NOT WORKING, NOT THEN, NOT NOW

When I was 10 years old, I was told that people who take heroin die. When I
was told that my brother was a heroin addict, I believed he would die. But
then I was told he was no longer a user, I believed he would be OK.

Two years ago, my brother, aged 26, overdosed and died.

Looking back, the only information I had about heroin and addiction was
inadequate and fear-based. The only information my family had was inadequate
and fear-based. The only information my brother had was experiential,
inadequate and fear-based.

Drug users were and are treated as social deviants, people to be ashamed of,
people to hide away and legislate against and hope they don't enter our
personal realm of existence. Drug users are statistics slumped in Kings
Cross alleys; supposedly, they have no education, they are from bad
families; they are unemployed, homeless, hopeless.

My brother went to a good school and had a university degree. He had parents
and three sisters who loved him. He had a daughter. He was creative,
intelligent, and enthusiastic about his future.

I don't deny he had weaknesses and failings like the rest of us. I am not
trying to remove his responsibilities for his own actions, I just wonder if
things might have been different if his drug problem had been set against
the backdrop of a community that gave a damn.

I wonder how it would have turned out if my brother had been deemed as
having an illness, and treated appropriately; if his problem hadn't been
something to keep secret out of shame and fear.

My brother and thousands like him have died under the system. While we can't
place all the blame on that system, perhaps it is time to take a deep breath
and acknowledge that it's not working. It hasn't been working for a long
time.

Decriminalisation, relaxation, legalisation - whatever it takes to prevent
another young person dying such a futile, preventable death.

Greer Worsley, Leichardt