Street roots., December 11, 2015, Page 7, Image 7

time for people to stand up and say, “No,
not now, not here.”
Emily Green: Have you already secured
funding?
Shilo Murphy: We are an organization
that never secures funding until something
is open. We do first and ask questions later.
E.G.: It seems a lot of progress toward safe
injection sites is made when there are actual,
active drug users lobbying for them, many
times in the form of a drug users union. How
has the union played a role in your current
efforts?
S.M.: The Urban Survivors Union (a
national drug users union founded in Seattle
by Murphy) is what actually brought it to
the People’s Harm Reduction Alliance to
work on. And they have been in constant
communication, and we have worked on it
together. There’s lots of our membership
saying, “The dumpster is not a safe place.”
We’ve been working on this a long time.
Portland and Seattle - Vancouver is right
next to us; it’s had a safe injection facility for'
10 years that’s been incredibly successful.
E.G.: Can you explain how distributing
meth pipes is a form of harm reduction?
S.M.: Our participants kept coming up
and saying, “Hey, I want you to know, I’m
just picking up needles because I don’t have
access to a pipe.” And we thought about
that and we said, “That seems really dumb.”
I mean dumb in the sense that if you want
to use something that is safer to use but are
using something more dangerous because
you don’t have accessto it, then why don’t
we just give you the access to it. And so we
started talking to folk§, and we did a little
survey. The majority of folks said if that
service was offered, they would engage in it
and inject less. So then we offered it. We are
doing a survey right now, actually, to see
how successful it is, but I can tell you our
program is wildly successful - so the longer
answer to that is: We want to keep people
smoking for as long as possible. If you’re
going to smoke, stay smoking, and less
chance to inject We (also) offer it to folks
who want to transition back (from injecting
to smoking). Because with smoking, there is
a minuscule possibility of hepatitis C, and
there’s no HIV and no abscess risk.
E.G.: No syringe exchanges here in
Portland offer meth pipes. I did see that you
have a branch of your nonprofit here. Do you
plan to bring your meth pipe distribution to
Portland through that project?
S.M.: The way we operate our programs
is drug users in each area decide the
services. So Portland drug users have been
talking about it, whether or not they want
that service, and they just haven’t come to
an exact decision, so it’s possible.
E.G.: I noticed your syringe exchanges don’t
require a one-to-one trade. (Portland area
exchanges run by Multnomah County and
Outside In practice the one-to-one-trade model,
where users must trade dirty needles for clean
ones. However, they do provide kits with
syringes to those who don’t have needles to
exchange.) Can you explain why you don’t use
this model?
S.M.: Essentially it’s best practices. It’s a
standard of syringe exchanges nationally,
and all of the data has shown that unlimited
access is the best means to stop hepatitis C
and HIV, and so we just go with the best
practices. I understand that the public
health department has to follow the politics
more than science, but We just follow the
science on it.
E.G.:
D o you accept dirty needles?
S.M.: All of our sites collect dirty needles,
and to be perfectly honest, we kind of gauge
by volume, and we’ve always gotten back
vastly more than we’ve ever given out
The Portland People’s Outreach Project is
a People’s Harm Reduction Alliance site. We
helped start it, but it’s really the amazing
folks on the ground in Portland that made
this project become successful with a
physical site and an under-the-bridge (bike)
delivery service. It’s kind of like we’ve
always met this new school of thought with
the old school of thought - that uses
science-based philosophies and data along
with old-style outreach so we can get
services to the people that need them,
because the person living under the bridge
isn’t necessarily going to go to the syringe
exchange.
We’re looking into the idea of People’s
Harm Reduction Alliance opening up a
science-based treatment facility in Portland.
We bring data and science. We also bring
love and compassion, because we don’t
focus on numbers
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and had to deal with lots of different
cultures, ideas. Me and my parents were
very liberal minded, and I got to engage
with some much more conservative folks,
for example. I include LSD and
hallucinogenics in that; it really has made
my life better. That doesn’t necessarily
mean it makes everyone’s life better.
E.G.: You’ve been criticized by other harm
reduction advocates for taking this stance on
drugs. Do you think you’re setting the right
example for your clients?
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we will see something happen that we will
respond to, and then three months later a
government official will send us information
or an email about the thing that we’ve
already responded to.
S.M.: Yes, I think we give people hope,
and I’ve always said, you must reach for the
stars. Your dreams are never big enough;
you must go for all - otherwise, you will
always fall short. Do you think we could
have gotten to the moon if we didn’t reach
for it? Do you think we could have done the
five-minute mile if we hadn’t strived for that?
Everyone will tell you it cannot be done, and
your heart will tell you that it must be done.
And so people say we can’t, we’ll never get
to a time where drug users are respected,
but I was told as a child that gay marriage
would never happen - and it happened.
They said marijuana would never be
legalized; it’s, in both of our states, legal. So
if you don’t reach for the stars and you don’t
dream, we’ve already lost.
E.G.: Are you still an active heroin user?
E.G.: You are an active drug user yourself.
I saw you were quoted as once saying, “Heroin
saved my life. ” Can you explain that
statement?
S.M.: I was one of those typical lost
teenagers and living on the streets and had
thoughts of chaos, and drugs really opened
my mind and expanded the way I think. I
got to meet and engage people because of it,
PHC
S.M.: Yeah. I use drugs whenever I want
to use drugs. To be perfectly honest, I’ve
been so overworked lately, I’ve used much
less drugs. The biggest barrier I have to my
drug use is the fact that I do so much work
for drug users.
N orthwest
emily@streetroots. org
5312 NE 148thAve.
Portland, OR 97230
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