‘Addicts are human’ the message on International Overdose Awareness Day

“We do know that fentanyl is being found in every drug out there. We want people to be aware of what an overdose looks like and then how to respond to that so that we can have these preventable overdoses stopped and have those lives saved,” she said.

Pettigrew is especially adamant that the community should care about helping addicts instead of shunning them.

“They should care about these people just as they should care about a neighbour or anybody because it can be anyone,” she said. “ Anybody who has a substance abuse or misuse problem is a human being and deserves the right to have the same standard of healthcare and the same harms reduced that they would if they had any other type of illness or situation.”

A nurse since 2012 and at Turning Point since last fall, Pettigrew said the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, the opposite of addiction is human connection.

It is for this reason she believes a supervised consumption site could change the game for addicts in Red Deer.

“This would be a huge opportunity for people who are already using substances to have access to a clean space to use and then along with that have access to wraparound services — so housing support, income support, detox treatment,” she said.

“The more that people who have substance abuse are alienated and have shame, the less likely they are to have help and to be able to grow and heal from that.”

Alberta’s Associate Health Minister Brandy Payne said in a letter Thursday recognizing IOAD, “Today is an especially difficult day for the thousands of Alberta families grieving for a loved one lost to overdose, and the thousands more who love someone who is struggling with substance use.”

“This is an emergency unlike anything seen before in Alberta, and it demands a different response than the emergencies of the past. That’s why we have assembled families, first responders, public health experts and Albertans with lived experience of substance use to help us provide the right response to save lives.”

Payne also wrote as long as Albertans are dying from preventable overdoses, there is more work to be done.

Between 200 and 400 overdose Naloxone kits are handed out by Turning Point each month free of charge. Since 2015, nearly 3800 have been given out and there have been more than 700 successful overdose reversals.

A final report stemming from a local study done by the Red Deer Coalition on the Opioid Crisis is expected to be submitted to Alberta Health by the end of September, at which time the province will give further consideration to funding a supervised consumption site in Red Deer.

by Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

‘Addicts are human’ the message on International Overdose Awareness Day

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