By Ariel Boone
As COVID intensifies America’s overdose crisis, harm reduction advocates step in where government lags. Many affected face triple crises: homelessness, COVID, and now an overdose surge that has reached historic levels.
When Thad regained consciousness, the lighting looked different and his body hurt.
He remembered getting up and walking around his encampment, where a friend called out to him and told him he looked ill. He was overcome by nausea and vomited in a portaloo, then tried to lie down.
He had just survived his first opioid overdose after smoking fentanyl. The woman he smoked with administered the overdose reversal drug Narcan. Now he was in withdrawal.
This article first appeared in Street Spirit, a magazine sold on the streets of California, USA, by people who have limited other ways of earning an income.