Just the other day, in downtown Calgary a young man likely died right in front of me..I want to begin by getting right to the point of the experience I had. I want readers to try to envision what I saw as they read this. I want you to feel some of the panic, sorrow, helplessness, and shame I experienced over the course of a few short minutes..We know there is an opioid crisis. I have written on it as have many others. It makes headlines now and then and we hear of new government initiatives to battle it all the time..We don’t like to think about it though. We see the addicts and homeless people in our peripheral vision and have trained ourselves to keep looking straight ahead. It makes us uncomfortable and we feel pity, but we don’t know what to do..There is no simple solution. There is no magic bullet or panacea. We have a growing problem though and we need to act further to at least mitigate it..The first part of working towards a solution is to strip off our self-imposed blinders and have a good, hard look at the tragedies unfolding in our cities every single day..I had as hard a look as I hope to ever have that morning and I want to share it. Maybe through my eyes, you can get a bit of the reality check I experienced..I was walking to the Western Standard’s Calgary office from my parking spot a few blocks away. My path takes me through a number of areas frequented by addicts and encountering them was nothing new. Like most other commuters, I usually keep my eyes pointed straight ahead, avoid eye contact, and pay little attention to the open drug consumption around me. I would occasionally take pictures of things such as discarded syringes and post them on social media while griping about the downtown social disorder..I couldn’t help but notice a cluster of street people in the corner of the park I was cutting across. You often see them huddled in a circle as they light their pipes or load their syringes with their poison of the day. This group was shouting though and gesticulating. I realized one person was laying prone in the middle of them. I immediately called 911 and headed towards them..I vaguely remember the 911 call through my earphones while I tried to communicate with the panicked handful of people around the person on the ground. It was tough as they were all clearly very impaired by one substance or another. I noticed remnants of a naloxone kit scattered about and shouted to ask if they had given him a shot. They said yes and then all backed away. I am guessing they assumed I may know what the hell I was doing and deferred to me. Now my own panic began to set in. I hadn’t thought beyond what needed to be done aside from giving him naloxone and calling 911..Years of repeated emergency first-aid courses I had taken while in the oilfield fled my mind. I desperately looked around and aside from the three stoned compatriots of the fellow on the ground, we were alone..I remembered I should check for breathing. I kneeled next to the man on the ground and put my ear in his face. It was quiet and I waited. I heard nothing and my panic rose further..It came to me that I should try to open the airway by tilting his head. I leaned back and began manipulating his head to try and tilt it back. I will never forget the feeling of how limp he was. I am no expert in this, but I could sense that life had fled this body..His head behaved nothing like the plastic training dummies from first-aid classes. It kept flopping and lolling as I tried to position it to help him breathe if he was capable. I then took his head in both hands and had a moment where I was looking directly into his face as I leaned over him. I likely only held that gaze for a moment, but it is seared into my mind’s eye..I was looking down at a kid who couldn’t be more than 20 years old. Aside from probably being dead, he looked relatively healthy. His skin was clear and he was even a little overweight. He had a harmless cherubic look about him. He was nothing like the thin, lesion-covered zombies we usually see downtown. He clearly was early in the stages of addiction. This was a kid that should have had another 50 or 60 years of living ahead of him..I don’t want to imply it is any less tragic when an addict worn and weathered through years of substance abuse dies. Those addicts began at some point in good health with a potentially positive future. They still may have one..Looking at his face I just felt my chest split as I thought: “This is somebody’s child.” I got a sudden and full sense of how this was a human being in front of me. He likely has loved ones and had ambitions and plans and he likely was dead already. It is so easy to forget these things as we drive past homeless people and read cold overdose statistics. These are people and they could be any of our children..I held his head steady with one hand and put my ear right to his open mouth. I still could get no sense of any breathing. I sat up and began chest compressions and was about to ask one of the bystanders to find the breathing mask from the naloxone kit when I saw a pair of first responders approaching. They got there so quickly, somebody must have called them before I happened on the scene..I told them he wasn’t breathing and naloxone had been administered. I then fled the area..This is why I keep saying “probably” and “likely” when speaking of this kid’s fate. I didn’t stay around to see how it ended. I already felt useless and didn’t want to be in the way. I just wanted to get out and try to digest what had just happened. I don’t hold a lot of optimism, but all I could do was hope the paramedics managed to revive him. They have better resources and training at their disposal. I very possibly could be misdiagnosing this kid’s fatality. I hope I did..I will note now, I have even more respect for first responders than I ever did and I assure you I always held them in high regard. I am a wreck from this experience and those guys deal with this every day. I don’t know how they do it..I slowly made my way to the Western Standard’s office, where we keep naloxone kits at the ready for the many overdoses that take place just outside our doors. I couldn’t help but keep envisioning that young face. It’s such a damn waste. He could have been a great artist or a doctor or maybe held mediocre jobs and died at 50 of clogged arteries. Any future and fate would be better than this ignominious ending in a city park..In Alberta right now, nearly five people a day are dying of opioid poisoning. In BC, the numbers are worse. This epidemic of addiction is happening throughout the entire developed world and it is killing thousands every year in Canada. Most of the deaths are among men under 35, though every demographic is affected..This issue is not static. The addictions are increasing along with the deaths every year. In 2016, 553 Albertans died of opioid poisoning. The death rate has increased nearly 300% in the last five years. If the trend continues at this rate, it will rival COVID-19 in mortality though only a tiny fraction of the resources we’ve seen spent on the pandemic will be dedicated to fighting the addiction epidemic..We have to start by ending the stigma attached to addiction. It could happen to anybody and it impacts your life whether you like it or not. Middle-aged people have started with prescription painkillers and ended on the streets. Kids from some of the most stable of households have fallen into addiction along with those from broken homes. Nobody is immune to this epidemic and while it indeed does always begin with a moment of poor judgment, who hasn’t exercised poor judgment in their own lives?.Most people will get through life without having been addicted to anything. Good on them of course. Unfortunately, that also means most people really don’t understand just how strong the power of addiction is or how hard it is to defeat..Think of this: the addicts I encountered had their own naloxone kit with them. They knew full well they were playing Russian roulette with the drugs they were consuming. Despite this knowledge, they could not beat the compulsion to consume them. If they were truly self-destructive, they wouldn’t have carried the naloxone. They don’t want to die, but they can’t break free from the addiction..I posted a short quip of my experience on Twitter as I am apt to do. Many responses were typical of the ignorant views put out on social media but they are worth responding to..I have written about my struggles with alcohol a number of times. It took me a few attempts over the years in order to become sober. I attended countless meetings in church basements throughout North America drinking bad coffee and eating stale donuts with fellow addicts. In many of the small towns I worked in, alcoholics shared groups with people battling addictions to various narcotics. Not only did the meetings aid in maintaining my sobriety, but they also helped give me insight into other addictions. I am not an addictions expert by any means but am more than familiar with the subject matter..One takeaway from those meetings is that addiction can be beaten. Some folks responding to me on social media on the event were saying these addicts are a lost cause. One even said they were better off dead as they were going to a better place. I wish they would listen to themselves..The prognosis for a heavily addicted person on the street (or off for that matter) can be bleak, but it’s hardly hopeless. I met countless people at meetings who had truly come from rock bottom and had managed to recover. There is always hope no matter how far along an addict is and it is always worth trying to help them recover..Another commonality among recovered addicts is they all had some kind of help. You hear people blurting out how addicts are simply weak-willed and just have to buck up and beat it. That’s a load of garbage. It takes more than simple willpower to beat an addiction. I am sure somebody is going to respond with an anecdote of somebody who beat a heroin addiction alone and through cold turkey. Perhaps that happens on occasion, but it is the exception..Addiction recovery is a drawn-out process. Detoxing is only the first step. Becoming sober is relatively easy compared to staying sober in the long run. It takes support from medical professionals and recovering addicts to get there. A lot of this support can be expensive and there never seems to be enough resources..As with damn near everything, the issue is politically polarized. Progressives seem hung up on harm reduction while conservatives are stuck on treatment and getting clean. Both are right, but both are wrong in isolation from each other..Harm reduction is great, but without a plan for treatment it’s simply prolonging the death of an addict. Treatment options are essential, but if the addict doesn’t live long enough to get there, it was of little use..Some people heartlessly say “They choose that lifestyle.”.This is a sign of people who keep those blinders on themselves. Go downtown and look at some of the homeless. Notice how they shuffle with their heads down, how unhealthy they look, and how clearly miserable they are. These people are living a hell on earth. They are not choosing this misery. They are captive to it, as a slave is to a brutal master..Along that line of thinking, many people like to point out we can’t treat addicts until they’re ready to come in. This is true, but it means we have to keep the treatment options available and easy to find for when an addict has hit the point of being ready for it. The window of opportunity is small, and we cannot afford to miss it..People point to how we need more law enforcement on the issue. I am among them, but it’s the general social disorder I’m concerned about. I am not talking about locking up addicts. It serves little purpose. Addicts can and do contribute to crime, though, as their world collides with ours. They are not always harmless and the protection of the public has to be taken into account. This means a more visible police presence rather than a crackdown on the addicts themselves..Targetting the source of the drugs is a popular case people make as well. We do need to try and hinder the importation and distribution of these street drugs as much as possible, but we have to be realistic, though. As long as there is demand, the drugs will get through. Under the Reagan administration in the 1980s, an incredible amount of resources were dedicated to the ‘War on Drugs.’ It was a total failure. At best, it only pushed drug prices higher, but it stopped nobody..Others just cry, “We need affordable housing!” or “They just need to get a job!”. Both of those statements are right and wrong. The addicts you see on the street aren’t in any condition to manage a personal household or a job right now. Affordable housing and potential employment will be essential elements in their recovery down the road. It will be hard to stay sober if still living on the streets and without a sense of purpose. Let’s not pretend it is a lack of jobs or high rents putting addicts to where they are right now though..Even the coldest of heartless fiscal conservatives should support expanding treatment options for addicts. There is no better outcome for a taxpayer’s wallet than to have an addict recover and become a productive member of society. The savings in medical costs and law enforcement alone make this investment in addiction recovery worth it. In-patient treatment is terribly expensive but it is worth it fiscally and compassionately..Treatment is not a perfect cure. Fewer than half of those who complete addiction treatment manage to remain sober for over a year. The numbers are still infinitely better than they are with no treatment at all though..Mental health supports, in general, are needed too. Many people who have found themselves on the streets got there through self-medicating with street drugs to deal with mental health challenges. Deinstitutionalization has contributed to the problem but that is subject matter for a book, not a column..I’m not saying the government and other groups aren’t doing anything about the opioid epidemic. All levels of government are spending more all the time on this issue and creating new programs. Nonprofit groups — like Alpha House and their heroes on the Downtown Outreach Addictions Partnership (DOAP) team — are working their asses off and saving lives every day. Police officers, paramedics, and firefighters are doing all they can..Still, we need more..The problem feels overwhelming. Like so many problems in life, though, it won’t go away if we pretend it isn’t happening..Politicians follow trends in public thinking. If more people are demanding more action on the opioid epidemic, the powers that be in government will act..If more people strip their blinders and realize the real human cost and tragedy of this epidemic, they will speak up. I only hope in sharing my experience from the other day I have helped bring the reality of this into focus for a few more people. We will never end addictions, but we can do a whole lot more to battle it. It’s worth it..Cory Morgan is the Alberta Political Columnist for the Western Standard and Host of the Cory Morgan Show
