Breaking the rules to save lives caught in crisis

Harm reduction workers follow correct belief relationships more important than rules

I found the words of the Dalai Lama helpful. “Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.”

Eight days of silence gives one sufficient time to engage in some of the contemplation and reading necessary for moving about more wisely in this world with our ever-increasing set of wicked problems. It also provides the space for taking in a book or three, a practice I neglect during my routinized day to day. So I have returned home from my retreat richer than ever, gleaning wisdom from both the silent and the written word.

Since then I have been working on the integration of what I picked up from the likes of Thomas Merton, Adrienne Rich, Richard Rohr, Julian of Norwich, Ron Rolheiser, bell hooks, Jesus, the Dalai Lama and others.

Many synchronous themes emerged from the mix, one being the breaking of rules, a thing for which I’ve had a lifelong affinity. Some of the rules I’ve broken were related to the seven deadly sins, many of which I am likely remorseful.

Other rules I’ve broken or aided and abetted in the breaking of, I am not so sorry at all because the impact of keeping the rule would have left people without access to food, housing or some other basic human need so the rule had no right to be there in the first place.

For the latter more life-giving than deathdealing breaking of rules, I found the words of the Dalai Lama helpful. “Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.”

From my primary text, Falling Upward — A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Rohr, I read, “People who know how to creatively break the rules also know why the rules were there in the first place.” He and some of the others also wrote pages about how we have been shown over and again by God and through life itself that relationships are more important than rules.

With all this in mind and heart I returned home to hear about the harm reduction workers in Toronto breaking all the rules in an effort to save further lives from the impact of drug use and overdose deaths. Newspaper headlines in towns and cities across the province this summer have been announcing the arrival of fentanyl and its evil accomplice, carfentanil, into their communities.

Here in Hamilton that headline is read and gone as carfentanil, a deadly elephant tranquillizer, was officially declared present in November 2016, seven months after the drug was discovered in a police raid. The significant lag time is due to the testing done by Health Canada to confirm the substance.

This year Ontario released a new opioid tracking tool which shows Hamilton needs to pay attention to this new presence and Dr. Jessica Hopkins, associate medical officer of health says, “It’s definitely something that we’re watching.”

Watching is important. People in Hamilton are dying from opioid overdoses at a rate of four a month. During the first half of 2017 there were 24 opioid overdose deaths in Hamilton, nearly double compared to last year.

In Toronto where that number is substantially larger, watching was not enough. Even the city’s commitment to opening three safe injection sites this fall was too late for the harm reduction workers who walk alongside people who are using drugs and are now risking their lives more than ever while their usual fix is laced by some evil minds with fentanyl. Unsuspecting long time users are caught by an often deadly surprise if the antidote Naloxone isn’t injected immediately afterward.

So last weekend the workers risked their careers and arrest and took to Moss Park and ran a “pop-up” safe-injection site. Police made a wise decision not to arrest anyone including the 24 people who accessed the site and the one person whose life was saved when they overdosed in the tent.

It’s good Hamilton’s public health unit is dedicated to watching this. They have hastened their scheduled report to council this fall and it will be up to our 16 representatives around that table to make a good rule for our community so our local harm reduction workers won’t need to break them in order to save lives.

Deirdre Pike is a freelance columnist for the Hamilton Spectator. You can write her at dpikeatthespec@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @deirdrepike