I cried the night time Michael Okay Williams joined the over 100,000 People who died of an overdose in 2021. After I heard that Williams, the actor finest identified for his function as Omar, the queer, gun-toting rogue in The Wire, had suffered an unintended overdose in his house, I felt a deep sense of dread. The information that one other Black man not too dissimilar from myself had handed earlier than his time mingled in my thoughts with my bitter reminiscence of the second after I realized that my finest pal, Joseph Rodriguez, had overdosed on the age of 19.
I'm grateful, I suppose, that by the point Joe had died, in 2009, the general public narrative round drug customers had begun to evolve. Younger suburban white children had began dying, and the nation rapidly shifted to guard its most prized possessions. Teenagers had been despatched to rehab, and drug sellers, like those that allegedly bought Williams his last dose, had been rounded up and blamed for what's clearly a broader societal situation.
Final week 4 males in Brooklyn had been charged with having bought fentanyl-laced heroin to Williams and others. This hole act is a part of the issue. The US has lengthy chosen mass incarceration as the answer to substance abuse. Arresting folks didn’t stop Williams’ overdose, and arresting extra now gained’t stop future ones. And given Williams’ stance on the conflict on medicine, it's uncertain he would have endorsed this motion.
There are numerous options that would have helped hold Williams alive. Whereas it's unlikely that the US will rid itself of most of the underlying drivers of drug habit – comparable to violence, systemic racism and the inequalities of capitalism – anytime quickly, the nation, and the federal authorities specifically, has lengthy ignored coverage reforms that would assist deal with the worst of our present habit epidemic. A very powerful reform, decriminalization, has gained steam in some locations, like Oregon, however stays distant as a federal reform.
Williams was a one-of-a-kind man and artist, however not distinctive in his struggles with medicine: based on the 2020 Nationwide Survey on Drug Use and Well being, 14.5% of People – roughly 40.3 million folks – had a substance use dysfunction in 2020. A pair hundred of these folks die of an overdose day by day. It is a long-term development that continues to blow up over time; whereas over 100,000 People died of an overdose final yr, the quantity was roughly 17,000 in 2000. As somebody who has been concerned with drug coverage reform since 2010, roughly a yr after my pal died, it's troublesome to keep up hope because the our bodies pile up, particularly as answer after answer is ignored by the federal authorities.
There are an embarrassingly giant variety of insurance policies that may very well be backed by the federal authorities and carried out nationwide to save lots of lives and nudge addicted folks in direction of therapeutic. Moderately than concentrating energy within the police by means of criminalization, most of those insurance policies contain treating drug customers like human beings worthy of affection and care. One of many easiest methods to save lots of lives is to make drug testing kits simply out there for drug customers. Williams was reportedly poisoned by fentanyl, an artificial opioid combined into cocaine and heroin as a way for illicit producers to extend earnings. Drug testing kits, like fentanyl take a look at strips, let customers be sure that they know what they’re placing into their our bodies. Whereas these strips can be found without spending a dime in some locations, comparable to New York Metropolis, they're nonetheless unlawful in lots of states as a result of they’re thought of drug paraphernalia.
One other doubtlessly life-saving intervention? Supervised consumption websites. These are areas the place folks can eat medicine safely, with the help of medical workers that may make sure the purity of what's getting used whereas being on name to intervene within the occasion of unintended overdoses. These areas may join folks with therapy companies and safer different medicine. If this all feels unfamiliar, consider bars as a crude model of those websites: bartenders administer doses to purchasers and may reduce them off if they're too intoxicated. If anybody drinks an excessive amount of, bartenders can name an ambulance and have them hospitalized. Creating strong supervised consumption websites may save lives, and destigmatizing these websites may save much more.
All of those interventions could be made simpler and doable if the federal authorities took the essential leap to decriminalize the possession of small quantities of all medicine. Whole decriminalization could seem excessive, however there may be proof that it may save lives, scale back drug use, and forestall extra pointless incarceration and harassment of those that use medicine, significantly Black People. Residing in New York Metropolis, Williams did have entry to some hurt discount assets however, like many drug customers, might have felt an excessive amount of stigma to hunt assist.
Portugal decriminalized all medicine, in small quantities, in 2001. The nation has additionally radically expanded its capability to deal with substance use problems. In accordance to the US-based Drug Coverage Alliance, overdose deaths in Portugal decreased by greater than 80% after decriminalization. Against this, in 2017, “there have been greater than 72,000 overdose deaths within the US. If the US overdose dying price had been on par with Portugal’s, there would have been fewer than 800 overdose deaths that yr.” By 2008, three-quarters of these affected by substance use dysfunction in Portugal had been in therapy.
The deaths of Michael Okay Williams and Joseph Rodriguez had been completely preventable if we’d needed them to reside. Habit is inevitable in our current society. Capitalism is a system that essentially includes the commodification of human beings and the discount of the person right into a tiny cog that exists to work and create revenue. This dehumanization, exacerbated by racism, might be why there are robust relationships between poverty and habit, and why Black males at the moment are the folks most possible to overdose and die.
The truth is that there shall be many extra deaths like Williams’. I count on to lose extra buddies; it could be naive to assume that I gained’t. Lately each Democrats and Republicans have slowly shifted nearer to the sort of drug reforms that would save lives. However for a number of the folks I adore it is simply too little, too late and, with no complete federal plan that features decriminalization, we might as properly brace ourselves for extra tearful telephone calls and funerals.
Akin Olla is a contributing opinion author on the Guardian
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