Facing addiction crisis not an us-vs.-them fight

Whenever we talk about addiction in this province, whenever we wrestle with how to stem and reverse the tide of what has too long been a devastating crisis, there’s one fact we should remember. It’s a fact that should form the foundation of every discussion, whether in our homes or the halls of government.

That fact is this: we are all on the same side.

This can get lost, sometimes, in the storm of public frustration about the impacts of addiction on our streets, our health-care facilities and our lives. Yet we are on the same side. Everyone wants a Winnipeg without violence, a city that feels safe for all its residents, and one where people do not suffer, or cause suffering to others.

The point of fracture is how we get there, and how we treat those at the heart of the crisis.

Earlier this week, the province invited media for a tour of its new detox centre in South Point Douglas. The facility, which is set to open by the end of November and will be administered by Main Street Project, will in part hold people taken in under a new law, allowing for a 72-hour detention of people severely intoxicated on “long-lasting drugs.”

In practice, that will likely mean mostly meth.

There are 20 suites, each with a sink and toilet. Four are earmarked for those 72-hour holds, the other 16 for standard alcohol detentions. (Another 20 rooms are expected to be added later.) There will be medical staff on-site, and support workers to connect people with ongoing care, such as housing and addictions treatment.

“Our goal is that folks don’t end up back here again and again, so we’re kind of closing the revolving door and then making sure people have the care they need,” Main Street Project executive director Jamil Mahmood told reporters during the tour; that part is key, and there is no doubt Main Street Project staff will do their best.

Yet when images of the new facility went public, many advocates for people with addictions were alarmed. The rooms are big, as Manitoba Housing, Addictions and Homelessness minister Bernadette Smith pointed out; but they’re also bleakly institutional, all cinder block and concrete, indistinguishable from a prison cell.

That makes them easy to clean, easy to maintain. But if someone is in the throes of drug-induced psychosis, beset by the storms of terror meth can induce alongside the physical misery of detox, those stark confines won’t likely help. In such mental-health crises, a soothing, calming environment is best, somewhere that people can start to feel safe.

So to many who care for people with addictions, the image of someone being held in that facility is viscerally upsetting. On Sunday, there is a rally scheduled at the legislature to oppose what advocates describe as a “dangerous and discriminatory 72-hour hold policy targeting our loved ones who use substances.”

The event’s tagline: “Care, Not Cages.”

Time will tell how this facility — and the 72-hour hold itself — fits into the puzzle of healing. At the very least, its impact on people who move through it should be closely monitored and carefully evaluated. Whenever a law gives governments more control over people’s freedom, the public must be vigilant.

Yet with enough compassionate resources, and sufficient protections against abuse, the 72-hour hold can also be a form of care. If someone is in the grips of drug-induced psychosis, they may be a danger to others; but they’re also in great danger themselves, immensely vulnerable and, for that time, unable to navigate the world safely.

But the biggest question the province must answer is, after those 72 hours are up, then what? Where do they go?

To heal a life caught in a spiral of addiction takes a lot of care, sustained at every step down a very long road. Main Street Project case managers will do their best, we know. But there are not nearly enough treatment beds in Manitoba to meet the need, nor safe housing options, nor additional long-term supports. There never have been.

To heal a life caught in a spiral of addiction takes a lot of care, sustained at every step down a very long road

To change that will require massive investment, unlike any we’ve seen before; and to make that investment will require an unprecedented collective will and public consensus. It has to be done, and the sooner we accept that, the better. There’s no way out of this crisis that won’t be enormously costly, and every year we wait, that cost just gets higher.

In this, I don’t envy being in Smith’s shoes. When it comes to how to move forward on the challenges that ripple out from addiction, the province has always been torn between those voices in the public calling for more care and those calling for more crackdowns. For some, the 72-hour hold and the spartan new facility is too harsh; for others, not harsh enough.

Is it possible to find common ground in those positions? Let’s start with this: the public’s frustration with the social harms that snowball out from addiction is valid, though it can swell into an anger that clouds compassion and makes it more difficult to perceive a just, effective and feasible road forward.

A few weeks ago, after a column touching on encampments and addiction, I received several emails that were shocking in their rage and naked racism, almost difficult to read. The writers characterized people living in the encampments as “animals” and “not human,” and described preferred solutions that were, to be blunt, borderline homicidal.

That is certainly an extreme. But there are many people who would be glad to round up everyone living on the streets dealing with addiction, lock them up and throw away the key. Even if that were legal — which it isn’t, and shouldn’t be — that would be crushingly costly too, and without hope of ending the cycle.

And that must be the dream: to truly end the cycle, to heal it. In this, we must never lose sight of the fact every person living with severe addiction, and every person struggling on the street, is human. They’re human, and the ways they suffer and respond to that suffering are part of the spectrum of ways that humans do.

We know trauma and hopelessness beget addiction. Addiction begets more trauma, especially when those experiencing it fall out of care and onto the fringes of society. The cycle is well-known, and well-studied. The problem for Manitoba — and many other jurisdictions — is that it’s spinning far faster than existing resources can keep up with.

It is possible to change that. Because whether we always recognize it or not, we are all on the same side. We all want to get to the same place, one where we feel safe in our communities, and know that others are safe too. Can we start there, and let that be the foundation on which to build hope anew?

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca