{"id":6069,"date":"2024-02-03T06:42:32","date_gmt":"2024-02-03T06:42:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=6069"},"modified":"2024-02-13T06:48:18","modified_gmt":"2024-02-13T06:48:18","slug":"fighting-substance-abuse-through-care-over-criminalization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=6069","title":{"rendered":"Fighting Substance Abuse Through Care over Criminalization"},"content":{"rendered":"

By <\/span>Selen Ozturk<\/a><\/p>\n

As a worsening opioid epidemic ranks among California\u2019s most challenging crises, The Center at Sierra Health Foundation is reducing harm through care over criminalization.<\/p>\n

At a Thursday, January 18 briefing co-hosted by EMS and The Center on the occasion of its 10th anniversary, three leaders of the nonprofit\u2019s grantees shared how they were innovating substance abuse prevention and advancing health equity throughout Northern California \u2014 from remote rural Inyo County, through the Central Valley, to Alameda County.<\/p>\n

The Center and substance use prevention<\/h2>\n

In 2022, over 109,000 people in the U.S. lost their lives due to drug overdose, according to the CDC. Overdose is the leading cause of death for non-elderly Californians \u2014 \u201cand these numbers are expected to increase,\u201d said Kaying Hang, president of\u00a0The Center at Sierra Health Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This epidemic is the result of 50 years of federal and state governments \u201cresponding to drug use with incarceration and extreme policing under the banner of a \u2018war on drugs.\u2019 Those from communities of color have been disproportionately harmed and stigmatized,\u201d she continued. \u201cHowever, the tide is turning. People who use drugs are not strangers but our neighbors, family members, friends\u2026 and we can give them a second chance by prioritizing care over criminalization.\u201d<\/p>\n

This care takes the form of partnership with community-based organizations to end California\u2019s opioid epidemic through culturally specific services which address each community\u2019s needs \u2014 including drug education, testing, harm reduction for drug users, recovery support and basic needs like food and hygiene.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that those who are closest to the harm are in the best position to determine what the solution is,\u201d added Hang, \u201cand our intention is to help people align with the best vision that they have of themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

The myth of communities without futures<\/h2>\n

Small, heavily Latino and Filipino rural communities throughout the Central Valley like Poplar \u2014 \u201cwith over 5,000 people living in 700 dwellings that haven\u2019t been developed for 50 years \u2014 are the most vulnerable, but least reached due to their size,\u201d said Mari Perez-Ruiz, executive director of\u00a0Central Valley Empowerment Alliance<\/a>\u00a0(CVEA). \u201cFor us, health access depends on fighting the narrative that our communities don\u2019t have a future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through CVEA\u2019s Rural Health Equity Campaign, this future is youth-led.<\/p>\n

\u201cPervasive drug abuse, especially fentanyl, is dire here,\u201d said Perez-Ruiz. \u201cOur communities are targeted by the cartels, and sometimes the parents here are using or selling drugs \u2014 so we opened\u00a0LUPE<\/a>\u00a0(Leadership, Unity, Power, Empowerment Center) \u2014 a safe, gang-free, drug-free center for youth to come together, and have conversations with parents about trauma and harm reduction so they all see new possibilities for their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Poplar alone, only 3% of youth are expected to pursue higher education, yet all children in the district receive a free lunch due to living in poverty,\u201d she added. \u201cWhen so little is expected of them, we build community support by meeting people where they\u2019re at \u2026 I see promise where others see no future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Native Americans and indigenous harm reduction<\/h2>\n

\u201cNative Americans have some of the highest fatal overdose rates \u2014 not just in California, but nationwide,\u201d said Arlene Brown, CEO of\u00a0Crossroads Recovery Center\u00a0<\/a>and Skoden Native Harm Reduction Services in Inyo and Mono Counties, and a member of the Bishop Paiute Tribe in Inyo, where 17% of the population is Native American \u2014 though \u201cour program is for everyone. As Natives, our core value is sharing that healing with others, and half of those we help are non-Native.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSince the dawn of colonization we\u2019ve been the first victims of the war on drugs, so we seek to decolonize these services that were never built for us in the first place,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

These indigenized services include prayer tags on overdose reversal kits; in-language syringe exchange and HIV\/Hepatitis C tests; distributing Narcan communitywide, including for elders who forget to take and children who accidentally take medications; and regular counseling for \u201cspiritual, mental, physical and emotional wellness, treating the whole person and community as opposed to the Western model of care which treats isolated symptoms or parts of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u201dWe already know shaming our loved ones for substance abuse only pushes them further away,\u201d said Brown. \u201cTaking away those stigmatizing barriers to care \u2014 at Crossroads, we\u2019ve saved over 80 lives \u2014 both heals our community and protects our culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHarm reduction is a spectrum\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u201cWhen we talk about harm reduction, we need to be more ambivalent: Not everybody who is in recovery is going to get to sobriety or want to,\u201d said Braunz Courtney, Executive Director of the\u00a0HIV Education Prevention Project of Alameda County<\/a>\u00a0(HEPPAC).<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal is to meet each individual where they are geographically and, within their addiction, \u201cwhere their goals are. It\u2019s a spectrum from using drugs more safely, to abstaining completely.\u201d<\/p>\n

HEEPAC does this by hiring substance use navigators \u201cwith lived or living experience of recovery,\u201d and by meeting our peers\u2019 needs in the streets\u201d he continued. \u201cRecovery is not a bubble. Someone wanting to treat substance abuse is dealing with other health needs beyond the clinic like housing, food, hygiene and social interaction.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to a drop-in Oakland-based clinic, HEEPAC has mobile units and navigators providing these services alongside regular counseling, syringe exchanges, overdose education, HIV and Hep C testing, abscess wound care and Narcan carry-and-use training.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not about creating a \u2018health home\u2019 like Kaiser \u2014 you wouldn\u2019t traditionally go there to get safe drug tools, or food, or have a frank conversation not only about what you don\u2019t like about your drug use, but also what you do like,\u201d Courtney said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us,\u201d he added, \u201cIt\u2019s about creating homes wherever people are in need \u2026 We\u2019re not here to tell you what to do. We\u2019re navigators. Equitable health care means that those who access it tell us what they want, and we tell you how to get there. You\u2019re the expert in your own life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source: Published without changes from Ethic Media Services<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Selen Ozturk As a worsening opioid epidemic ranks among California\u2019s most challenging crises, The Center at Sierra<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6070,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-regular-column"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6069"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6071,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6069\/revisions\/6071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}