Every Aug. 31, International Overdose Awareness Day, I bleed through the insanity of surviving a heroin overdose and my cousin’s death to overdose.
It seems to me that, unlike heroin, cocaine is not seen as a “big deal.” Too many people don’t realize the magnitude of the cocaine problem in Kent County or in Delaware, nor the root of its drug culture. If we wish to address the fentanyl crisis, we must address the cultural and working conditions of Kent County and Delaware as a whole — meaning, look at how and why people use heroin, cocaine and, consequently, fentanyl.
We need to examine all the drugs (many cut with fentanyl) that all of Delaware takes — not just the working class but especially the middle and upper class, which the state seems so keen on protecting. Otherwise, we won’t be able to understand what relationship addiction has to every person in Delaware fighting for their life against it, how addiction has ravaged our state and how we can save it by having a more thorough and hands-on analysis.
Is the purpose of tracking the opioid epidemic in Delaware to save the middle and upper class from getting strung out and losing their American dream? Or are we actually trying to get our entire state out of addiction and come back like Lazarus?
We’re not going to find the answers by passing out naloxone and letting people die in the streets. We’ll find answers about use and prevention by giving people their own agency and authority to speak up and speak out against those in power on why they would pursue riding the horse (shooting heroin), rather than chasing someone else’s version of the American dream, which doesn’t exist for them. Additional policing and arresting drug dealers will not aid the situation. Delaware’s recovery and penal system shouldn’t punish drug users and dealers.
Yet some may ask: If we don’t want people strung out and if we don’t want them to overdose and we don’t arrest them, what do we do? We create an informed culture that helps people want to live. You can’t “make” Delaware’s politicians see the heroin problem they don’t have a clear understanding about if they don’t have someone to help them see what this thing actually is.
How do we chart the right course?
The first question to be answered: What type of opioid survivors are we planning to help? All of them? Or only those who fit into the media-driven narrative of prescription opioid use compared to heroin, i.e., those with the privilege of health care in Delaware? Few are fighting for addiction survivors in the press.
In my firsthand experience, cocaine is often cut with fentanyl. As the state of Delaware said in a 2019 Health Alert: “Fentanyl is a synthetic, short-acting opioid analgesic with a potency 50 to 100 times that of morphine. Fentanyl carries a high risk of overdose, and recent national cases of fentanyl-related morbidity and mortality increasingly have been linked to illegally manufactured fentanyl and fentanyl analogues. These drugs are sold illicitly for their heroin-like effects and may be mixed with heroin and/or cocaine and other illicit drugs with or without the user’s knowledge. In addition, recent law enforcement seizures in several jurisdictions across the United States have identified fentanyl sold in powder and pill formulations, which may be marked as other substances, including benzodiazepines and opioid analgesics.” It also says, “Fentanyl does not show up in routine drug screens” (dhss.delaware.gov/dhss/dph/php/alerts/dhan404.html).
We have to look at this opioid crisis at a wider angle, and the fisheye lens is directed by fentanyl. Some approaches that help us counter the overdose crisis are creating overdose-prevention centers, which implement the use of drug-checking strips and safe-supply programs; allowing those with experience with drugs to help create policy; developing inclusive drug-education programs that advocate beyond abstinence-only policies and work toward the decriminalization of drugs.
If we stop looking at opioid users as people making unethical choices and instead look at them as people willing to try anything to survive, we will find progress in this state. Don’t let yourself believe that the next opioid user won’t be your son or daughter. It was me and my cousin. I had a full ride at Delaware State University through the Inspire Scholarship and three on-campus jobs. I graduated summa cum laude and was still actively shooting heroin. I had everything; my cousin had a family. We had it all, and we still made that choice. And sometimes, I’m not sure I ever survived.
If we are going to attack this opioid crisis, we need to look at addictions from all sides and who uses which drugs. It is not enough to think we can solve this crisis by just focusing on prescriptions or understanding the road to heroin.
The answer is in what Delaware’s conscience is willing to take. Delaware is second in the nation in overdose mortality rates, so why are we not trying solutions shown to work in our neighboring state of Maryland and across the globe?
If we’re only looking to save face, blame it on Big Pharma. If we’re really working to change addiction, then let’s take a look at the cultural forces that cause Delawareans to seek highs, instead of chasing a carrot-and-pony show some call the American dream.
The way to chart the right course is simple. Treat victims of this crisis as human beings. If you want to end the crisis that you haven’t gone through yet, you have to see the humanity of the people who live it.
Bottom line: If Delaware wants to change the opioid epidemic, it needs to look around. As we have seen in other states: actions like needle exchanges and drug-testing kits/sites work. It’s about time we embrace harm reduction. If not, who will be left?
Then again, what does Aug. 31 mean to you?
Jordan McClements is a writer, composition/literature instructor and recovering heroin survivor along with being a graduate of Delaware State University and the University of Louisiana-Lafayette and a Master of Fine Arts student at Columbia College Chicago. He resides in Felton.
