens are so dangerous that the police will only respond to the most serious calls, and not alone.
City workers have refused to work in some parks or areas of the city without police protection. Business owners increasingly complain of ever-more-brazen shoplifters and of vandalism and street disorder. The 900-block of Pandora Avenue — Ground Zero for drug abetted disorder — over the past 10 years has transformed into Victoria’s version of Vancouver’s notorious Downtown East Side, and long ago became a no-go zone for many residents.
We’ve gone from distributing clean drug supplies, to opening supervised areas for people to inject, to testing illegal drugs for toxicity, to decriminalizing possession. Every step of the way overdose deaths have increased, not decreased. Now the calls are getting louder for a safer supply.
I’ve witnessed, on more than one occasion, a person injecting drugs in broad daylight while panhandling on a Victoria sidewalk outside a coffee shop about a block from Pandora’s supervised consumption site. I somehow doubt it’s shame and stigma holding that person back from seeking help.
Ironically, we are told stigmatization of some behaviours — drunk driving comes to mind — is a good thing and necessary to stamp out the carnage on the roads while at the same time we are expected to swallow the notion that stigmatization and shame are major players in people not seeking help for their addictions.
I’m sure for some that’s true. But we can’t lose sight of the fact that a person in the throes of addiction doesn’t think the same way a non-addicted person does. Their brains have been hijacked by the drugs.
It doesn’t matter to an addict what their bad behaviour is, it can be minimalized and rationalized away. No harm, no foul. Continue to chip away at any consequence of anti-social behaviour and it’s everyone else who pays the price.
I’ve been fortunate enough to be clean and sober since 2002. Recently while snowbirding in Arizona, I attended a daily morning 12-step meeting. I noticed that some attendees were having the chairperson sign a slip attesting to their participation. I initially thought they needed the slips signed because they were court-ordered. It turned out the attendance slips were from their sober living facility.
Some had been struggling with drugs; some with alcohol, and most, as is often the case these days, both. Many of their stories, which unfolded in bits and pieces over the course of the two months we were there, were often both tragic and inspirational.
As is often the case at these meetings, there were tears and there was laughter. I was inspired by tales told by mothers having the opportunity to spend time with their kids again or by young men and women talking of the anxiety and joys of returning to work or school. Many often expressed gratitude for having a safe, sober place to rebuild their lives.
Recovery is not easy. It means change. But it is possible. I have no idea how many of those folks will still be there – or even how many will still be alive — if I return next winter. There is no question some will relapse. Sadly, some of those relapses could be fatal. But at least they are being given a chance.
In B.C., we take a different approach. Recovery through abstinence is seen as some sort of an unrealistic relic of the past. Rather than providing safe, sober places for people to live with conditions that have to be met for them to remain there, the vast majority of social housing is focused on lessening the harms for those who use drugs. Supervised injection or inhalation sites are often included within the complexes.
The notion is that in order to provide treatment, you have to first keep people alive.
The problem is that the prospect of treatment for the vast majority is a lie. There aren’t anywhere near enough beds and hoops they have to jump through to get one are too many and too expensive. They stay forever trapped.
As we continue on this path we would do well to keep in mind that there is a point where harm-reduction is actually harm-induction. We may already be well beyond that point.
