Like many of you, we heard the sad news about Amy Winehouse's death on Facebook. The news spread quickly. Her friend Russell Brand immediately issued an incredible tribute to her, which was one of the most widely discussed responses to her sudden death. Most people immediately assumed that a drug overdose must have taken Amy's life. We don't know how she died, and on some level, it doesn't really matter. She was young, talented and apparently haunted with struggles none of us will ever understand. She used drugs. And now she's gone.
We have worked at the Drug Policy Alliance for many years and spend most days thinking about drugs, our country's drug policies and the people whose lives are impacted by them. We spend most days advocating for, and trying to help, people just like Amy. Here are some of our reflections on the tragic death of Amy Winehouse.
Relapse Happens.
Abstinence isn't always achievable for everyone. We know some people will fall short of this goal, despite everyone wanting to see them succeed. Even people with virtually unlimited resources and support, like Amy Winehouse, will sometimes fail to live up to their own hopes for sobriety. We need as many potential solutions on the table as possible, including things that reduce the risks of accidental fatal overdose, like the overdose reversal medication naloxone and physician-monitored prescribed heroin maintenance programs. Amy's drug use and struggles with addiction have been in the news for years. She was in treatment as recently as May. Unfortunately, treatment is not a silver bullet and relapse is a common, and frustrating, part of recovery.
There's an Overdose Crisis in the United States and Abroad.
People usually hear about overdose when it happens to a celebrity like Heath Ledger or Chris Farley. Yet overdose is a silent killer that has quickly become one of the leading causes of accidental death in the United States. Nationally, over 27,000 people died from accidental overdoses in 2007 (the most recent data available). In NY and 16 other states, overdose is now the leading cause of accidental death, even passing car fatalities. More Americans now die from an accidental drug overdose than from HIV/AIDS.
That's the bad news. The good news is that most drug overdoses are preventable. Solutions to the crisis exist; cost-neutral and cost-effective measures such as Good Samaritan 911 laws and expanded access to the lifesaving overdose reversal medication naloxone help reduce overdose deaths.
Just last week, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York signed a Good Samaritan 911 bill that will save thousands of lives. The bill will help reduce overdose death by allowing people who are witnessing an overdose to call 911 without fear of being prosecuted. New York now joins states like New Mexico and Washington in passing these laws, but we need these laws in every state.
People Need Better Access to Effective Treatment
We need to invest in better and more widely available drug treatment. Many people would be shocked to discover that there's virtually nowhere left in the United States where a person addicted to heroin can call and be admitted that same day to a long-term in-patient drug treatment program free of charge. We need to eliminate these barriers to addiction treatment.
We urgently need to step up our commitment to making proven medical interventions such as methadone and similar drug therapies more widely available. It's nonsensical to believe that most people dependent on drugs like OxyContin or heroin will magically quit and become drug free overnight just because it's now harder to find them. Simply reducing access to certain drugs doesn't address the underlying addiction that so many people struggle with. "Clamping down" on drug availability simply encourages people to switch from one drug to another. Even our drug czar acknowledges this is true. It's a primary reason why we're seeing a surge in heroin use and overdose lately.
Addiction Doesn't Discriminate.
Drug misuse and addiction don't discriminate. Addiction can take over and ruin anyone's life, whether you are a Grammy award-winning artist or someone who sings for money on the subway. Betty Ford, Rush Limbaugh and Patrick Kennedy all remind us that addiction can touch anyone, rich or poor, left or right, famous or unknown.
People Use Drugs for Pleasure -- and to Cope with Pain.
We don't know the reasons why Amy Winehouse used drugs, or what triggered her last binge. Some reports talk about a big fight with her boyfriend after he found out she was still in touch with her ex-husband who is behind bars. Other coverage describes the booing and panning that she recently endured at a recent concert in Serbia, where she was unable to perform. But what we do know is that people use drugs for both joy and for pain. We're sure that Amy, like so many of us, had a lot of good times when partying. On the flip side, Amy appeared to have some demons and pain that she was trying to soothe by self-medicating with drugs.
We Must End the Stigma Against People Addicted to Drugs.
We must -- and this is perhaps most important of all -- stop our barbaric stigmatization and stereotypes of people addicted to drugs. People like Amy endure a hell we can only imagine. The agony of being made into a ridiculous caricature, something less than human, for nothing more than our own casual amusement, is beyond what any young person should ever be forced to endure. We targeted her, mocked her and cast her out as an irredeemable "crackhead" for nothing more than sport. It's shameful. It's too late for Amy to hear us now, but our apologies should be sent out en masse to her and to all others like her, struggling, surviving.
Meghan Ralston is the harm reduction coordinator for the Drug Policy Alliance. Tony Newman is the director of media relations at the Drug Policy Alliance.
Follow Tony Newman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TonyNewmanDPA
Like Madonna fairly and plainly said: 'We abandoned him'.
We abandoned Amy, and millions of others who are about to die sooner or later.
I see drug addicts almost ever week day, and I can read their pain from their eyes. It just breaks my heart. Sometimes, deep inside, I have the secret hope that they'd have had their fix and that they are feeling 'ok'. And often do I wonder if they know what's 'really' happening to them, or around them.
I once read the confession of a rehabilitated woman, who related how horrible it felt when she would miss her share of heroin (or whatever it was). But her description of being high for the first time also seemed as sad to me as the withdrawal. Despite her highs and the 'joy', it seemed to me like she was walking straight into Hell while being assured that she would enjoy a great 'life'.
There's so much suffering in this World. Will we survive our own indifference?
This was a timebomb. Yes it's sad, but, maybe it's her parents who should be apologized to, by her. How do you think they feel? Their daughter had everything in the world and still couldn't be happy and keep her stuff together, how selfish of her to treat her family like this over the years.
Whenever politicians convene "drug panels" to help look into drug usage and treatment issues, they usually get together a small group of eminent professionals in the field. An addiction medicine specialist. The director of a well known treatment program. A police chief. Maybe a recovering addict. Etc. Typically, only the recovering addict ever acknowledges past drug use. No mention is usually ever made of alcohol, even though that's been more harmful to society than all of the others.
People take drugs for many reasons. Of course, they take them to escape, and to cope with emotional, physical, and spiritual pain. But they also take them to have fun, to relax, to explore the limits of consciousness, etc.
I've never understood how any one of these "panels" could ever understand the drug issue without ever undertaking a discussion of the fact that drugs are many, many things, and not just destructive and dangerous vices for troubled people.
And those panels never DO understand, do they?
None of those panels will every understand until drug USERS are represented and given a full voice.
And that will never be able to happen until we start treating drugs in a completely different way and drug addiction as a public health problem rather than as a crime.