Stronger Than You

Really glad we’re all into harm reduction now, suddenly! I look forward to everyone’s continued support of needle exchange sites, decriminalization of drugs and sex work, affordable, multi-unit housing (yes even in your neighborhood), and free universal sex education, contraceptives, menstrual products, and pre/peri/post-natal care.

sorry for the "bad" take but i fully believe even homeless people who "are lazy" or "aren't trying" to find housing still deserve housing. maybe things were too hard for too long for them and they gave up. maybe they just genuinely don't know where to go. maybe they're chronically ill, mentally ill and/or neurodivergent. maybe they're experiencing severe psychosis and can't "try". maybe they're having a pain flare up. maybe they're going through withdrawals, or are heavily intoxicated to cope with not knowing if they'll have a place to sleep and food to eat. you don't know. you have no clue what they're going through. they deserve to go through it in a home.

and yes this includes homeless people who are "lazy" and do not have any known or diagnosed health conditions that would explain or impede their ability to function and survive. i don't care if it's due to your health or not- you still deserve housing. lazy people are still people.

Ending the stigma of drug use will save lives.

“Never Use Alone” is a number you can call when you have no choice but to use when you’re alone.

If you call (800) 484-3731, an operator will answer your call, and ask for your first name, location and whether you have any allergies, or medical conditions. After you’ve given us this information you can go ahead and inject your substance. After you’ve ingested the substance, we will continue communicating with you. If you do not respond after 30-45 seconds, we will notify emergency services of a possible overdose at the location you’ve given us.

We will never shame you, judge you, or preach at you to quit. If you are ready to quit though, we have treatment resources for every state in the US. Regardless if you have insurance, or not. We will do our best to connect you with the help you need. please call. We are on standby.

—-

This seems like a solid and real thing, I did my best to vet them and found their FB: https://www.facebook.com/Neverusealone/

They also seem to help with getting Narcan.

holy shit this can actually save Real Lives like dudes this isn’t a joke and isn’t to be passed off

from this reddit thread that has a lot of people talking about the hotline, including sharing their own experiences. additionally, it looks like there are also similar overdose prevention hotlines in other countries now, such as canada and scotland

Love local coffee shops. your “refugees are welcome here” sign goes really well with the one that says “bathrooms are for paying customers only”

You’ve clearly never had to deal with people doing hard drugs in the grocery store bathroom and it shows.

Bro I literally manage a coffee shop with an open restroom policy, and I prioritize enforcing that policy and making sure everyone feels comfortable. I’ve dealt with everything from the easy end of the spectrum (people quietly doing hard drugs) to a lady ripping all her hair out and setting it on fire in the sink. I clean up after this stuff day after day and I still feel VERY strongly about the fact that human beings should be allowed the basic decency of a place to poop. Yes, I very frequently end up having to kick someone out of the bathroom for doing drugs, and when I do I always offer them a cup of water on their way out. Because they’re a person and I give a shit…

It’s safer for people to do drugs in (clean) public restrooms than it is for them to do it on the street. It’s also ableist to deny someone the use of a bathroom. There are countless gastrointestinal disorders that cause bathroom urgency and potential incontinence. There are other conditions, like pregnancy, that necessitate quick and easy access to restrooms.

also what makes you think a paying customer wouldnt misuse the toilets in some way, and a person using it without buying something would?

contrary to popular beliefs people with money do drugs, and homeless people need the toilet just like the rest of us

Having a sharps container “for medication injection” in our bathrooms has dropped the amount of needles I find in the bushes and planters down to a whole 2 in the past 4 years since we rolled them out. I used to find them so often I got in the habit of wearing cut resistance gloves in 90 degree weather in case I had to pluck napkins out of the landscaping.

I read a lot of the notes and I really can’t say enough how the “you couldn’t pay me to clean up other people’s shit” comments kinda piss me off. It is not that serious, it’s really not. You dump a bunch of Triade III on it, let it sit for 10 minutes, wipe it up.

If it’s watery you throw absorbent on it like you do throw up, we use a kitty-litter type clay based absorbent. You put a trash bag in the dust pan and sweep it all into the bag.

Takes me 15 minutes to clean an absolutely destroyed bathroom stall in a place that sees THOUSANDS of people daily. It’s a shopping and restaurant area that opens up into a nightlife location after 5pm, with some bars opening at 3pm and several restaurants becoming full nightclubs after 9pm. You pay for parking, but anyone can walk in off the sidewalk and not pay a dime and just hang out until 2am.

On a busy night I cover 3 location’s restrooms (2 venues have multiple rr) but on slow days I’m covering around 7. 7 buildings, thousands of drunks, I get a LOT of bio spills.

Our sharps containers are toolbox-looking things that hang on the wall with a flap that allows things to go in but not come out, ever (rip to like 5 phones that I know of), when full it gets closed, locked, and sent to be incinerated. I literally never touch a needle anymore. If I find one on the ground outside we have sharps shuttles which are long plastic tubes that look like giant tampons with a flip top, you put it on the ground, step on it to hold in place, and sweep the sharp into it. Takes like 20 seconds.

The answer to this entire issue is to TREAT SANITATION WORKERS BETTER not make going to the bathroom a fucking ordeal. Pay me I will clean your bathrooms, let homeless people piss with dignity!!!

fun fact: any policy on drugs that isn’t harm reduction is going to cause addicts to suffer and die

fun fact: Drug addiction is a public health issue, and approaching it as if it were a law enforcement issue is prejudicial to addicts and will result in their suffering and death

if you just assume addiction is a method of self-medicating, you’ll pretty much never be wrong.

now, not everything people self-medicate for actually has a proper treatment. i’m pretty sure the reason my uncle made sure to be slightly drunk at all times ‘to round the sharp corners off of things’ was sensory processing disorder. i have that too, and i just kind of accept that i’m going to randomly get my brain sandpapered from time to time. there is no medication for that. all you can do is dull your senses. i’ve chosen not to, but i can’t blame him for his decisions. when a ringing phone feels like getting hit upside the head with a frying pan, liver damage sounds like a fair price to pay.

anyway, it seems really self-evident to me that people don’t enjoy living the life of an addict, they do it because the alternative looks worse. people don’t get addicted to substances just for funsies. they start making a habit of taking something because of insomnia, or grief, or headaches, or depression, or seething undirected rage and terror they can’t put a name to – something that they can’t ignore or shrug off. and for whatever reason – lack of access, lack of knowlege, lack of money, or it just plain doesn’t exist – they aren’t able to apply the Approved Correct Remedy. they use what they can get.

addicts aren’t some weird otherfolk who inexplicably just Do Drugs because they’re Bad. addicts are you with a problem you can’t solve.

these facts aren’t fun but they are pretty important

Randomly thinking about how people were, self righteously so, saying “oh if you were really in pain you wouldn’t scream, nurses and doctors will see that as drug seeking behaviors” and other things about how to perform your illness to unlock appropriate care and like…it’s wild because the opioid crisis wasn’t created by people screaming and getting drugs but a semi-coordinated effort between doctors and drug companies to push addictive medication onto people in a very purposeful way. So now about a decade into it, people are sticking up their nose and saying people (read poor non-white and otherwise marginalized) who want to get drugs look and act a certain way when the issue was never that. But hospitals and medical industry has successful shifted blame on to “drug seeking behaviors” that exploit the system when in actuality the system preyed on those people?

I had to call 911 for my partner for the short time he was home after being hospitalized for 11 months. The paramedics assumed my partner was overdosing on something despite my assurances that he was just extremely ill. His oxygen levels were so low he had passed out by the time they got to us. He roused enough to scream for help and they yelled at him to calm down so they could help him. Because they thought he was an addict, they treated him terribly before sedating him and intubating him. Even if he was an addict I was appalled at how they handled the situation. No one deserves to be treated that way and I still can’t sleep some nights because I relive it all. I’m thankful he didn’t remember that night. A few months later he passed away in the hospital due to multiple systemic failures.

can yall think about how you treat addicts please. dont accuse people you dont like of being addicts like its some moral failing. stop treating addicts like abusive violent monsters or dirty homeless subhumans. stop using druggie as an insult. stop spitting bullshit about “attention seeking teens/young adults who romanticize their addiction and dont want to get help” when in reality young people (especially people of color, lgbtq people, and traumatized/mentally ill people) are most susceptible to addiction and alcoholism and people acting like being an addict is some horrible thing that makes you undeserving of sympathy only makes it 100 times harder for people to seek help. stop pretending you care about or support addicts if you really only give a shit about addicts already in recovery (and even then only as long as they never talk about struggling or relapsing or withdrawal).

if you dont care about poc (especially black people) who are addicts you dont care about addicts. if you dont care about disabled addicts you dont care about addicts. if you dont care about addicts who are sex workers you dont care about addicts. if you dont care about addicts who dont/cant work you dont care about addicts. all addicts deserve care, support, and respect period.

I know that people are starting to calm down with the whole situation surrounding John Mulaney, which is good, but I just wanted to get this off my chest.

The way that people reacted to the news about John Mulaney going to rehab, getting divorced from his wife, and dating someone new really speaks volumes to the taboo that surrounds recovering addicts and the unhealthy way we view celebrities. 

John Mulaney has been pretty open about the fact that he is a recovering addict. He has joked about it plenty of times in the past, and nobody seemed to find anything wrong with that. But after he relapsed, I’ve heard tons of people saying things like “I can never look at John Mulaney the same again!” or “How can someone who seems so smart and funny actually be so fucked up??” and many other things in that vein, and it’s just really upsetting. Addiction is a disease, its not something that can be easily overcome. Relapsing doesn’t mean the person is weak or no longer deserves respect.

The fact that people have reacted so negatively to the news that John is going through a divorce and that he has started to date someone new really shows why parasocial relationships are bad for everyone. There is nothing wrong with divorce, and there is nothing wrong with seeing new people, but so many fans are acting like John has done something horrible, when in reality all he did was make a decision that his fans didn’t want him to make. We need to remember that no matter how big of a fan you are of someone, you still don’t know them personally, and they are going to do things that you personally don’t want, understand, or agree with, and you just need to accept that. 

Overall, I just wish people would understand two things about this situation: 

Queen of getting invited to Opioid Crisis Taskforce Meetings as a person with lived experience / representative working on Harm Reduction advocacy + programs, then getting my microphone muted halfway through.

I was invited because I worked on the decrim campaign and volunteer at a syringe program. But I was open that I'm a person who uses/has used drugs. My crimes:

1. Correcting a cop who said you mentioned dying from touching fentanyl. This myth has led to people being afraid to touch or help someone who has overdosed. It was popularized a while ago by a cop who had an anxiety attack after handling things at a crime scene. There was no evidence that this person experienced, or could have experienced, an opioid overdose.

2. Correcting someone from NA who stated that naloxone encourages people intentionally taking an overdose and then reversing it. Overdoses are terrifying, especially if you are dependent and therefore wake up in precipitated withdrawals. People who use drugs are already collectively traumatized by our supply being poisoned, and public health officials putting up further barriers to safe supply. No one is having Narcan parties ffs.

3. Stating that drug use has been a part of human behavior since the beginning of humans, and drug users deserve autonomy.

4. Stating that there is more than one way to recover, heal, or make positive changes to one's relationship with drugs.

I spoke less times than others in the call. The moderator ignored my answers after calling on me, then fawned over literally anyone else speaking from a more prohibitionist perspective.

A couple social workers said privately that my points were accurate, but didn't stand up for me publicly.

!!! I found a man who overdosed while driving. His car was stopped in an intersection, and he was unconscious with his foot on the break. I called for an ambulance while I reached over him to put the car in park, and the 911 operator told me not to touch him in case I came into contact with fentanyl. It is such a pervasive myth!

Thank god an off-duty paramedic pulled over thinking we'd been in a crash. She had narcan and saved his life.

When I worked for state parks, we discussed what to do if we found someone overdosed in the woods, and people were once again afraid of this exact myth, which would have prevented them from taking life-saving actions if it went uncorrected.

This misinformation puts lives at risk. If you're reading this post and thinking, "wait, I thought that was true," dig deeper. Listen to people like OP with experience and training.

(CW: Subtance Abuse) A lot of people on this hellsite (rightfully) look up to John Mulaney for a number of reasons, so with the news of his return to rehab to handle SUD-related issues, please be kind to yourself and to anyone you know who’s struggling with addiction.

Addiction is not a weakness or a character flaw. Sobriety is often a lifelong endeavor. John Mulaney has been candid about his substance abuse in the past; he’s been working on his sobriety for over 15 years. He isn’t any weaker for a relapse, and his desire to go into rehab is commendable and honestly brave. He is absolutely still a person to look up to: his worth as a person has not “changed” with this revelation.

Addiction is isolating in regular conditions. Given the hell year we’ve had, where our existence has become even further defined by distance and isolation, people who are struggling with substance abuse and addiction are probably even more isolated than ever. Be kind to yourself, and be kind to any loved ones who are feeling isolated or struggling with SUD.

For US friends, here’s the SAMHSA resources page — their referral service doesn’t require insurance and is completely confidential. If you don’t have insurance, they can get you in contact with state sponsored offices; they also have a directory to search for programs.

(If anyone has more info on how to seek counseling and rehab for addiction with/without insurance, please add it in the notes!)

While I wish John Mulaney the best as a fellow human and want to thank him for all the happiness he’s brought me with his comedy, I don’t want him to work on his sobriety simply because I want to hear his next comedy special. I don’t want anyone’s battle for sobriety to be framed in terms of how they can return to their normal function, to their “usefulness” to society. I just want him to be happy and healthy with his wife and his dog and himself, full stop. I’d like to remind everyone that nobody — Mulaney, me, or the person reading this — ever, ever owes anyone a joke or a smile.

Stay safe and healthy this winter !

someone: prohibition in the united states was largely ineffective, cost millions, tried to force a religious belief on the entire country, only ever resulted in the increase in consumption of alcohol, as well as the increase in police violence, and ultimately failed

people: okay yeah that’s true

someone: the war on drugs is the exact same thing except this time because of the militarization of the police and private prison interests, is much, much more deadly and specifically exists to justify and widely reinstate slavery within the united states

people: what? but drugs are #bad, and we can’t let people use them. obviously this is the only way to deal with this situation

literally all the bad stuff drugs bring would LESSEN if drugs were legalised

overdoses? dont worry, we can list the exact amount of drug there

mixing? all drugs would be pure if there were regulations rather than needing to trust a random dealer

crimes? nah mate if its legal it would become more affordable and easy to access, no need to commit crimes to get any

imo alcohol is just as bad as many illicit drugs, and can cause destructive effects, and shouldnt be as acceptable as it is

‘Rat Park’ -Stuart McMillen

You’ll never think about drug addiction the same way again after reading this comic.

What I found absolutely impressive and stunning about this comic is the way the artist explained the identification and elimination of the confounding factors in the Rat Park study. This is one of the hardest parts of experiments to explain to the public, and I think it was just brilliantly done.