Pubdate: Fri, 01 Apr 2016
Source: Nelson Star (CN BC)
Copyright: 2016 Black Press
Contact:  http://www.bclocalnews.com/kootenay_rockies/nelsonstar/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4866
Author: Will Johnson

'PUNISHMENT MAKES THEM SICKER, COMPASSION CAN MAKE THEM WELL'

Harm reduction must be our priority with Nelson residents struggling 
with addiction

When legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday passed away in New York's 
Metropolitan Hospital on July 17, 1959, she was handcuffed to her bed 
and shivering through hardcore heroin withdrawal. She'd been denied 
the methadone that could make her well.

"She had been strikingly beautiful, but she was wasted physically to 
a small, grotesque caricature of herself. The worms of every kind of 
excess - drugs were only one - had eaten her," wrote Gilbert 
Millstein of The New York Times.

Storeys below her, Holiday's fans and protesters amassed behind a 
reverend named Eugene Callendar. They called for the beloved singer 
to be released and hoisted up banners that read "Let Lady Live." They 
pleaded with authorities to release her so she could be nursed back to health.

Callendar was asked years later why he felt compelled to intervene in 
Holiday's situation, and in the lives of the addicts he treated at 
his church clinic.

"Punishment makes them sicker," he said. "Compassion can make them well."

In Holiday's case, however, he was too late. She passed away that 
night at age 44.

'People are overdosing and dying without this'

It's been over 50 years since Holiday's death, and countless others 
have followed her to early graves for want of effective medical 
intervention. One local doctor taking up Calendar's compassionate 
work with these troubled souls, mostly out of everyday view, is Dr. 
Joel Kailia.

According to reporting by the Star's Bill Metcalfe last week, he's 
currently dealing with a drastic influx of methadone users - triple 
the number he had 18 months ago.

"The skyrocketing fentanyl problem started taking over my business 
life in the office. It was turning into a Downtown Eastside methadone 
clinic," Kailia said. "It was just chaos, taking a huge toll on my 
physical health."

And what's responsible for this rise, in his opinion?

"I attribute the increase to oxycontin being taken off the market, 
creating a vacuum in the supply of opioids on the street and then 
synthetic fentanyl being imported from China and Mexico and other 
places, as well as the diversion of fentanyl from medical uses."

Like Callendar, Kailia believes the work he's doing is intensely 
worthwhile. His is the only practice that prescribes methadone from 
Rock Creek to Cranbrook, and from Nelway to Revelstoke.

And no matter how you feel about addicts or the drugs they're using, 
this is a life and death issue for them.

"People are overdosing and dying without this," social worker Tara 
Emery said. "So it is really hard to turn people down."

The drill sergeant in your head

Years ago I got into a fight with a close friend of mine, someone who 
was struggling with heroin addiction and - in my opinion - wasting 
his life and potential. I can still remember how I felt in that 
moment, trembling with self-righteous anger. I wanted to shake him, 
hurt him, change him.

And I'm not the only one who's felt this way.

"I suspect that everybody who has ever loved an addict - everybody 
who has ever been an addict -has that impulse in them somewhere," 
journalist Johan Hari writes in his book Chasing the Scream.

"The voices in my head were very like a howling drill sergeant in an 
old Vietnam War movie, shrieking abuse at the recruits. You are an 
idiot to do this. This is shameful. You are a fool for not 
stopping.Somebody should prevent you. You should be punished."

But that hate-inspired impulse to punish addicts, buttressed by the 
increasingly hard to support War on Drugs, comes from a place of 
ignorance and hate championed by the likes of Harry J. Anslinger,the 
man responsible for hounding Holiday to death.

It comes from the belief that people can be shamed into changing 
their behaviour, when in reality it's compassion, harm reduction and 
community support that are more likely to make a difference.

And that's what Kaila is offering.

"It has changed my life tremendously in many ways, physically, 
mentally, emotionally," one methadone user told the Star. "I am not 
exaggerating when I say if it was not for the program I would not be 
alive today."

Building a harm reduction infrastructure

Last year I wrote about the ambitious and large-scale harm reduction 
efforts put in place at Shambhala Music Festival, and hearing about 
this surge in methadone users made me wonder if we can create 
something similar in Nelson.

ANKORS executive director Cheryl Dowden told me how their approach 
was alien to many in the festival world, illustrating how society's 
views on addiction continue to exacerbate the issue.

"One security guy, when we shared our approach and how we all 
communicate and work together,stood up and said 'I've always seen 
harm reduction teams as the opposite of me. It didn't even occur to 
me we could work together.'"

Luckily, it's occurring to more and more people. We've got Nelson's 
street culture collaborative, we have the continuing campaign to 
revitalize Ward St. Place and more and more I hear local people 
talking about how we can help those in need before they're driven to 
desperate acts, such as the 2014 bank robberies by Andrew Stevenson.

Hopefully we're moving away from a place where we feel like we need 
to criminalize and marginalize drug users, and towards a society 
where they feel supported, loved and included.

If we can do that, maybe there will be reason for hope.

"Not every story has a happy ending," Dr. Gabor Mate writes in his 
book about Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts.

"But the discoveries of science, the teachings of the heart, and the 
revelations of the soul all assure us that no human being is ever 
beyond redemption. The possibility of renewal exists so long as life 
exists. How to support that possibility in others and in ourselves is 
the ultimate question."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom