5 takeaways:
➀ Addiction is the interaction of multiple factors, each of which can be influenced by systemic racism. The factors that lead to an individual’s substance use disorder stem from their genetics, their environment and their life experiences. And when it comes to the environment and an individual’s life experiences, racism disproportionately shapes the lives of Black, Indigenous and other people of color, said Dr. Stephen M. Taylor, an Alabama-based specialist who helped the American Society of Addiction Medicine craft its statement on “Advancing Racial Justice in Addiction Medicine.”
➁ ASAM’s statement asks doctors and policymakers to recognize biases that have long influenced treatment. It is “part of ASAM’s effort to recognize, understand and then counteract the adverse effects of America’s historical, pervasive and continuing systemic racism, specifically with respect to addiction prevention, early intervention, diagnosis, treatment and recovery.”. Among the factors it cites: “Every day, addiction medicine professionals confront the tragic consequences of racial injustice among the patients and communities we serve — from the disproportionate incarceration of BIPOC with the disease of addiction, to treatment barriers for many BIPOC, to rising overdose deaths and ongoing discrimination.” It’s the first in what will be a series of statements on race and addiction.
➂ The criminal justice system continues to treat different demographic groups differently, though usage rates are similar. Systemic racism in drug policy is perhaps most easily recognized in the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which enacted a 100-fold greater sentencing disparity for water-insoluble cocaine base – “crack” – used in Black communities and powder cocaine favored in white ones, Taylor said. In the 2000s, the response to opioid misuse, which was more identified with whites, was compassion, research, treatment and prevention. Says Taylor: “National survey data … suggests that BIPOC individuals and white individuals use drugs and sell drugs at similar rates. Yet BIPOC individuals are about more than two-and-a-half times more likely to be arrested for drug use or drug selling activity, and more than six times more likely to be incarcerated for that activity.”
➃ The defense in the George Floyd murder case has “weaponized” Floyd’s drug use to portray him as a criminal instead of a patient. Floyd’s girlfriend testified that Floyd became addicted to opioids through prescription painkillers, then turned to street substitutes. “George Floyd’s drug use has been used by the defense team to basically try to weaponize it against him, to make him seem like a dangerous, imposing criminal, who basically deserved what happened to him and whose death was caused more by the fact that he was a drug user than because of someone putting his knee on his neck for almost nine and a half minutes,” Taylor said. “That is an example of the way in which Black and Indigenous and other people of color are often depicted. And it’s been in the playbook of police, when there’s an attempt to defend a police officer after a police involved killing of a black person is to portray that black person in a way that is as unsympathetic, as imposing, as dangerous as possible.”
➄ Compassion is key. Taylor says policymakers and doctors should learn from flawed policies of the past – even those who are upset that addiction had to become a white problem for a compassionate view to take hold. “Folks would push back and say, ‘Well, where was all of that during the crack epidemic?’” Taylor said. “‘Where was all of this compassion and this concern for people in this understanding that they have an illness and should be seen as people who need help and all of that?’” Nevertheless, Taylor said, “A person with a substance use disorder is a person who is ill, is a person that deserves respect and compassion, and no stigma and no judgment.”
This program is sponsored by the American Society of Addiction Medicine, with support from Arnold Ventures. NPF retains sole responsibility for programming and content.
