Pubdate: Thu, 25 Jul 2013
Source: Georgia Straight, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2013 The Georgia Straight
Contact:  http://www.straight.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1084
Author: Scott Bernstein
Note: Scott Bernstein is a staff lawyer at Pivot and heads up Pivot's 
Health and Drug Policy Campaign. This post was originally published 
at www.PivotLegal.org .

CORY MONTEITH'S DEATH AND ABBOTSFORD DRUG USERS ILLUSTRATE THE 
DANGERS OF STIGMA

EVERY SO OFTEN, there is a confluence of events in the world that 
illustrates an important message. In this case, the message is 
simple: societal stigma about drug use and drug users is deadly. 
Changing our attitudes will save lives.

Two events happened in the last few days that illustrate the danger 
of societal stigma about drug users and, more importantly, drug 
policy based on that stigma that chooses to consider drug addiction a 
moral failure rather than a medical problem in need of treatment and 
intervention.

First, we learned that the tragic death of Glee actor, Cory Monteith, 
was a result of a lethal mixture of heroin and alcohol that led to 
his death alone in his hotel room from an overdose.

And second, Abbotsford police issued a warning about a 39 percent 
increase in overdoses among injection drug users. The culprit 
suspected to be responsible for the surge in overdose in Abbotsford 
is fentanyl, a potent opioid that is being passed off as heroin, but 
is much stronger.

Let's be clear-addiction affects the lives of millions of people, 
their friends, their families, their communities. Many people know 
the pain of living with an addiction to drugs, including the drug 
alcohol, and many also know the pain of having a family member or 
friend become dependent on drugs. There is agreement among all 
reasonable people in the world, including people who are addicted to 
drugs, that addiction causes harm in people's lives.

If there were a quick fix for getting over being addicted to alcohol 
or drugs, everyone-from Stephen Harper to the man or woman on the 
street corner of Hastings and Main would be on board with that as a 
solution. But, the fact is that solution is not available. There is 
not yet an easy way to treat drug dependency. Each day we're learning 
more about the causes of addiction, be they physical, genetic, or 
environmental, but the jury is still out. For many, drugs mask 
painful experiences of poverty, neglect, and abuse.

Cory Monteith frankly discussed his struggles with addiction since 
high school. Now, we normally don't think of charming, put together 
actors being in the same category as the often haggard, impoverished 
people with addictions struggling in the Downtown Eastside of 
Vancouver or in Abbotsford. But, the fact remains that if a rich, 
good-looking, talented actor with all of the social supports 
available to him can't get the help he needs to battle addiction, 
it's quite unreasonable to expect a homeless person in Abbotsford to 
"just say no" to using drugs, with barely any social safety net to 
catch him and support him through that process. In the end, obstacles 
to receiving practical treatment for addiction remain an 
insurmountable barrier regardless of one's social or economic status. 
The fact that drug use is stigmatized stands as one major barrier to 
people seeking out treatment and the medical profession effectively 
treating people when they do show up. Funding ! for addiction 
treatment remains paltry and inconsistent across Canada, largely 
based on the fact that many believe drug users are unworthy of the 
money required to fund treatment centres.

The medical profession describes addiction as a "primary, chronic 
disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry." 
The National Institute on Drug Abuse defines addiction as a 'chronic, 
relapsing brain disease" that changes the structure and functionality 
of the brain. Despite this, many people won't accept addiction as 
being a physical disability. The courts have recognized that 
addiction is a physical disability that is protected by the Charter 
and human rights codes across Canada. Despite this, many believe that 
drug users aren't entitled to human rights protections.

I don't dwell too much on negative comments posted on the internet 
about media pieces we do at Pivot (or I might not get out of bed in 
the morning), but in this case anonymous public comments are 
illustrative of common stigmatizing reactions of the man or woman on 
the street. Just today, we issued a press release about the BC Human 
Rights Tribunal accepting the human rights complaint of our clients 
in the challenge to Abbotsford's anti-harm reduction bylaw. I spoke 
with CKNW radio this morning. They posted the story on their website, 
including a place for comments. Here is one of the tamer examples 
from the comments.

KellyS_2296: You cannot honestly be comparing a person who has 
Parkinson's, MS, paraplegia, to someone who purposefully injects 
illegal drugs into his/her body? Yes addiction is a bad thing, but it 
is also something that can be controlled, unlike Parkinson's MS or 
paraplegia...

Both the medical community and the legal community consider addiction 
a physical disability, comparable to Parkinson's, MS, and paraplegia. 
If a person acquired diabetes from eating too much sugar and not 
getting enough exercise, should we deny them basic healthcare? If a 
person became a paraplegic because they chose to speed in their car 
down the highway and got into an accident, does that choice somehow 
make them ineligible for healthcare? The fact is, as a society, we 
don't make those distinctions for diseases other than addiction.

Many of our governments' policies and laws around drug use, from the 
criminalizing of drugs from cannabis to heroin, to the decisions made 
around funding of treatment and access to health care, are based in 
stigma around drug use. For the people overdosing and dying from 
heroin tainted with fentanyl in Abbotsford-these are people's sons, 
daughters, mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers-the decision by 
the City of Abbotsford to stand in the way of harm reduction services 
cost them their lives. If Abbotsford had a supervised consumption 
site, like Insite, how many people would have lived to see another 
day and to-perhaps-be in a place where they might access detox and 
treatment and kick their addiction? No one can say for certain, but 
as a fact, the trained staff at Insite have seen hundreds of serious 
overdoses without one fatality. For Cory Monteith, the stigma around 
his use of drugs and addiction likely led him to choose to be alone 
to inject drugs. Had someone been with him who had access to 
naloxone-an anti-overdose medication-he would likely have lived as well.

At Pivot, I will continue to raise legal challenges that advocate for 
the human rights of drug users and continue to challenge unjust laws, 
be they in Abbotsford, Ottawa or elsewhere. The Charter or Human 
Rights Code are not reserved for protecting the rights of those 
groups we like and supporting the ideas we agree with, but exactly 
the opposite. Those documents are in place, in fact, to protect the 
stigmatized and those who are marginalized in our society.

The stories of the deaths of people like Cory Monteith and the 
marginalized injection drug users who overdosed in Abbotsford are 
sad. But, there is no moral failing in what these people did. They 
are caught in a trap. As compassionate people, we should do what we 
can to help them, not further harm them through stigma and by denying 
them healthcare measures that can save their lives.

Regardless of their drug use, people who use those drugs are members 
of society. They have value and human rights and are entitled to 
support, not derision.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom