Printed with the permission of Lucien Broste, a person with lived experience, explaining why the criminalization of people who use drugs is such a tragic failure. To understand why decriminalization is so important we have to listen to people who use drugs and to their families.

**Lucien Broste (submitted, used with permission)**

Hear me…

When it comes down to it, when all the shit is said and sorted: I’m exactly like you.

Just a few facts and experiences and maybe privilege. That’s it. I’m only going to tell you what happened, the way it happened, if only just to keep your attention. If you told me even as much as 3 years ago that not only would I be completely clean but put in a position to help others find their way out of the screaming silence that is addiction.

For clarity sake, I didn’t really mess with coke and meth all that much. I mean, I’d do anything if it was around but I preferred opiates. Heroin, pills. Whatever, bring it on. I never shot up before, I knew it would kill me pretty quickly. My saving grace maybe, if you believe in that kind of thing.

I started taking drugs the same time you did. 14-15. Taking the same drugs the same way too. Who didn’t go to that one kid’s house whose parents didn’t care or weren’t there and we hot knifed weed till we dropped.

Times were good then, right? But it didn’t stay that way, did it?

Let’s fast forward to when I’m 18 and buying heroin on East Hastings Street in Vancouver. Yeah, there I was. When I smoked the shit on tin foil, I realized what I’d been missing all my life. At the time at least. It never stays “just for fun”, right? That ain’t the way it works. I managed to never OD on heroin, probably because I never shot up.

In 2012, Fentanyl started showing up in Canada. It’s killed 79 of my acquaintances and 10 personal friends, including one just last week. He was 38 years old, 2 kids. Absolutely tragic. But tragedy is something we’re used to, isn’t it? Where shit gets so crazy and you’re living outside the law and doing scams and scores and a million little deals to get through that one day. Just to do it all over again tomorrow. And the next day too.

Part of the problem is criminalization. The thefts, robberies, violent assaults, property damage and break and enters. The enormous costs of policing to just throw these addicted folks back on the street with no options and even less hope.

Shit, I would get high too. I’ve been to prison, provincial and federal. It’s ugly. Those who are quick to condemn people with a criminal record have never been to prison or jail themselves. Maybe there could be a program where if you want to join an organization involved in corrections you have to do 30 days in jail first? Any takers? Sign here, initial here.

Did you know we have one of the highest rates of recidivism in Canada? Want to know why? Lean in, I’ll tell you….. Because you have to KEEP giving a shit after they get out of jail. You have to have doors for them to choose, not put it off till tomorrow because your shift is over and it’s the next shift’s problem. That solves nothing.

Most drug addicts aren’t shitty, violent people. They’re regular folks who made some not-so-great choices and got addicted to drugs or alcohol. Shaming them isn’t going to get them clean. Neither is locking them up. We need more progressive and forward-thinking approaches to addiction in Canada. NA/AA does NOT apply to Fentanyl and are therefore ineffective and outdated on that front.

There needs to be more access to naloxone and drug testing centres, suboxone and methadone and counselling available to those who desperately need help.

Let’s not wait until it’s YOUR kid who overdoses and you, outraged, demand change. Let’s all work together and do it now!

Thank you - Lucien Broste

PART 2:

Closer to the edge I grew up in Saskatoon.

Yeah, yeah….I hear ya. Isn’t really the place you think it is. Sure the river is pretty, but there’s a lot of hatred here. A lot of intolerance and a lot of drugs. A LOT of drugs. This is home.

I went into Saskatoon’s foster care system at 13 years old. I was a wild child who was out of control. I started smoking weed just like you and probably around the same age too But this talk isn’t about weed. This is about down and the dangers that come with it. Heroin, to me, was like that manual to life that I DIDNT miss the class for.

There was this beautiful side to it. Kind of like a damaged old painting where there’s beauty in the destruction and the destroyed. We can always find each other too. Isn’t that strange how dope works? We can always find someone else who does dope even in the most remote of locations. Call it “junkie phenomena”…. Today, shits different. That “purple heroin” going around wasn’t heroin. It was just fentanyl but the dealers had to call it heroin or else we wouldn’t buy it. That didn’t last long.

Fentanyl replaced heroin to the point that it’s no longer economical to smuggle it into Canada. Why bother when Mexico can cook you a kilo for pennies on the dollar and you can make up to 20 million from that one kilo at street level than the measly one million you’d make on street purity heroin. But now, we see the Gucci dope. That fentanyl and Xanax dope that’s going around and is quickly becoming the most common dope found in Canada.

The shit is everywhere. Every corner. And it’s killing us. It’s decimating us. In bulk. You see, the Xanax in the mix makes it so naloxone or Narcan can’t get through the benzodiazepine layer to get to the opioid you’re overdosing on. You literally die twice. I’m one of the lucky ones who’s stars just happened to align at just the right time and against all odds and with suboxone, I survived. I lived to talk about it to you. So many didn’t, including my own friends. They’re gone and not coming back. The way I honour them is by telling YOU about it. Telling you what I’ve lost and what was the worth in that mountain of sadness and madness that addiction is.

The first step to quitting Is easy. Listening And you just did it.

Please, be careful out there. Do NOT use alone. L.

PART 3:

Diary of a practicing addict I woke up early, as always. For some reason I always thought if I woke up early enough, I could beat the sickness for an hour or two and get my grind on before it sets in. Foolish junkie logic, I guess.

The night before I’d gone to someone’s house to get high and excused myself to the bathroom for the sole purpose of looting the medicine cabinet. Anyone who is rich enough to have a roof over their head can afford more medicine, I told myself. Sure enough, I found a bottle with 4 grey morphine pills in it. Scored! I ate two immediately and kept two for morning. So here we are at the crack of dawn as I swallow my last two pills and roll a joint, just as the first pangs of withdrawal start knocking on my mind’s door. The sick always starts the same, right?

You’re telling yourself that you can get through this absolute hell you’re about to go through, you got it this time. 2.31 minutes later you’re going through your phone and seeing who’s awake and who’s luck or fortune you can piggy back on and get high out of the deal. I’m pretty sure every junkie in the world thinks and feels this. As the morphine sets in and my sick goes away, I feel like I’ve been given a new lease on life that’ll last just long enough to buy me time to grind up more ways to get high. My body can’t take much more of this. I wonder if my friends or the people I left behind are thinking of me. Do they miss me? Do they care? Most likely not They’re why I use anyway. It’s entirely their fault that I’m like this. And if I OD? They’ll feel shitty then and that’ll teach ‘em.

When you’re using opiates, it’s like a warm blanket being wrapped between you and what’s hurting you inside. Happy people snort coke and go to the bar on Friday and Saturday nights. Happy people don’t do opiates. You find heroin while you’re wounded and weak and searching for a way out of your own skin. You’d be surprised at how much all opiate addicts have in common with each other. If you want to quit and need help, your options are limited. You can coke turkey it which is the closest thing to hell on earth you can find.

Then there’s the absolute mindless drivel of the hordes of brainwashed NA minions. In my opinion, NA is a useless cult that has absolutely ZERO proven evidence that it works to keep people clean. None whatsoever. Personally, I think a lot of people join NA to prey on people, especially women, who are vulnerable and needing help. it’s a practice called “the 13th step”, look it up sometime. NA is literally a cult. Then you have detox, with its years long waiting list and more people die waiting to get a detox bed in a year than people “saved” by detox. It’s all a joke to us junkies. All of it. There needs to be a more progressive and current solution. There has to be some way out of here. There has to be some way out of me and the way I feel because this fentanyl shit is going to kill me before long, I thought out loud. Rain started to fall as I walked along the street.

I could have cared less. I was lost in my thoughts, wondering how I’m going to get high later and reminding myself that I should eat more than once this week. Where am I going to sleep tonight? Can’t go to the park cause the cops moved everyone from Tent city. Maybe up in the bridge arches if it isn’t raining? The homeless shelters are too dirty and too dangerous and the last place someone trying to get off drugs should be. You want to find excellent ways to combat addiction? Make a committee made up of current, newly clean and long retired junkies and let them talk to each other. You’d be surprised at what those “filthy, dirty drug addicts” can come up with. We need viable and realistic solutions and we need them right fuckin’ now!!

This shit is killing us. All of us. We won’t have a drug problem in this city soon because all opiate addicts will be dead. We are dropping like flies because the dope supply is so highly toxic. Now with the emergence of Tranq dope or “Gucci dope” the urgency is greater than ever. There has to be a goal here, an endgame. Addicts are people too. They’re someone’s son, daughter, brother or sister, mother or father. Addiction doesn’t discriminate against anyone. It can touch anyone from any walk of life regardless of wealth, class, race or social standing. Addiction is waiting behind everything and it’ll blow your mind how fast it goes from “just for fun” to full blown hardcore addict.

We need help. All of us. We need help before it’s too late….

Be careful out there and don’t fuck around… L.