Why did you become a member of Moms Stop The Harm?
A sense of bewilderment that the mortality statistics from fentanyl overdose would include my son at age 28, the urgent need to reach out to others for support, the compelling motivation to be active in pushing back on substance use harms and deaths brought me to Moms Stop the Harm. My son’s death in 2023 was just one of the 2,600 apparent opioid toxicity deaths in Ontario reported for that year. Discovering that the year before, in 2022, the rate of mortality per 100,000 in the Thunder Bay District at 52.3 deaths was more than 3 times the Province of Ontario rate per 100,000 of 16.7 deaths brought me to a point of despair, then anger, that so many of our youth are being lost. Moms Stop the Harm offered an understanding of my grief and a logic for becoming active in its network, with the mission of providing peer support to grieving families, assisting with loved ones who use or have used substances and advocating for change to failed drug policies. What do you want people to know about Moms Stop the Harm?
The fundamental appeal of Moms Stop the Harm is its strong mission – to advocate to end substance use related stigma, harms and death – balanced between offering compassion and a sense of belonging to people struggling with the emotional burden of losing a loved one to substance use, and providing opportunities to advocate in one’s own community. At its simplest, their guidance is about sharing our stories with integrity, at memorial events, online through MSTH social media and in one-to-one conversations and interviews with policy-decision makers. There is an organic wholeness to this not-for-profit that derives from their distinguishing the different parts of the substance use story, then adding and connecting these parts into a whole that is powerful in its forward-looking message. The mission, values and guiding principles at momsstoptheharm.com attest to my notion of what’s important about Moms Stop the Harm, and I hope others will be energized to participate, as I am. What does being an advocate mean to you?
Building on the support I’d already found to deal with the untimely loss of my son – from faith-based learnings to public health resources, political research and media interviews – I learned the value of advocating for change with others who had also lost their young person to accidental opioid overdose. A Drug Awareness Committee, through the City of Thunder Bay and the Thunder Bay District Health Unit, redirected funds donated from my son’s memorial to an art expression event ‘Upcycle for Change’ at their 2024 Overdose Awareness Day and Rockin’ Recovery events. My participation then extended to production of a Caregivers’ Guide (TBDHU) for parents and others caring for youth in active addiction or at risk. In the two years since my son’s death by fentanyl, I’ve witnessed a steady increase in the numbers of individuals and agencies engaged in recovery education and drug awareness advocacy. At the same time, the extent of the illicit drug trade and deaths by toxic street drugs has not diminished in Thunder Bay. The need remains for community awareness of what’s become a public health crisis and for funding for treatment options that stress harm reduction without stigma. All of this means that advocating for change, systemic change, is critical to reducing the numbers of deaths by substance use overdose, specifically toxic street drugs that are all too available to those outside regulated pharmaceutical supplies. My efforts I believe can make a difference when part of a bigger initiative like Moms Stop the Harm that gives voice to those impacted by substance use and insists on being heard by public health and public safety decision-makers.
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