Follow This (2018) s01e05 Episode Script

[man] Hey, Azeen, are you doing okay?
Hey, Azeen, pick your head up.
Azeen, open your eyes, look at me.
[inaudible]
Hey, Azeen!
Hey, Azeen!
Take a breath. Come on.
I write science stories
that actually aren't super science-y.
I write more about the point
where science and culture intersect.
Our science desk at Buzzfeed launched
three years ago.
Pretty much from the beginning,
the opioid epidemic was a story.
My first opioid story, March 4th, 2015,
the headline is, "Pain Pill Use Drops
While Heroin Overdoses Skyrocket".
It was happening,
but it's just gotten
so much worse
every year since.
Overdoses are now the leading cause
of accidental death in the U.S.
The opioid epidemic is
a household name.
So, the story I'm working on right now,
I'm trying to
basically ask the question is the U.S.
ready to
open up its first safe injection space?
Basically there are these spaces
where people can go in
and inject illegal drugs,
and have medical professionals
or trained people watching over them
in case they overdose,
so they can reverse it.
None of the sites exist in the U.S. yet.
But they exist in other countries?
Yeah. There's 100 facilities
in 66 different cities across the world.
The first one to open in North America
was actually in Canada, in Vancouver.
That opened in 2003.
A lot of
the reporting I do
on a day-to-day basis is
talking to scientists.
This story is different in that
I do have to go talk to the people
who are most affected by it,
and talk to them about their addiction.
Those are hard questions to ask people.
I'm right outside of Insite,
which is the first safe injection space
opened in North America.
I think it's about five in the morning
and
I've already seen people using drugs.
We wanna see what the inside
of the place looks like.
We have to do that before
everyone gets
here and needs to actually use the space.
People will bring their drugs, whatever
substance they're going to inject.
They can bring it here to use
under medical supervision.
People can't pass drugs or buy drugs
or sell drugs here.
- [Azeen] And the drugs are illegal?
- [Tim] Yeah.
[Azeen] The Canadian government grants
Insite what's called an exemption
from the Controlled Drugs
and Substances Act,
which means the police
won't raid the facility.
Are each of these booths usually
Are they all filled?
[Tim] Pretty much from when we open
until we close, these booths are full.
We've had seasons or periods where
we've had a thousand visits plus per day.
I think the busiest was 1200 and some,
like, foot traffic to the site.
My primary function is to monitor
for signs and symptoms of an overdose.
[inaudible]
[Azeen] Opioids affect one part
of the brain that controls breathing.
So if you take too much,
that part of the brain gets flooded,
or overwhelmed,
causing breathing to stop.
That's what's known
as an opiate overdose.
[Tim] Typically,
if we're suspecting an overdose,
I'd call to you first, "Hey, Azeen, are
you okay? Azeen, pick your head up!"
I'd come rushing over with my crash kit
to wake your brain up
so you start taking breaths.
Hey, Azeen, pick up your head.
You can't do it.
So all I'm going to do is
move your chair a little bit.
Then I'll move you forward,
then tip you back.
As you back up, the chair slides out.
So I've got you this way.
And I've got my oxygen tank.
So, Azeen, take a breath.
Come on, take a breath for me.
Tip your head back.
Once I stabilize your breaths,
I can move on to the Naloxone.
Typically it moves really quick.
I want to get you breathing on your own.
I'd just stab it into the side
of your leg,
your vastus lateralis.
And I wait for that to kick in,
usually two to five minutes.
[Azeen] Insite's been visited
more than 3.6 million times
since it first opened in 2003.
The staff has reversed 6,440 overdoses,
and not a single person has died.
How many of the folks who use this place
do end up in treatment?
Insite users are 30 to 35 percent
more likely to actually access detox.
We have a rapid-access detox program.
When staff are with somebody and they
say, "I don't want to do this anymore,"
we'd have a place for them to go
that we'd access immediately.
Are you able to, sort of,
handle the demand?
I would say no.
[Azeen] Where are we walking right now?
This is Hastings Street?
This is Hastings.
This is the largest open-air drug
um, place where people openly sell,
trade and use drugs in North America,
or in the world, maybe.
There was a real time down here
where it was just chaos
'cause there wasn't enough
safe injection sites.
People were dying in the alleys
and the cubbies in all the hotels.
[Azeen] Where are we going now?
[Liane] We're going to a satellite, uh
safe injection site that's in the alley.
Uh-huh.
[Azeen] This is a satellite overdose
prevention center.
That means it's run
by drug users and advocates
instead of by the government.
A bunch of these have popped up in the
Downtown Eastside in just the last year.
It wasn't a big bad heroin dealer that got
me wired, it was the medical system.
Did you have an injury or something?
Yeah, I had an injury
and got morphine for it.
Then a doctor that didn't realize
that I started to abuse it.
- Mm-hm.
- So what do I do?
I go down to where the dealers are.
[Azeen] How often do you come here?
I just don't take the chance.
There's no reason that
anybody should have to die
because they have to shoot alone.
- Is it harder as a woman on the streets?
- Well, I think
Yeah, because it's more dangerous.
I'd get dug,
and all my stuff would get robbed.
So then I would have to go out
and do a hustle, whatever I was doing
for money back then.
It's just really shitty and crappy to
inject in an alley by yourself
and having to watch your back.
From a small town girl watching
Pretty Woman, let me tell you,
it ain't nothing like that down here.
- Mm-hm.
- If it was up to me,
we would have one of these on every
- end of the block.
- Mm-hm.
[Liane] I'm not stupid.
I'm not hard of hearing.
I'm addicted to an opiate.
These places are just a stepping stone.
They just give you a break
from having to look over your shoulder.
If that's all it did
- that's enough.
- Mm-hm.
[phone ringing tone]
Good.
We went to Insite
and then we went to this place
across the street, this space is
in such stark contrast to what's outside.
It's clean.
It felt sort of positive
but also, like, still really scary.
I think I have to go to Seattle
and talk to the people there
and see, is there the political will
to get this off the ground?
[Azeen] Seattle has set aside $1.3 million
of their city budget
to open up what might be
the first safe injection space in America.
[man] We had 332 people die last year
from overdoses.
So I return to the need for us to put real
resources into a safe consumption site.
There's been lots of criticism that
now we're viewing these people as victims
when the crack epidemic
was not viewed as that at all.
Those were black people.
These are white largely white,
and often middle class people.
How do you look back at that history?
The crack epidemic really ravaged
many cities around the country.
And the response was to jail people.
And that perpetuated a cycle of
poverty.
We, as elected officials, have to stand up
and own those previous decisions,
but we also have to make sure
we don't repeat them.
And as far as time line, do you think
this will happen this year?
Our hope is that we can have a space
up and running by the end of 2018.
[inaudible]
[Azeen] The Seattle City Council
unanimously approved
the budget to open up a safe injection
space in the city.
But not everybody thinks
this is a good idea.
Safe injection sites don't work.
Drug deals going on on every street.
Excess of needles all around, violent
assaults go up in any of these areas.
Insite is not saving those people.
[Azeen] 18 of the smaller cities
surrounding Seattle have moved
to ban safe injection spaces completely.
And a failed initiative to ban them
county-wide
collected nearly 50,000 signatures.
But not all the people who are against
safe injection spaces
are angry activists.
[man] My life was out of control.
[men chanting] My life was out of control.
[man] My addiction was controlling me.
[chanting] My addiction
was controlling me.
I injured my femur and I was put on
prescription drugs, Percocet.
And when that stopped,
when I stopped getting it from the doctor,
I was introduced to heroin.
I would have gone through my own mother
for heroin.
And I actually have.
I knew I needed a change and I just knew,
deep down, I needed something long-term.
[Jon] The John Volken Academy is
a two-year residential recovery program.
We emphasize on life skills,
and behavioral modification.
I'm a graduate of this program.
We need detox facilities. Those are where
we need to get these people.
What do you think of
the
safe injection space option.
that's now being floated in Seattle?
In the long run,
it's just making drugs the norm.
And I think enabling somebody to use
and continue their using
isn't causing them to live their life.
It's actually destroying it.
And the inevitable, with somebody using
heroin, is they will eventually die.
If I had a place I could get the drug
and shoot it up and everything was fine,
I'd still be using maybe today.
[Azeen] Some people are worried that
opening up a safe injection space
means more drug users will flock
to the area and crime will go up.
But the research shows that isn't true.
Public drug use actually decreases
and crime rates stay the same.
So these sites have been proven
to save lives.
But the tough question for Americans is
should we be enabling people
who use illegal drugs?
This is Andrew and I in New York.
This is
him with his dog Pizza.
In this, he was
Sixteen.
When did you first find out
that he was experimenting with heroin?
Probably he was pushing 20?
Okay.
It was something that was, for a long
time, kind of an elephant in the room.
Andrew was so
ashamed of his
battles with addiction.
When did you find out about
him overdosing?
We were supposed to have gone
to a movie
and spent the day together the day before.
And, um
that
didn't happen.
He didn't come home.
[Marlys] So, I have a friend
who has
started an outreach program.
We spend every Sunday in Seattle
providing lunch
and conversation
and harm reduction
supplies to kids
that are homeless and struggling with
substance use disorder on the streets.
If people have a place to go
where they're treated with love
and compassion
until they're ready to get to treatment,
it can be a place
where recovery can begin.
Do you have dirties, honey?
Do you need cleans?
Want a couple of them?
[Marlys] It's a place
where I've
begun learning about
how vitally important it is
to talk about it,
let them know it's not something
they need to be ashamed about.
- [Azeen] Is this harm reduction stuff?
- [Marlys] Yeah.
So I have clean needles
for people
if they need them, and then the kits.
There's clean cookers.
There's a tourniquet here for a tie
for them to help them find a vein.
And cotton balls that they can use
as a filter.
- [Azeen] So you had to learn all of this?
- [Marlys] Yeah.
It takes a long time
for you to be able to do this
and help people with this
and not see your child's
face.
That's what's hard.
- [Marlys] Okay.
- [man] Thank you.
Bye, you're welcome.
I'm shocked
that
she does this every week.
I can't fathom that level of
strength.
How do you feel
now, after what you've been through
and
what you now do,
about
safe consumption sites in Seattle?
They absolutely need to exist.
I
know
that my son used in the basement
of his apartment.
I know that he overdosed
alone in a bathroom.
I know that he had to hide that piece
of himself.
And had there been
a safe consumption space available,
he would have been surrounded by people
that were compassionate
and
offered him some dignity
and support.
And I think had it been there for him,
it could have made a difference.
That's what I know.
[inaudible]
[Azeen] The peer-reviewed science
is clear.
These sites save lives,
they reduce infectious diseases,
they reduce public drug use.
But will this
ever actually happen
in the U.S.?
We don't know.
One thing is clear.
People are dying of
opiate overdoses
at higher and higher rates every year.
Even if these safe injection spaces
don't stop the overdose epidemic,
they might save one life,
or five lives,
or a hundred lives.
And the question is, is that worth it?
I think, for now,
all eyes are on Seattle.