Straws used for snorting drugs, including cocaine, are included in the kits distributed as part of harm reduction best practices.
They are usually between four and six inches, and either coloured or striped, much as drink straws are, and replace rolled dollar bills or other objects used to inhale drugs, objects that could have mould or bacteria that could cause a lung infection, or worse. It saves a great deal of health-care dollars, and offers the harm reduction workers a chance to interact with drug users, to see what other support can be offered.
When I saw one appear on my screen as I was mindlessly scrolling social media, I assumed it was one of the opioid-related groups I follow as part of my work, but it was the words “Big weekend, Big plans?” that caught my attention.
Harm reduction socials are directed at drug users, so this wasn’t absurd; but at the same time, it caught my attention.
I looked closer and the next slide appeared in the photo set; it was an advertisement for the LCBO ahead of the end-of-summer Labour Day long weekend.
My initial thought was not wrong.
Those purchasing a substance from the LCBO would be using the straws, but in the wine cooler they bought from the store that offers safe supply; government-run safe supply.
You could also get that safe supply of White Claw at a Supervised Consumption Site, often called a bar, or in this weather, a patio.
The concept of a supervised consumption site in Sudbury has been part of my work since I became a reporter. Through the iterations of my beat, I have always covered harm reduction as part of the mental health and addictions crisis, as well as homelessness, which I have covered extensively.
I have seen the research aspects of harm reduction and treatment. Through my trips with outreach, I have seen that treatment is not the be all and end all I believed it was, and harm reduction keeps people alive.
Despite the view some have of people who are addicted to drugs, the view that they lead some hedonistic, pleasure-seeking party life, that is more for the people at the top of the drug chain, not those at the bottom.
People who use drugs and must do so in view of the public (i.e. homeless) are forced to use poisons concocted by people who do not care if they live or die.
And I mean forced.
Beyond the biological addiction, I have seen a person bent in half in the full grip of their high, uncomfortable and barely hanging onto consciousness, and whether emotional or biological, that pain can only be worse than what they would experience if they weren’t high. Personally, I can’t envision choosing that life over one without drugs, unless the one without intoxication is too much to bear.
There is physical pain from those who worked a job until they hurt themselves; there is pain from those who have suffered their whole lives with an insurmountable mental illness; there is pain from those who suffered trauma, like the woman I met downtown in 2021 who was sex trafficked by her own parents at the age of 8.
I can only report what I see, and what I see is that treatment is only tenable for people who are ready, and even less likely to work when someone is sent to rehab involuntarily. Ask yourself about your last attempt to go on a diet or quit smoking and we can talk about willpower, about just getting better, about just getting over it.
But in no way does that mean more treatment options aren’t necessary; every harm reduction advocate I’ve spoken to sings this refrain like a chorus. However, there needs to be a plan to keep people alive in the interim, especially with the poisons like Xylazine in the supply.
There is a house on fire, and we need to put the fire out. We also need to build a new house, but that shouldn’t come before we douse the flames and rescue the people inside the one that is burning.
Critics of the supervised consumption site in Sudbury would often point to the number of people who used the site, which was lower than hoped. Those who did use at The Spot, did so religiously.
However, added to the mix are variables added, and removed: the location is not ideal according to harm reduction best practices, and neither were the hours, which were limited based on staffing shortages and funding, which never did appear. It’s hard to keep staff when you can’t offer any job security.
It’s hard to help people use safely when they have to leave the Off the Street shelter at 8 a.m. sharp, and couldn’t use at the site until 10 a.m. When you haven’t used substances all night, and you have them, waiting two hours may be overwhelming.
In just the few years I have done this job, I have lost four people that were very special to me, people I think of often, to poisoning or overdose. That’s not to mention the occasions I would visit an encampment and ask about a now empty tent, only to find the person I met there a few days prior had died.
These are people. They were loved. I have a collection of funeral cards for many of them, listing their families and showing photos of happier times.
The announcement made by the provincial government Aug. 20, which officially ended The Spot in Sudbury and many other sites across Ontario, as well as ending new applications, was called a death sentence by critics. In the two days ahead of the announcement, the city of Sudbury alone lost three people to overdose.
And while the crisis has been ongoing, the speeches at past International Overdose and Drug Poisoning Awareness Day events in Sudbury have always had a hopeful tone, centering the need for harm reduction and The Spot, it’s difficult for me to now square the awareness aspect.
I thought there was awareness; at least, I felt like there was since I had covered it so often. But that doesn’t appear to be the case. Of course, since it’s a bit antithetical — give people a place to do drugs to help them — harm reduction is a difficult bite to swallow.
So this year, there is the need to refocus the awareness of International Awareness Day. Learn about the evidence behind harm reduction, and help others form opinions based on research, rather than morality. Even just clicking the links contained in this article will help.
Help people stay alive, and help them get better, all while saving health care dollars.
Jenny Lamothe is a guest writer.
