I was riding my bike along a trail on Saturday morning when I turned a corner and almost ran straight into a 40-something man kneeling on the ground. He appeared to be shooting up.
What he was doing wasn’t disturbing to me. It was the look on his face and the reaction of his body that sticks with me. His face filled with unmistakable shame and he quickly tried to put everything into his backpack and move out of the way.
I swerved, yelled a greeting — and kept going.
What I wished I had said is, “No shame, my friend. No shame.”
Our culture is messed up when it comes to drugs and addiction. We have created a situation where people hide and feel alienated and ashamed. That is the opposite of what some studies now say is necessary for those who wish to kick their addictions — support and connection.
Media plays a role in creating this shame. I have played a role.
I feel sick to my stomach over a word I used recently in an otherwise (I hope) positive article about a local who has stopped doing meth and gotten back to ultra marathon running. I said he is now “clean.” Then I read an article where an activist pointed out that word makes those who are using drugs “dirty.” Yikes.
The truth is, often words like “clean” that get journalists into ethical trouble are not conscious value judgments. Funny as it sounds to those who don’t write for a living, word choice is often a matter of needing a new word for a repeated idea.
In my case, I had already said he was not using drugs so “clean” was a succinct way of saying the same thing.
But the words we choose can hurt. I am sorry I used the word “clean.” Drug users are not dirty.
We have to improve how we talk and represent these things, especially in the face of the opioid epidemic that is killing so many of our friends, family, and neighbours.
Most of us in media want to do better when we speak of addiction.
The Chief has vowed to no longer use human-less photos to depict stories about drug addiction. Often, not wanting to single a real person out in the necessary image to accompany a story, journalists turn to photos of discarded needles or dark stock photography that gives the impression something dark and nasty is happening. That doesn’t fairly represent the reality that addiction is as likely to afflict the mom at the park with her kids, as the forestry or tech worker, as a person living on the street.
As of the end of May, 620 people in B.C. have died from illicit drug use so far this year.
Almost all deaths were inside a private residence.
While we want to honestly reflect the reality of our current opioid crisis what we also hope to say to those struggling is, “No shame, my friend, no shame.”
