The haunting of a CEO and the war on drugs
I met a man recently and what that man told me will haunt me, it will never leave me.
John is sleeping rough; he’s exhausted, literally falling asleep on his feet in front of me. John is a problem drug user. Not a junkie, not a smack head, not an acid freak, not a druggie - these terms are offensive - John is a person. John is a person with an addiction that is ravaging his body and mind, extinguishing his dignity and aspiration. He’s skin and bones, so badly malnourished I can't tell if he's 25 or 55. His body is riddled with scars from self-harm, needle marks, infections, accidents, and attacks.
John has a deep gash to his head and multiple wounds across his face from a violent attack perpetrated by a relative - the catalyst for the homelessness which brings him to Citizens Advice. John tells me he can’t sleep on the streets because even in September it’s too cold for a body as weak as his. When he tries to sleep he risks attack, robbery and derision. Despite his significant experience of living rough he’s surprised at the cruelty shown to him, he can’t imagine treating another person that way.
John asks my name, he tells me that he likes to know who is helping him because it feels good to make a connection. He’s proud of the fact that he’s polite and respectful. I give him a glass of water, his gratitude is disproportionate, you'd think I’d given him gold.
I ask John how he’s feeling, he tells me he’s not good, he is entirely cognisant of the choices he has made in his life, he expresses deep regret and sadness not just about what’s gone before but because he knows he has no chance of a future. John has no hope. He believes he’s going to die and soon, nothing he tells me convinces me otherwise. I’m sad yet he’s at peace with death, resigned to it, he contemplates no other future.
John is a man in the grip of an addiction so powerful he’s a slave to it, it fills his every thought. Tending to the excessive demands of his addiction is his primary purpose in life, it consumes him. As a result he’s a mess, no doubt about it. He’s an outcast, stigmatised by society, victimised by those who are stronger, criminalised by a policy that punishes addiction and fails to recognise it is a medical condition.
This encounter with John and the case made by Neil Woods and JS Rafaeli in their latest book “Drug Wars”[1] has convinced me that the transformation of drug policy is long overdue. John and others like him need medical help, a safe place to recover, and they need hope. I need hope. I want to believe there’s a way back from the inevitability of death for John.
I find myself looking out for John in the street, I fear I always will. The inescapable truth that I can’t make this right for him will never leave me.