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Transcripts For ALJAZ The Stream 20220729

which causes death within days. i don't you under there with me. so here robin indo hall, reminder of our top stories. ukraine says it's ready to dispatch the 1st shipments of grain from its black sea port for the blood of his landscape says he's waiting for the go ahead from the u. n. and turkey 1200. is that the ports that he does with more? until this agreement was brokered by turkey, these waters were simply too unsafe for anybody to transport grain. so none of that has happened. you've had 20 to 25000000 tons of grain just sitting in this port. and now it appears beginning today that ukraine will once again feed the world. and that's important because there's a looming food crisis in africa and elsewhere where people are desperately waiting for these shipments to come. so we'll have apparently a 1st shipment today, and then there will be other shipments ukraine and russia, blaming each other after an asteroid called a prison facility killed dozens of people that happened in the russian held a town of all in a car in the defense province of eastern ukraine, ukrainian prisoners of all are being held in detention of the center. at least 75 were injured. ukraine's foreign minister responded to the incidental line, saying that russia had committed a war crime. russia has denied the accusations. sir lang, his new government has resumed discussions with the international monetary fund about the bailout. earlier the world bank said it won't get financial assistance until it puts economic reforms in place. floods in the us, state of kentucky have killed at least 15 people. but that number is expected to rise, governor has declared the state of emergency and warns that could take several years to repair tens of thousands of homes without power. more rain is full cast and is ready for the shot dead. a 16 year old palace to be in boy in ramallah and aliyah was shot in the chest while demonstrating against satler's attacks in the elmo kaya town. according to local sauls is his futile will be held later on friday and be among military is accused of using find a place to fire unguided munitions into the city in areas independent investigators, mo, witness say the genta has increased advertising since last year. those were the headline and the angle we're here with the news, i'm just in the heart of time. but next is the strain here on al jazeera to stay with us. how and why did soon become so obsessed with this law, we were giving them a tool to hold the corrupt individual's human rights abusers accountable. they're going to rip this deal apart if they take the white house of 2025. what is the world hearing? what we're talking about vi american today, your weekly take on us politics and society. that's the bottom line. ah, i on semi ok in the united states, a record number of people are dying from drug overdoses. let me give you an idea of how serious the numbers are in 2021, the numbers of recorded fatalities meant that it was the equivalent of one passing dying every 5 minutes in united states. according to the centers for disease control in united states, there is a search in the number of best, particularly amongst people of color, black communities and indigenous communities, which is why we're doing this show. i'm going to start with an expert voice that expert voice is terrence cooper. he's a needle exchange coordinator. i say the co way up with them. i fit know it like at the same time, and i'm not thankful that epidemic people that work in a people got almost time when i heard, you know, drilled uses words will alter her with doubly with his fitness and his new stuff the came out is crazy. this is the fear, know he will soon a death in the raz. oh would those them? why is fentanyl and other powerful drugs particularly impacting communities of color in the united states? and what can be done about that at expert panel? andrea charles: great sir. welcome. good to have you all here on the stream. andrea, please say hello to our audience around the well, tell them who you are, what you do. hello, however, the invitation, my name is andrea miley. i'm from the high to nation and i'm calling in from the unseeded unoccupied, cuz got away and felt like territory here in baltimore, maryland. i'm currently a research associate at the vendor for american indian health, a john polk, and bluebird school of public health. however, so good to have you. thank you so much. hello charles, please introduce yourself to our viewers around the globe high for me, thanks so much for having me. my name is charles hawk or, and i am an equity of harm reduction project manager with the california bridge program based out of oakland, california. our i help, i'm are just a department star hemorrhaging programs all across the state is to have you on board admiral. so welcome to the strain. please introduce yourself. thanks for having me. i'm maritza perez, i'm based in washington dc. i am currently the director of the office of federal affairs for the direct policy alliance. i guess i want to get you a quick opinion on what we're seeing right here on my laptop. so this is the rise in us drug overdose debts by race and ethnicity. 2020, over 20. 19 black, 44 percent american indian and alaska. native alaska native, 39 percent white, 22 percent asian pacific islander 22 percent hispanic, 21 percent. what does that tell you? that 1st glance, charles, you start per share. yeah, i think, but it's still really important for me to be content to conceptualize the data within the history of how drug uses. look over the past several, several years. keep thinking about kind of even going back to when drugs were big we're beginning to be criminalized in the early twenties. drug use has always been criminalized around the boundaries of rates in the us. that's always been what has really been the trigger point of what drugs are legal and which ones are not. so when we kind of think about what's been happening around 2020, i think especially what the storage access worker was saying, and that video earlier this combine, pandemic all and covey coming together. overdose is something that looked very different now than it did even like 10 or 15 or 20 years ago to 1520 years ago before it. and usually when you were seeing overdose, they were people who had either not knew they were new people who are using drugs. they were people who are changing the method they were using, maybe going from using pill to injecting where people who are returning to youth after being in jail after being in drug treatment or being absent for a period of time. when all began to hit the streets and you know, fit and all of now all in one day with a wave that occurred over several years starting in the east coast and making its way over towards the west coast. it kind of changed up. it became a thing where people who were very easy to use it as people who were very experienced users. all of a sudden, like you didn't know you were taking, you didn't know what dos you were at. you didn't know how much of a percentage this was you didn't know what was cut into your drugs, and that's always been the case with alyssa drug. you'd never really know what you're getting. ok, but never bring it in that car. yeah, yeah, so thank you. that's a great start. i angie, i want to bring you in here because i'm wondering if there's white privilege involved even when drugs are being consent. because why with the number of fatal overdose it be less for white drug uses than drug cases of color. yeah, thank you for that question. i think absolutely white privilege pay the play, the part in this increase overdose rate. and i think the other part of what the data that you shared shows is that indigenous people, black people, people of color, we're not getting access to access to the services that we need. whether that treatment, whether that's harm reduction, many people do not feel safe and accessing health care health care because of racism experienced within the health care system. i think that's a huge piece of this work. and another thing that brought up for me is that, you know, these aren't just numbers, these aren't just percentages. it's been unacceptable that the rates of overdose have been so high for black and indigenous people beyond 3. prior to the pandemic, and that were shining a spotlight on it now. and thing, it's terrible, it's been terrible and devastating for so many years, way too long. and that these are just numbers there. people and people that have meaning in our lives that we care about, or a family friend and our friends and our community members. our audience are also watching guests on youtube and i didn't even invite them to the conversation they were right in there with us. immediately i like this the thought here, which comes from ricardo, who asked about the apparent ease of getting drugs is not going to be problematic. does that help put the, the numbers up or the search up in terms of people of color in those communities? charles, you're nodding, and then i'm going to go to marissa for her, take a while to start. i mean, i've always been available no matter where you are in this country. drugs have always been available. what may be the question that is much bigger to kind of asked what kind of drugs and what quality of drugs are people. okay? and so when you think about people who have money and resources, there is very high quality heroin still available in this country. you can spend a lot of money and get very good heroine that is not cut with it and all of it is not cut with thing. but when you are living on the streets, when you don't have a lot of money, when you're buying heroin, because or pay or opiate medications, or opiate drugs, illicit drugs because they're trying to manage pain or because you're trying to deal with the big aspects of your life, you get what you can get and if you don't have a lot of money, you get cheap stuff. and if you get cheap stuff, the things that are putting you more at risk, i'm going to go to you more. it's a but via you choose a get another good question. doesn't this imply lots of what we already know more rates. they are panoramic effect to people of color more than white americans. what else can these numbers tell us rich help us out? yeah, i know, i think my colleague spoke to it earlier, you know, this is very sad because these are members of our community. but i think what's also really sad is that these are systemic policy failures that we've known about for decades. we know that there have been an equity throughout all of our social systems, including the criminal justice system, as my colleague pointed out, we also know that we have disparities and access to health services and other social inequities. i'm thinking about, you know, lack of housing or transportation that could drive somebody to a touring service program or a health service. but this was certainly all compounded by the. ready pandemic, which is why the drug policy alliance has been pushing for access to harm reduction services to meet people where they're at, including making sure that people have panel test strips so they can consume. so before the consumer substance, they know what's in that substance. they can make a safe decision, no lock phone, reverse effects of an overdose on but also things like through the service program so that people have clean needles and have access to information about substance abuse. but all of this needs to be addressed. in addition to addressing other social inequities like the inequities in our criminal justice system and access to housing and good paying job, all of that, it really does take a holistic approach. so my goodness, andrea is not in charles. he's noting andrea, you go 1st. yeah, i mean, i really appreciate what you know charles had shared around the impacts of prohibition and who is, who is criminalized through our drug laws. and i think that, you know, like charles, the saying that access to drugs has always been there, you know, as long as humans have been humans, we've had the ability to create different substances and use plant medicines to alter experiences. and i think what's really have changed for us is the impacts of foreign de, just people in particular, colonialism and all of the follow that comes with that. that creates this pain in our lives. that is one of the drivers of increased substance youth. yeah, i think that that's a huge point to kind of tie it back the coven 19. like during this shelter in place moment, you know, i was in college for i live in california. we were one of the 1st states to go on on lockdown. it's really isolating. we know the things that dr. jackie, if you know the things that dr. overdose isolation not having access regular medical care, not having access to people who are checking when you using alone. those are all things like coven really push forward. and when you combine that with this history of prohibition, and i think like to kind of put it into the human context. people don't trust our government. people don't trust health workers. people are saying, if this person is overdosing, if i call 911, and a lot of states, the police show up and a lot of states, you don't actually have protection. if people, if the police show up and people are using drugs and drugs are they're like, so it becomes a question of how did we actually build the system in which this is what happens. we have intentionally built that over decades over century and just absolutely degrading the trust that by people in indigenous people have in our system absolutely degrading the quality of service that people are able to offer. and then it feels like a thing, then we fit back and what happened. and it's like, well, what will happen? what happens, what the intention of this system where that happened, which were to continue the history of genocide that was started so long ago and to prevent people from being able to get back up for the service. we felt i want to focus more on what it takes to stop people from overdosing because it isn't needless. it's a weightless death, a pointless death and, and what the challenges are. so starting with some of the challenges you've already been building them up for us, it's thank you for that. but criminalization is something that came up in our conversation, and also from abdullah who is a research brown university. this is what he told us earlier. have a listen and then build of what he was saying. so as racial disparities, continue to increase in the over those crisis. i think it's important to remember the counterproductive role that criminalization plays in this in this whole thing, that you can't have a health and harm reduction approach to treating the drug crisis if people are afraid of being criminalized for using those services. so you can't have outreach workers going and reaching these communities. if you then also have these communities that are incredibly policed afterwards. my fear is that as this crisis, you know, becomes perceived to be less white because of course it hasn't always been white, but it's been perceived that way that we will see a doubling down in criminalization which is happening. yeah, that's such a great point in something that i think about quite often. i think in some ways this country has made significant strides in terms of providing greater access to health services and harm reduction services for people who use drugs. but i'll tell you what, at the federal level, i see a lot of the opposite happening. i see a lot of the old drug war rhetoric of the past crop up time and time again. i think one specific example of this, at the federal level continues to be how we're treating that. all right, now on one hand, we're seeing people who use drug need health services and that's great. but on the other hand, we're, you know, also saying that we should treat all fentanyl, analog schedule and drugs that we need. it felt like we need to put people who are selling personal and track of trafficking fentanyl and joe in prison. you know, joe biden has said that he doesn't believe that anybody should go to jail or prison for drug use. yeah, he's supporting this effort to criminalize fentanyl, analog and fentanyl. it fell further criminalized the substances and i also have to point out that across the country. unfortunately, we still have laws on the books that criminalize harm reduction tools like clean needles, like no log stone, like fentanyl test drip. these are all literally life saving mechanism. so we really need to reverse back and do away with these old drug war tactics of the past, because all about leads to criminalization and stigma. and will prohibit people from reaching out for help, should they need it? i want to bring you another voice into conversation. this one comes from the randall duncan, he's a resident in d. c. he's in his mid sixty's. he injects her in on a daily basis, but he talks about them to know an impact he's been having on other people that he knows who take drops. tossed out a new job age of 18. and i'm in also jo, yahoo, all my life using that. so you have to really start using you and one day i bought a guy, i know, but i didn't know it. and i went out. good morning, the old you to let i'm a friends. i never used by almost every to reach are here most of my own those you know, and it, i know that story. his story, maybe wonder about how communities of color, how indigenous communities are handling, having fatal overdose is in that community having drug use in their communities and j, you start child's and you pick up. sure. yeah, you know it's, it's really tough and it's really tough to have a conversation about it because so much of overdose is truly caused by stigma. shame and judgment. if we're a person who's eating substances, whether we have an addiction or a substance use disorder, or we're using recreation on the weekends, it's really hard to have that conversation with someone in our lives about our substance. youth which is on there by puts us at risk for over 2 because of the shame that we have around our substance youth. so i think although indigenous community has been so severely impacted by this crisis, i think indigenous communities have the knowledge of the experience and the tools that will help us get through this crisis. because this is unfortunately, one of many crises that we as indigenous people have experienced and we know how to take care of each other. yeah. yeah, i really love that. that last piece. and i think what i would add on to that is in, within our community. so i guess i could tell like, a little brief story. so in my previous role, i did a lot of harm reduction training, or i'm for cisco working with a lot of different types of groups. and i would always remember when i would be giving training. so groups of what mostly black staff members are mostly indigenous staff members because the energy in the room with very, very different. and so much of that has to do with the historical relationship that our communities have had to drug use. and specifically the relationship we've had, the criminalization of substances being used, recreationally of substances being used as part of community. this is being used to literally just get through the day and work when we talk about the time period post slavery during the sharecropping era where you had black people making half as much less than half as much like $0.10 on the dollar. that of what white people were making when they are going on doing manual labor. they were going out and they were using cocaine and they were using that because that's what you needed to do to work long enough hours to pay your bill. and then you had something like the crack, the crack down around crack that happened in the eighty's, the beginning of the war on drugs. and i think about how so much of my family, how so many of my, my elders have had really been really prod up a lot for people when i talk about harm reduction among my, my black community among older folks in the community who were like, alive, during the eighty's, it's horrifying. the stories that people tell the ways that people get caught in the same spiral around criminalization. getting your kids taking away, not having access to jobs, not being able to get housing and you're stuck and stuck and stuck. and that's the system that was created and then tells you around as that system gone, charles that we done with and it's and it's getting in, it's getting broken down. but even if you think about like the system um health care, i'm one of the things that so i guess to kind of tie it back to the work i do a california bridge, one of the things that we do a lot we work with emergency departments and in emergency departments, it is not uncommon when somebody comes them regardless of what their health issue is. if somebody sees the beer, how the evidence they use drugs that will kick that personnel doesn't like. or that doesn't matter if it's because your leg is broken or you got a headache or whatever, they won't even engage with you sometimes charles, well, the conversation that you would have with those people because there's obviously an education process even within the medical profession as the educational processes, so if an emergency unit with say ok, you cannot come in here. you have frontier lag, but you're also fentanyl. you have to leave. what would you say to the team in that unlikely unit? i would say something along the lines of the role of the emergency department is to be an accessible place for people to access care, regardless of their ability to pay or guard lists of disability, regardless a medical issue and regardless of race. and so it is your job as a medical provider to provide this person high quality care. and sometimes what that looks like is just giving them the literal care that they're asking for. and sometimes it's also about giving them some new skills because a lot of that does come from that stigma that uncomfortable lity and in an even bigger way, not knowing what to do, they don't know. a lot of times providers don't feel for adequately trained to provide those services. and so a big part of what we do also is teaching them. here's how you do a start around dupon orphan, which is the medication for substance use disorder. here's how you start that an emergency department, you can get in a locks on distribution program and give people no lock. so there's education that you can offer in counseling that is in the e d. that is really sign that short term and an immediate. and i think the more skills that those providers are able to get, the more comfort they get, being able to actually provide those services and not just have this reaction of we don't know what to do. it seems from our conversation that it doesn't seem to be that expensive marissa to save lives. charles is laughing. it's sometimes, you know, we, we, we sort of wrangle with a, an issue, and this is so expensive. we can't actually handle this. but this doesn't seem to be expensive, i might being naive. it always this cheap to save life lives could be saved. i think it's a complicated question, but i'll tell you what, i think congress always going to bad for these 1000000000 dollar budgets for the department of defense and for war and for weapons. but i don't see that same energy or domestic programs that could really help our people that can help our residents stay healthy. and i think this is a perfect example of that. we've been fighting with congress to give us more money for health services for harm reduction services for final test strips and the locks don't answer in service programs. what we're asking for is a drop in the bucket compared to the other things i see. congress passed every day, so it does require a meaningful investment, especially because we have the significant racial inequities and access to health services. and to be frank, this is a country that has only recently, and only parts of the country have started to embrace harm reduction. we are in the midst of record number overdose, that's we absolutely need to scale every service. and that's going to require a huge investment where, so i'm going to show our audience something that shows how new hom reduction is to united states of the countries are way ahead of united states. have a look here on my laptop. this is a look inside the 1st official safe injection sites in the us. there's going to scroll down here and what you're seeing, i'm just gonna just read here. this is joe collado. he's at a clean white table in a sunlit room and there's a few bars. and he is injecting himself with harrowing. when you read that, that's quite startling. i'm now going to show you nelson grant, who has also been in that facility in new york. and he explains what he learns as something he uses drug that helps keep him safe, his nelson, if you do more romero's, yet if you're going to use it, you're still going to use the let valero, to try to you safely for to introduce you to his room to talk to you safely. 0. don't every review of the same middle even though you he was in the door that way. use a clean one of you happens to say were included were blue shield will be richard stepped from sofa. how to do that? i have a minute and a little bit left in the show. i would like to hear your mood guess whether you're hopeful about harm reduction that these fatalities in indigenous and people color communities. if in 2022 there is a whole 4 way forward. andrea, you start? sure, absolutely. i feel hopeful, i think that harm reduction is a new word for indigenous practices that have been happening since time immemorial . and that ultimately we are strong communities and we are able to work with each other to protect our communities. and so i have a shout, so if you'll hope yellow, michelle share the moment with right sec i had read, sir. i also remain hopeful. i have seen a shift in conversation. i just want us to remember that on people who use drugs need health services need to be treated with dignity and it'd be a part of the conversation and i find hope, and i thank you so much. and charles, you bring us home, wrap us up. charles. yeah, i mean, i've been cope is as big as what we're willing to work towards it on. and if we want to continue to grow in this, we have to continued. so just like build up the services that actually work and break down the things that don't work like formalization and that's how we move forward. thank you so much. you can follow charles hall, phone on twit to act. charles will phone back here. you go and move it's it is all set on twitter at maritza perez. thank you so much or say to andrea for being part of our program today. and you on youtube for your thoughts and your comments. i'll see you next time take ah ah, each and every one of us i've got a responsibility to change our personal space for the mirror a we in we could do this experiment and if by diversity could increase just a little bit that wouldn't be worth doing anybody had any idea that it would become a magnet who is incredibly rare species. they are asking for women to get 50 percent representation in the constituent assembly here. and jenny, this. ready will be got to collect the signature, to say the business, extremely important service that they provide to the city i. we need to take america to trying to bring people together and trying to deal with people who left behind the discover, a world of difference in determination. i'm examining that with me, but we are moving freedom with 16 people, corruption and compassion. al jazeera world, a selection of the best films from across our network of channels. a sanctuary for journalists. it was a haven from the war and shelter for civilians. refugees were like scattered into the garden during cambodia as bloody sang. stuff flooring us up to leave and suddenly we were turning up axon. the conveyor rouge had taken anything of value out of the hotel, cambodia. let them know a new episode of war hotels on all jazeera ah .

Transcripts For ALJAZ The Stream 20220728

ah, a reminder at the top stories and al jazeera, here as president joe biden, and chinese lead a she, she paying of spoken by telephone as tensions rise over taiwan. according to chinese state media, she warned biden against playing with fire over a possible trip to the self governing island by the u. s. how speak a next month. china considers taiwan part of its territory and has called him washington to abide by the one china principal. nancy pelosi has yet to confirm the trip. the earth economy has contracted for a 2nd straight quarter, but the by the administration insists it's not a recession. gross domestic product, which is one measure of economic activity, fell 0.9 percent in the 3 months from april to june or wednesday, the u. s. federal reserve increase interest rates for the 4th time this year. why didn't this urging congress to pass the inflation reduction act, saying it will lower inflation by reducing health care costs and taxing the rich? this bill requires the largest corporations to begin to begin to pay toward their fair share and taxes. my put in place a 15 percent corporate minimum tax. now i know you've never heard me say this before or come as a shock to you, but $55.00 for the fortune $500.00 companies paid no federal income tax. in 2020, i only heard me say that about 10000 times. but the fact is they paid no taxes on an income corrected income over $40000000000.00. well, guess what? this bill ends there. ukrainian official say russia has launched massive mess all attacks on the regions of key if and journey he various the haven't been targeted in weeks. keeps regional governors as the settlement in the chicago district about 20 kilometers from the capital city center. with it early on, thursday, wash and troops withdrew from the key of region. months ago, after failing to capture it, and ukrainian forces say they're stepping up a counter offensive in her song. the southern region fell to russia in the early days of the war, but ukraine wants to recapture it. keeps, as it struck, 5 russian strongholds around the city of cason on thursday. okay, well the stream is next to asking why the racial gap in the united states drug overdoses is widening. make sure that you stick around for that and go to al jazeera dot com for more news in sport. ah ah, i am yeah. okay. in the united states, a record number of people are dying from drug overdoses. let me give you an idea of how serious the numbers are. in 2021, the numbers of recorded fatalities meant that it was equivalent of one person dying every 5 minutes in the united states. according to the centers for disease control in united states, there is a surge in the number of this, particularly amongst people of color, black communities and indigenous communities, which is why we're doing this show. i'm going to start with an expert voice that expert voice is terrence cooper, is a needle exchange coordinator. i say the co we about them. if it know it, like at the same time. and i do not think one of them will people that work in if you will guess almost time only has no drill, uses woods will also have her with doubly with the fitness and his new stuff. the came out is crazy. this is of the know he will say a death in the rise over those death. why is fentanyl and other powerful drugs, particularly impacting communities of color in the united states? and what can be done about that at expert panel? andrea charles moreno sir. welcome good to have you all here on the stream. andrea, please say hello to our audience around the well, tell them who you are, what you do. hello, however, the invitation, my name is andrea, my lee. i'm from the high nation and i'm calling in from the unseen, unoccupied, piscataway and territory. here in baltimore, maryland. i'm currently a research associate at the center for american indian health. johns hopkins movers, go a public health hello. so good to have you. thank you so much. hello charles, please introduce yourself to our viewers around the globe. high for me, thanks so much for having me. my name is charles hawthorne. i am an equity in harm reduction project manager with the california bridge program based out of oakland, california, where i help department start harm reduction program fall across the state. it's have you on board am rich, so welcome to the stream. please introduce yourself. thanks for having me. i'm marissa perez. i am based in washington dc. i am currently the director of the office of federal affairs for the drug policy alliance. i guess i want to get your quick opinion on what we're seeing right here on my laptop. so this is the rise in us drug overdose debts by race and ethnicity. 2020, over 20. 19 black, 44 percent american indian and alaska native, alaska native said 9 percent white, 22 percent. asian pacific islander 22 percent. it's valid. 21 percent. what does that tell you that 1st glance, charles, you start for sir? yeah, i think, but it's still really important for me to be able like content to conceptualize the data within the history of how drug use has looked over the past several, several years. thinking about kind of even going back to when drugs were, were beginning to be criminalized in the early twenties drug use has always been criminalized around the boundaries of rates in the us. that's always been what has really been the trigger point of what drugs are legal and which ones are not. so when we kind of think about what's been happening around 2020, i think especially what this raj access worker was saying and that video earlier this combine, pandemic, didn't all and cove it coming together. overdose is something that looks very different now than it did even like 10 or 15 or 20 years ago to 1520 years ago before that. and usually when you were seeing overdose, they were people who had either not knew they were new people who are using frogs. they were people who are changing the method they were using. maybe going from like using pill to injecting or people who are returning to youth after being in jail after being in drug treatment or being absent for a period of time when all began to hit the streets and you know, fit and all of now all in one day with a wave that occurred over several years, starting in the east coast and making its way over towards the west coast. it kind of changed up. it became a thing where people who are very easy to use it as people who are very experienced users. all of a sudden, like you didn't know you were taking, you didn't know what dos you are at. you didn't know how much of a percentage this was you didn't know what was cut into your drugs and i've always been the case with alyssa drug. you never really know what you're getting. ok, but never bring it in that car. yeah, yes. i thank you. that's a great start, and you want to bring you in here because i'm wondering if there's white privilege involved, even when drugs are being consent. because why with the number of fatal overdose, it be less for white drug uses than drug cases of color. now thank you for that question. i think absolutely white privilege paper plays apart in this increase overdose rate. and i think the other part of what the data that you shared shows is that indigenous people, black people, people of color, we're not getting access to access to the services that we need. whether that treatment, whether that's harm reduction, many people do not feel safe and accessing health care health care because of racism experienced within the health care system. i think that's a huge piece of this work. and another thing that brought up for me is that, you know, these aren't just numbers, these aren't just percentages. it's been unacceptable that the rates of overdose have been so high for black and indigenous people beyond 3. prior to the pandemic, and that were shining a spotlight on it now. and thing, it's terrible, it's been terrible and devastating for so many years, way too long. and that these are just numbers there. people and people that have meaning in our lives that we care about, or a family friend and our friends and our community members. audience are also watching guest on youtube and i didn't even invite them to the conversation they were right in there with us. immediately i like this the thought here, which comes from ricardo, who asked about the apparent ease of getting drugs. is that going to be problematic? does that help put the, the numbers up or the search up in terms of people of color in those communities? charles, you're nodding, and then i'm going to go to marissa for her, take a while to start. i mean, drugs have always been available no matter where you are in this country. drugs have always been available. what may be the question that is much bigger to kind of asked is what kind of drugs and what quality of drugs are people. and so when you think about people who have money and resources, there is very high quality heroin still available in this country. you can spend a lot of money and get very good heroin that is not cut with it and all that is not cut with things. but when you are living on the streets, when you don't have a lot of money, when you're buying heroin, because or but pay or opiate medications or opiate drugs, illicit drugs because you're trying to manage pain or because you're trying to deal with the big aspects of your life, you get what you can get and if you don't have a lot of money, you get cheap stuff. and if you get cheap stuffed up, things that are putting you more at risk, i'm going to go to you more. it's about via youtube. again, another good question, doesn't this imply lots of what we already know more rates, they have time to make effective people of color more than white americans? what else can these numbers tell us and help us out in? yeah, i know, i think my colleague spoke to it earlier, you know, this is very sad because these are members of our community. but i think what's also really sad is that these are systemic policy failures that we've known about for decades. we know that there have been an equity throughout all of our social systems, including the criminal justice system, as my colleague pointed out, we also know that we have disparities and access to health services and other social inequities. i'm thinking about, you know, lot of housing or transportation that could drive somebody to a touring service program or a health service. but this was certainly all compounded by the. ready pandemic, which is why the drug policy alliance has been pushing for access to harm reduction services to meet people where they're at, including making sure that people have panel test strips so they can consume. so before the consumer substance, they know what's in that substance. they can make a safe decision. now, lock phone to reverse the facts of an overdose on but also things like through the service program so that people have clean needles and have access to information about substance abuse. but all of this needs to be addressed. in addition to addressing other social inequities like the inequities in our criminal justice system and access to housing and good paying job, all of that, it really does take a holistic approach. so my goodness, andrea is not in charles. he's notting, andrea, you go 1st. yeah, i mean, i really appreciate what you know charles had shared around the impacts of prohibition and who is, who is criminalized through our drug laws. and i think that, you know, like charles, the saying that access to drugs has always been there, you know, as long as humans have been humans, we've had the ability to create different substances and use plant medicines to alter experiences. and i think what's really have changed for us is the impacts of foreign to just people in particular, colonialism and all of the follow that comes with that. that creates this pain in our lives. that is one of the drivers of increased substance youth. yeah, i think that that's a huge point because ty it back the coven 19 like during this shelter in place moment, you know, i was in college, i live in california. we were one of the 1st states to go on on lock down. it's really isolating. we know the things that drive drug use, you know, the things that drive overdose isolation not having access regular medical care, not having access to people who are checking when you using alone. those are all things like coven really push forward. and when you combine that with this history of prohibition, and i think like to kind of put it into the human context. people don't trust our government. people don't trust health workers. people are saying, if this person is overdosing, if i call 911, and a lot of states, the police show up and a lot of states, you don't actually have protection. if people, if the police show up and people are using drugs and drugs are they're like, so it becomes a question of how did we actually build the system in which this is what happens. we have intentionally built that over decades over century, just absolutely degrading the trust that black people in indigenous people have in our system. absolutely degrading the quality of service that people are able to offer. and then, and it feels like a thing, then we get back and what happened and it's like, well, what will happen, what happens is what the intention of this system where that happened, which were to continue the history of genocide that was started so long ago and to prevent people from being able to get back up to serve. as a result, i want to focus more on what it takes to stop people from overdosing because it is a needless scatter. it's a weightless death, a pointless death. and what the challenges are. so starting with some of the challenges you've already been building them up for us to thank you for that. but criminalization is something that came up in our conversation. and also from abdullah who is a researcher at brown university. this is what he told us earlier. have a listen and then build of what he was saying. so as racial disparities, continue to increase in the over those crisis. i think it's important to remember the counterproductive role that criminalization plays in this in this whole thing, that you can't have a health and harm reduction approach. it's reading the drug crisis if people are afraid of being criminalized for using those services. so you can have outreach workers going and reaching these communities. if you then also have these communities that are incredibly policed afterwards. my fear is that as this crisis, you know, becomes perceived to be less weight because of course it hasn't always been white, but it's been perceived that way that we will see a doubling down criminalization which is happening. yeah, that's such a great point in something that i think about quite often. i think in some ways this country has made significant strides in terms of providing greater access to health services and harm reduction services for people who use drugs. but i'll tell you what, at the federal level, i see a lot of the opposite happening. i see a lot of the old drug war rhetoric of the past crop up time and time again. i think one specific example of this at the federal level continues to be how we're treating that. all right, now, on one hand, we're seeing people who use drugs need health services and that's great. but on the other hand, we're also saying that we should treat all fentanyl, analog schedule, and drugs that we need. it felt like we need to put people who are selling personal and tracking trafficking fentanyl and joe in prison. you know, joe biden has said that he doesn't believe that anybody should go to jail or prison for drug you. yeah, he's supporting this effort to criminalize fentanyl analogs and fentanyl. it fell further criminalized substances and i also have to point out that across the country. unfortunately, we still have logged on the books that criminalize harm reduction tools like clean needles, like no log stone like battle test drips. these are all literally lifesaving mechanisms. so we really need to reverse that and do away with these old drug war tactics of the past, because all of that leads to criminalization in stigma. and will prohibit people from reaching out for help should they need it? i want to bring you another voice into conversation. this one comes from the randall duncan, he's a resident in d. c. he's in his mid sixty's. he injects her in on a daily basis, but he talks about them to know an impact he's been having on other people that he knows who take drugs, tossed out a new job, the age of 18. and lin or another job, you know, for all my life usually. so she really uses you and one day i watch a girl from a guy i know, but i didn't know sitting on and i went out that morning if you know a lot, i'm a friend. i mean like almost every to reach out. i hear most of my own notion fit, know, did i know that story? his story maybe wonder about how communities of color, how indigenous communities are handling having failed to overdose it in the community having drug use in their communities. and you start charles and you pick up. sure. yeah. you know it's, it's really tough and it's really tough to have a conversation about it. because so much of overdose is truly caused by stigma. shame and judgment. if we're a person who's using substances, whether we have an addiction or a substance use disorder, or we're using recreationally on the weekends, it's really hard to have that conversation with someone in our lives about our substance use, which would thereby put us at risk for overdose because of the shame that we have around our substance abuse. so i think although indigenous kids have been so severely impacted by this crisis, i think into just communities have the knowledge, the experience and the tools that will help us get through this crisis. because this is unfortunately, one of many crises that we as indigenous people have experience and we know how to take care of each other. yeah. yeah, i really love that. that last piece. and i think what i would add on to that is in, within our communities. so i guess i could tell like, a little brief story. so in my previous role, i did a lot of harm reduction trainings around cisco working with a lot of different types of groups. and i would always remember when i would be giving training, some groups of what mostly black staff members are mostly indigenous staff members . because the energy in the room with every very different and so much of that has to do with the historical relationship that our communities have half the drug use . and specifically the relationship. we've had. the criminalization of substances being used. recreationally of substances being used as part of community affairs, which is being used to literally just get through the day and work. when we talk about the time period post slavery during the sharecropping era where you had black people making half as much less than half as much what $0.10 on the dollar, that of what white people were making when they are going on doing manual labor. they were going out and they were using cocaine and they were using that because that's what you needed to do to work long enough hours to pay your bill. and then you had something like the crack, the crack down around crack that happened in the eighty's, the beginning of the war on drugs. and i think about how so much of my family, how so many of my, my elders have had really been really brought up a lot for people when i talk about harm reduction among my, my black community among older folks in the community who are like alive, during the eighty's, it's horrifying. the stories that people tell the ways that people get caught in the same spiral around criminalization. getting your kids taking away, not having access to jobs, not being able to get housing. and you're just stuck and stuck and stuck. and that's the system that was created and then tell around as that system gone, charles that we done with going to and it's getting, it's getting broken down. but even if you think about like the system of health care, one of the things that so i guess to kind of tie it back to the work i do a california bridge, one of the things that we do a lot, we work with emergency departments and emergency departments, it is not uncommon when somebody comes in regardless of what their health issue is . if somebody sees that they have the evidence, they use drugs, they'll kick that personnel doesn't like that doesn't matter if it's because your leg broke in and you got a headache or whatever. they won't even engage with you some times tells. well, the conversation that you would have with those people because there's obviously an education process even within the medical profession as an educational process. so if anybody see unit would say ok, you cannot come in here. you broke your leg, but you're also fentanyl. you have to leave, what would you say to the team in that emergency unit? i would say something along the lines of the role of the emergency department is to be an accessible place for people to access care, regardless of their ability to pay regardless of disability, regardless a medical issue and regardless of race. and so it is your job as a medical provider to provide this person high quality care. and sometimes what that looks like. it's just giving them the literal care that they're asking for. and sometimes it's also about giving them some new skills because a lot of that does come from that stigma and that uncomfortable ality and in an even bigger way, not knowing what to do. they don't know, a lot of times providers don't feel for adequately trained to provide those services. and so a big part of what we do also is teaching them. here's how you do a start around different orphan, which is the medication for substance youth disorder. here's how you start that an emergency department, you can get an oxygen distribution program and give people in the lock zone. there's education that you can offer, counseling that is in the d, that is really fine about short term and immediate. and i think the more skill that both providers are able to get, the more comfortable that they get, being able to actually provide those services and not just have this reaction. we don't know what to do if themes from our conversation, but it doesn't seem to be that expensive maritsa to save lives. who had charles is laughing. it sometimes we have, we sort of wrangle with an issue and this is so expensive. we can actually handle this, but this doesn't seem to be expensive. am i being naive here? or is this cheap to save lives? lives could be saved. i think it's a complicated question, but i'll tell you why i see congress always going to about for these 1000000000 dollar budgets for the department of defense and for war and for weapons. but i don't see that came entered key or domestic programs that could really help our people that can help our residents stay healthy. and i think this is a perfect example of that. we've been fighting with congress to give us more money for health services for harm reduction services for a final test strips analog stone and syringe service programs. what we're asking for is a drop in the bucket compared to the other things i see congress passed every day. so it does require a meaningful investment, especially because we have the significant racial inequities and access to health services. and to be frank, this is a country that has only recently, and only parts of the country have started to embrace harm reduction. we are in the midst of record number overdose that's we absolutely need to scale every service operates, and that's going to require a huge investment where so i'm going to show our audience something that shows how new hom reduction is to united states. other countries are way ahead of united states have a look here on my laptop. this is a look inside the 1st official safe injection sites in the us. there's going to scroll down here and what you're seeing, i'm just gonna just read here. this is joe collado, he's at a clean white table in a sunlight room, and there's a few balls and he is injecting himself with hearing. when you read that, that's quite startling. i'm now going to show you nelson grant, who is also leaning that facility in new york, and he explains what he learns. a sunday he use his drug. that helps keep him safe . his nelson if you do more morals, you have, if you're going to you, or you're still going to you later to try to you safely known for in order to talk to you safely. go don't overuse return. noodle, even knowing who he was in the doorway, user clean, one of you, happens to say were included with blue shield, will be richard of step from trouble. how to do retro i have a minute and a little bit left in the show. i would like to hear your mood guess whether you're hopeful about hom reduction that these fatalities in indigenous and people color communities. if in 2022 there is a hope for way forward. andrea, you start? sure, absolutely. i feel hopeful. i think that harm reduction is a new word for indigenous practices that have been happening since time immemorial . and that ultimately we are strong communities and we are able to work with each other to protect our communities. and so i have shelves really feel hope yellow. michelle share the moment with the rich seco ahead rizza. i also remain hopeful, i have seen a shift in conversation. i just want us to remember that people who use drugs need health services need to be treated with dignity and need to be a part of the conversation. and i find hoping that, yeah, thank you so much. and charles, you bring us home, wraps up charles. yeah, i mean i've been cope is as big as what we're willing to work towards it on. and if we want to continue to grow in this, we have to continue to just like build up the services that actually work and break down the things that don't work like formalization and that's how we move forward. thank you so much. you can follow charles hall phone on twitter at chiles will phone back here. you go and move it's. it is also on twitter at maritza perez. thank you so much or say to andrea for being part of our program today. and you on youtube for your thoughts and your comments. i'll see you next time they get, ah ah. from the wells most populated region in depth stories from across asia and the pacific with diverse coaches and conflicting politics. one 0, one east on al jazeera. ah, al jazeera, great with no sake that he'd been home and then international anti corruption excellence award boat. now for your hero ah .

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