70,000* Americans poisoned to death in 2017
No more Bystanding
“Perpetrators, Collaborators, Bystanders, Victims. We can be clear about three of these categories. The bystander, however, is the fulcrum.” — Edmunde Burke
History will not be kind to this injustice, this dehumanisation…
We let people who suffer from addiction die. They die alone. On the streets and in their own homes.
Technically they die of an accidental opioid overdose (often due to poisoning from a substance — Fentanyl — they didn’t know they were ingesting), but literally due to a combination of poisoning (Fentanyl has contaminated every type of drug) and stigma.
We treat all drug users as unworthy of our attention, our respect, our medical technology and certainly not worthy of our love. So why would they believe we want to keep them safe?
We all use drugs, legal or not, but are so afraid of the label of addict, we scramble to ensure our loved ones don’t attract it. We glorify sobriety. If you are “clean” the shame associated with a relapse can be even worse than the shame of using in the first place — so the chances you’ll overdose during a relapse are even higher (the drug supply is poisoned and any drug-using community you used to have is gone, so you use alone).
It shouldn’t matter what label society has slapped on you. Whether you are an addict, or a recreational drug user, or a prescription drug patient… you don’t deserve to die.
We are, effectively, killing each other right now, and we are the ones who can keep each other safe: whether you use drugs or not, we are all in this together.
This is just another atrocity happening right in front of us. So many times in the past we have kept ourselves conveniently ignorant. Those things “everybody knows…” but nobody does anything about.
Because we choose to remain bystanders.
We have the power to turn the tide of stigma and shame.
As an Irish Catholic kid I knew not to be left alone with a priest. For generations we all kept silent. When parents and teachers and other priests stopped being bystanders to their abuse, we started to bring justice.
“Everybody knows that the dice are loaded… And everybody knows that it’s now or never” — Leonard Cohen
Apparently, in certain circles, everybody knew that Harvey Weinstein was to be avoided. When we, the bystanders, started finally listening to his victims, a change began.
I have only recently returned to Canada and am learning there is a reckoning here too for 150 years of standing by while First Nations children were systematically tortured at Indian Residential Schools.
And 170 years ago everyone in England knew that a million Irish peasants were dying of starvation during the Great Hunger and were admonished by Lord Travelyan not to intervene (it was God’s judgement, he said).
The estimate is that 71,000* Americans may have died of accidental “overdose” in 2017. People with the disease of addiction. Or in extreme pain. Or perhaps just trying drugs for the first time.
They don’t deserve to die.
“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” — Albert Einstein
We treat people suffering from addiction as criminals and force them to self-medicate — but the medicine on the street is poisoned. (In British Columbia some tests have showed that as much as 86% of heroin had Fentanyl in it.)
(Fentanyl appears to have contaminated every drug supply chain — no type of drug user is safe. It is an opioid that can be up to 1,000 times more potent than heroin; making it virtually impossible to tell how much you’re taking, and making the smallest amount potentially fatal.)
What are we going to do about it? When we look back, what will we see?
We could stop it right now by offering clean heroin by prescription to anyone who needs it. If Prime Minster Trudeau wanted to live up to his hype, this would be a good start. If Donald Trump wanted to really surprise everyone…
British Columbia is about to launch a pilot program to give some people with addiction access to clean opioids. That is a great start and will certainly help those that make it onto the program.
But nearly 200 people are dying across the continent every single day!
Because they are ashamed of their drug habit.
Because they don’t think they are immune, they can handle it, their dealer is reliable… It killed Prince, it killed Tom Petty and it’s killed parents and children in every socio-economic category you can imagine.
We need to keep these people safe. None of them deserve to die. None of them are less than you or me because they use drugs that are illegal and you and I happen to use alcohol, caffeine or nicotine.
After a little over a year working in this space, I’m inspired by the work people are already doing, I’m passionate about contributing. But I’m starting to feel outraged, to feel a lot less kumbaya and a lot more Fuck You…
“It’s not a crisis, it’s a fucking war out there.” — Vancouver resident.
I’m not trying to get anyone sober, clean or to stop partying.
I’ve used plenty of illegal drugs. I stay safe these days in my own way, but until the laws catch up, we will have to keep each other safe.
We need a community of volunteer responders, a revolution against any power that says it’s acceptable that even a single person died today.
Stop bystanding.
Enough.
(If you’ve had enough, clap the hand so more people can hear this message, and join us at Brave.coop so we can work on this together.)
*70,000 is an estimate. There are no official figures available yet, and there won’t be for some months to come. Estimates made during the year showed that the US was likely to have 71,000 fatalities. In 2015 there were 52,000 deaths, in 2016 there were 64,000.
