People who use drugs

Jessica Bridgeman has worked as close to the opioid crisis as anyone could — she and her colleagues quite literally helped to write the manual on harm reduction for frontline staff to follow. 

Bridgeman, a regional harm reduction co-ordinator with the Interior Health Authority, has been on the "frontlines," so to speak, for almost a decade. 

"I think there are a lot of good fights to be fought out there. This is the one I have chosen to work in. It just calls to me. I think it matters. I believe that people have rights and there are good people out there." 

On the front page of the "Guide to Harm Reduction" manual are words like compassion, dignity and respect — terms not always associated with people who use drugs. 

"Society has a long history of understanding addiction in a moral sense," she says. "I think we are getting our message out. We are actively working towards destigmatizing a lot of what is going on."

Bridgeman, her colleagues and her counterparts across the province have been pushing for communities to adopt a mentality that supports the belief that just because somebody uses or is addicted to drugs, doesn't mean they are a bad person — Drugs and addiction do not discriminate.
 
Tolerance plays a role, she says.

"Hopefully, some of the rhetoric on social media is from the minority, but we know that it is not helpful," explains Bridgeman, when asked her views on shaming tactics used on social media. 

"Pointing out and highlighting some of these tragic experiences, (on social media) or the spaces in which some of these people are living reinforces this idea that you have to hit rock bottom," says Bridgman. "It doesn't contribute to a solution. If that worked, we wouldn't see the problem anymore." 

The fact is, the shaming tactics further stigmatize and dehumanize those who use drugs and those with addictions to drugs, pushing them further into the dark.

"We know that using in isolation is incredibly risky. If you are using alone, your risk right now of death is very high," says Bridgeman. 

According to the BC Coroners Service, In 2017 more than 1,430 people died from illicit drug overdoses. Roughly 90 per cent of those deaths occurred while inside, the majority were men and many were found alone.

Bridgeman provides an example of how public shaming hurts harm reduction efforts. 

"If I was an individual who was a part of some of the social media groups, public conversations and forums that exist right now, and I was using in isolation, and I saw my colleagues, my friends, my boss, even family members sharing thoughts on social media in such an open way that is not supportive, I am not very likely to come out and share." 

Bridgeman added, "If I am being talked about in a negative way, that is not increasing the likelihood of me actually saying, I am somebody who uses substances, or I am somebody who uses in a problematic way, I need help." 

As a society, we all have a role to play in lifting the stigma around this subject, that includes the mainstream media.

The terminology and photos used by media can reinforce a false narrative.

Bridgeman says instead of saying "drug users", the term should be "people/person who use drugs" and use pictures that depict the crisis more accurately:

• cocaine on a neatly organized office desk
• a young man on a sofa at a house party, head bowed seemingly sleeping
• a small bag of powder next to a teenager’s text book

For most people, it is difficult to make sense of an issue like drug addiction, especially in the light of so many overdose deaths in recent years. 

In a perfect world, Bridgeman says people would try and understand the issue in a proactive way, not a reactive one. 

"Dialogue about a certain issue — in this case substance use — would include people with lived experience. Where all parties involved who are negatively affected, positively affected or otherwise not affected at all, are at the table to listen and learn from one another," she says.

What are the complex factors that lead people to a variety of different substance abuse experiences? 

"Nobody wants to have to experience improperly discarded needles and people sleeping or going to the bathroom in public spaces, the people that are experiencing that type of a lifestyle don't want to be doing that either, but we need to come at this with a proactive way and understand what is at play here," she says.

"So, really trying to understand the differences in how people get to this place and how we can be a supporter, and advocate and a helper to people who might need it.

If we can't ask ourselves how we can be part of the solution than I don't think we are going to get very far."