Leslie McBain – #MSTH #DecriminalizeNow Rally

Victoria, BC June 23, 2018

We acknowledge in gratitude that our gathering place is within the ancestral, traditional, and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, including the Songhees, the Esquimalt and the Wsanec nations.

Before we begin I would like to bring your attention to the Petition to the House of Commons to address the opioid crisis that we urge you to sign – wave your clipboards volunteers.  John and Jenifer Hedican of Comox lost their beloved son Ryan to a fentanyl poisoning. They like us are not only grief stricken, they are angry and passionate. Thank you, John and Jennifer, for this petition and its trajectory.

We are here to demand that our government and all governments of Canada turn their attention to the fact that there have been over 7000 deaths in 4 years and many before that. These people died of the preventable cause of using illicit, unregulated, and toxic substances.  We demand the government place the highest priority on ending the war on drugs, which is a war on the people who use drugs.

And specifically, today we ask government to DECRIMINALIZE the people who possess and use illicit drugs. They are not criminals. they are simply using drugs.

Drug use must be treated as a social and health-care issue rather than a criminal matter.

Many people are addicted to drugs - they take drugs out of a great need, a need that most of cannot fathom unless we’ve been there.  Some are seeking a respite from the harshness of their lives. Some are kids looking for a new experience. It is not for the government to literally judge an individual based on what they want or need to take into their own bodies.  They are not criminals.

And to see them as such, to treat them as such, then to deny them the medicine they need once they are dumped into the criminal justice system is inhumane. It is not befitting of the country of Canada

In comparison, am I arrested for possessing and drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes? No! Why not? Because prohibition on alcohol didn’t work in the early 20th century, the government decided that these potentially very harmful substances are legal, and legal to possess and use as unwisely as we like.

Much of the world has realized that decriminalization necessary to mitigate the problem:

  • The Global Commission on Drug Policy, the World Health Organization and both the Canadian and American public health associations support the decriminalization of possessing small quantities of currently illegal psychoactive substances.
  • The countries of Portugal, Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador, the Netherlands, the Czech republic have all decriminalized drugs.   They have shown that such policies free up police and the entire criminal justice system for more serious crimes.  These policies send people with addictions toward treatment rather than jail.

Framing drug use as a criminal justice issue rather than one of health has simply served to fuel the very lucrative black market in fentanyl and other non-pharmaceutical, divert resources from law enforcement and marginalize those who are already vulnerable

People who use these drugs are my kid and your kid, your brother, your aunt, your partner and maybe you.  They are people who live next door, the people beside you in the parking lot.  They are not criminals. They may carry trauma, they may live in poverty, they may have mental health challenges, they may have simply become caught by addiction through a doctor’s prescription.

Today we are working on one ask. Decriminalize the possession of and use of illicitly obtained drugs for personal use.  It is not a war on drugs that we see, it is a war on the people who use drugs.

Let the government, Mr. Trudeau, see that lives will be improved, tax dollars will be saved and put to use in health care, treatment, education, shelters, harm reduction measures. Mr.  Trudeau, your party as well as the NDP and the Green Party wants to decriminalize drugs. What IS the problem here?

Moms Stop the Harm primarily works to support and keep alive people who use drugs. We want them to be alive, we want every kid who experiments with drugs to live through the experience, we want people who are addicted to have a chance to get to treatment and recovery.  

We advocate for drug policies that keep users alive and safe. They must not be criminalized, sent to jail, and not treated.  They need help not jail. Decriminalize the possession and consumption of all illicit drugs.

Decriminalize those who possess and use illicit drugs NOW!

Leslie McBain, co-founder Moms Stop The Harm, bereaved mother of Jordan Miller

 

 

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Fentanyl and Life-Saving Care: Its Not About Us, Its About All of Us

Sheila Jennings, MSTH Ontario Leader

On April 5, 2018 the British Columbia government issued a press release stating that it will allow nurse practitioners to prescribe hydromorphone, methadone and suboxone. This progressive public health measure was put forward to save lives in the present opioid drug crisis. This measure is progressive because many Canadians still view those who’ve overdosed or who are at risk of doing so, with a mixture of fear and contempt. For others however, these are our children and the fathers and mothers of our grandchildren. As such, to us they matter.

The backdrop to the BC health policy initiative is the shocking number overdoses, many of which involved exposure to the drug fentanyl. There were 982 deaths in BC in 2016, with 67 % involving fentanyl. Approximately 1,422 overdoses occurred in B.C. in 2017 and fentanyl was implicated in 80% of those deaths. In Alberta almost 1.9 people a day died from fentanyl poisoning in 2017. That number is growing. Several people overdosed in Saskatchewan last month. Fentanyl had arrived on the scene.

An Ontario MHLTC News Release reported that from July to September 2017, there were 2,449 ER visits for overdose, up from 1,896 in the previous three months. Deaths due to overdoses rose dramatically from 2016 to 2017. Those ambulances you see go whizzing by on their way to an emergency room, people’s children are dying inside them. My child was in one of those ambulances. The Canada Health Agency recently reported that there were over 4,000 overdoses in Canada last year ̶ 1,500 more than in 2016. Advocate Zoe Dodds has referred the crisis as ‘carnage’. Advocate, Vikki Reynolds, referred to it during a workshop I attended as a ‘horror show’. The collective noun for a group of crows is ‘a murder’. I’m going with ‘a massacre’ of overdoses. In 2015 my son’s heart stopped during an overdose. A not uncommon event in these kinds of overdoses. These numbers make it feel like a massacre to me. Fortunately for us, a woman nearby saw and had called 911. She remained with my child and she remains, whoever she is, in my mind.

Mothers want more progressive health care initiatives. In 2017 Ian Hanomansing published “If it hasn't happened ... it's coming': Mothers of addicts urge a radical approach to fentanyl crisis.” The article features women speaking about their children’s experiences with drug use. They told their stories in the setting of extreme stigma to illustrate the need for change in our orientation towards those who use drugs. Their message: stop criminalizing drug users and start protecting them instead. They warn people will not stop dying until Canada wakes up.

We must learn from those with lived experience, and in particular from youth who’ve survived. They are the experts. We can also learn however from mothers living the crisis. As well, professionals with various forms of real life experience with the crisis, like Leigh Chapman and Zoe Dodd in Toronto, and Vikki Reynolds in BC are working very hard, caring, educating and advocating for others about the opioid crisis that affects all of us. I’m fortunate that Chapman provided us with extremely helpful personal advice by phone. We must listen closely to what these experts say, because too many people are discovering a very hard way that there’s little margin for error. Death can come to your family in an innocuous looking pill. Don’t underestimate the power of peer pressure, if you do not want to learn that your child has died, or is fighting for their life in an ICU, learn from those who have.

You can also learn about the crushing effects of stigma. Jettison terms like drug addict and junkie from your vocabulary. Learn about opioid dependence and withdrawal. Find out about ‘harm reduction.’ According to a recent Angus Reid poll, 1 in 8 Canadians (12.5%) know someone who became opioid dependent in the last five years. Yet Statistics Canada’s January 2018 Opioid Awareness Survey found that only about one in fifteen Canadians (7%) know how to access Naloxone and use it to interrupt an overdose until help arrives. Get a Naloxone Kit and ask someone how to use it. Do this, because if you come across someone who has overdosed ̶ and some of you reading this will ̶ they will be relying on you for help.

Support safe injection sites. Or at least don’t oppose them. The opioid crisis is the menacing force to be reckoned with; drug users are not. One mother in the article I mention above comments of the overdose crisis, “If it hasn't happened in your family ... either you're in denial or it's coming.”

It’s a fact. Be prepared.

An open letter to the CBC Ombudsperson regarding the use of stigmatizing images

Ms. E. Enkin, Ombudsman, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, P.O. Box 500, Station A, Toronto, Ontario

April 5th, 2018

Dear Ms. Enkin,

We are writing this letter to draw attention to a serious concern we have regarding the use of misleading imagery in CBC articles presenting issues around the epidemic of substance related overdose. The organization we represent is called “Moms Stop the Harm”. We are a national network of mothers from across Canada who have lost loved ones to substance misuse or whose loved one is hoping for recovery. Our organization’s primary objective is to save lives. Our efforts to do this are founded in the principles of harm reduction and opportunities that are served under that umbrella.

From one end of this country to the other we are seeing our membership grow every day. More notably, it is apparent that the demographic assigned to overdose has changed and with that it is paramount we change our paradigms, especially those that serve to stigmatize the picture of substance abuse. The demographic we are referencing here are younger people who are using and dying alone. They are dying at home in upscale communities, dying on the sofas at teenage house parties, or even safely parked in the driveway in the family car.

The CBC has taken to repeatedly using the image of a green pill, a discarded needle and/or pictures of homeless people. They certainly have shock value and with that will capture the viewers’ attention. However, these photos could quite easily mislead the community into thinking that the deaths are confined to a specific user group.

Your organization has a vast following and coast to coast influence. It would be fair to suggest that your reporters are aware of the truth behind that which they report. With that awareness must come an understanding that the demographic of people dying by overdose statistically is vast and not limited to drug users who injects their substance(s). Many more are dying by alternative methods of consumption. Tainted illicit drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine are taking the lives of far too many. Research has shown that 80% of all street drugs are contaminated with deadly fentanyl.

Journalists have a responsibility to share the truth and educate the public. When they fail to show the broader representation, as is the case with the current imagery, it can feed the stereotypical story that too many believe. The story that tells us that only street involved people are dying during the overdose crisis. The public are in fact almost assured by virtue of a single method of consumption represented, that they are safe. Most don’t want to believe that their loved one could die by overdose let alone use illicit drugs that put them at risk. The truth is they can die, statistically they are dying and green pills and needles represent only a portion of users.

The statement below was taken from your own Journalistic Standards and Practices. It outlines a clear commitment to fairly representing the vulnerable in your media efforts.

We are aware of our influence on how minorities or vulnerable groups are perceived… We avoid generalizations, stereotypes, and any degrading or offensive words or images that could feed prejudice or expose people to hatred or contempt… When a minority group is referred to, the vocabulary is chosen with care and with consideration for changes in the language.

Deadly drugs are evolving and with them, so too should the imaging that serves to represent the substance user. We would like to add some suggestions of images that are more aligned with the actual deaths or using habits of our members loved ones.

  • cocaine on a neatly organized office desk
  • a young man on a sofa at a house party, head bowed seemingly sleeping
  • a small bag of powder next to a teenager’s text book

In addition, pictures that tell stories of effort:

  • images of people with lived or living experience from all a variety of backgrounds (including those who have died)
  • photos of professionals providing treatment or harm reduction supports
  • treatment or harm reduction supplies

We need greater communication about the opioid crisis across this country if we want to save lives. As a national news agency, you not only have an opportunity but more importantly a responsibility to the public. Generalizations such as images of people using and dying while out in public only feed the judgements placed on the marginalized and such images fail to represent the truth.

Sincerely,

Marie Agioritis, leadership Saskatchewan – on behalf of our Canadian team.

Moms Stop the Harm