Street Roots • Sept. 16-22, 2016
FALUDI, from page 4
the book, and that was: “My daughter likes
me now. She comes to see me. ” What is the
significance of that?
S.F.: Well, it pains me, in some ways,
because I think my father was saying,
“Well, Susan likes me now that I’m a
woman.” And that’s upsetting because
that isn’t why. I think it connects with
the larger desire my father had to
connect with other people in general.
My father said to me over and over that
she just felt so isolated as a man, and
she said, “Men can’t talk to each other
and they would just talk shop,” or in the
U.S.,” they talk sports and 1 don’t like
talking about sports.”
My father was never very into this
sort of American group sports anyway.
My father, by changing her gender, felt
she could come out of her shell, and talk
to people. But I find that very sad,
because in fact, she could have done
that before, and I wish - and clearly she
felt she couldn’t - I wish she could have
just tried that because communicating
with other people should hot be the
province of one gender. And the truth is,
I came to see my father because my
father opened a door that I wanted to be
opened a long time ago, and I think it
was a door she wanted to have opened a
long time ago; she just didn’t know how
to do it.
E.G.: Is there anything you want people
who might be familiar with your previous
works to know about this one?
S.F.: I think all of my books have been
about the distortion and damage done by
foisting gender myths on women, on
men, on the culture as a whole, and this
book is very much a continuation of that
theme.
E.G.: It almost culminates here.
S.F.: I think, while this is ultimately a
personal story about a daughter’s
struggle to understand her father, and
her father’s struggle to understand her
own identity, it’s also a book about the
big battlefield that we’re on right now,
which is identity. Whether it’s Brexit or
Make America Great Trumpism or ISIS
or you name it, hatred of immigrants,
there is just all this crisis around the
subject of identity and how one
expresses identity and whether identity
can be a force for emancipation; whether
identity can be liberating - in the case of
LGBT rights - where it’s about
discovering yourself, it’s about self-
awareness; or whether it’s oppressive
and destructive, like all this xenophobic
nationalism we’re seeing around the
world now, in which identity is based on
demonizing someone else and attacking
them and refusing to engage in self-
awareness and inspection of one’s own
past. That’s a long-winded way of saying
that while this is a story about one
particular person, my father is this kind
of identity zealot who was struggling
with this big question of our age, on
every front.
Susan Faludi lives in Brunswick,
Maine, where she teaches gender studies
at Bowdoin College. .
News
Page 7
Canada OKs
prescription
heroin
The move reflects changing
attitudes toward addicts,
placing compassion over
criminalization
BY EMILY GREEN
STAFF WRITER
he Canadian government legalized
prescription heroin this past week.
The move comes four months
after Health Canada proposed the
regulatory change, and ahead of the
country’s planned legalization of
recreational marijuana in 2017.
Doctors in Canada can now prescribe
laboratory-manufactured prescription-grade
heroin, which can be imported from
Europe, to patients who have failed to beat
their addiction under more conventional
treatment methods, including counseling
REUTERS/ANDY CLARK (CANADA)
and methadone.
A small kit of supplies including syringes, bandages and antiseptic pads waits to be used by a
drug addict inside a safe injection site in Vancouver, British Columbia. Known as Insite the
According to Health Canada, “A
facility operates legally as a place where addicts can inject their own heroin or cocaine under
significant body of scientific evidence
the supervision of a nurse.
supports the medical use of
diacetylmorphine, also known as
pharmaceutical-grade heroin, for the
more likely to reduce illegal drugs as well
something that is a criminal act,” she said,
treatment of chronic relapsing opioid
as other illegal activities than those
“this is looking at a harm reduction model,
dependence.”
which has become much more common in
patients being treated with oral
This change in drug law, enacted at the
Europe
going
back
for
two
decades.
It
’
s
the
methadone,
” stated the report.
bequest of the Minister of Health, allows an
United States that’s way behind the curve.”
Over the past several years, given the
expansion of the drug’s availability under
Fryklund said heroin maintenance
limited legal availability of heroin and an
Health Canada’s Special Access
programs, which have operated in
ongoing court battle over the program,
Programme.
Switzerland since 1994 with several other
Providence also began to prescribe
Doctors must send a request to the
European countries, such as Germany,
hydromorphone to some patients suffering
Special Access
following suite,
from heroin addiction.
Programme for
acknowledge that not
In April, the results of a study led by
consideration before
everyone
is
going
to
researchers
at Providence Health Care and
they are able to
"The result of the study found be able to kick their
the
University
of British Columbia among
prescribe heroin to
that patients given injectable heroin addiction.
others, were published in the Journal of
each new patient.
“It may be
American Medical Association Psychiatry.
diacetylmorphine were more
Access to legal
Researchers found injected
likely to stay in treatment, and maintaining people so
heroin as part of a .
they can not be
hydromorphone, an opioid pain reliever, to
heroin maintenance
more likely to reduce illegal
continually craving the be as effective as diacetylmorphine (heroin)
program enables
drugs as well as other illegal
substance, not buying
for people who have not benefited from
addicts to stop
activities
than
those
patients
adulterated heroin,
other treatment methods, which they said
engaging in illegal
being treated with oral
and can maybe get
is about 10 percent of the opioid dependent
activities, such as
their lives together.”
population not currently in treatment.
methadone."
theft and drug
In Vancouver,
Additionally, they found nearly 80
dealing, which may
PROVIDENCE HEALTH CARE'S British Columbia,
percent
of the test subjects were retained
have been supporting - CANADA'S
REPORT ON ITS CLINICAL TRIAL OF
PRESCRIBED HEROIN, 2005-2008 Providence Health
in treatment at six months.
their habit. It enables
Care’s Crosstown
“Hydromorphone and diacetylmorphine
them to focus,
Clinic began to
are both safe when taken in a clinical
instead, on improving
prescribe injectable
setting. Out of a total of 88,451 injections,
their quality of life
pharmaceutical grade heroin, also known as there were 14 overdoses and 11 seizures,
and drug rehabilitation programs, research
conducted in Europe, Israel and other parts diacetylmorphine, as a treatment option for
all successfully managed in the clinic. If
heroin addicts more than a decade ago,
of the world shows.
these events had occurred in the street,
Heroin obtained from a laboratory is also with positive results. (Providence Health
the outcomes may have been fatal,” state
care is not affiliated with Providence Health the report’s key findings as listed by
much safer than illicit heroin, which is
and Services based in the Pacific
often cut with lethal doses of drugs such as
Providence.
Northwest.)
fentanyl.
Fryklund said she hopes the U.S. will
It was able to do so under a special
Drug reform advocates in the United
follow Canada’s example.
court-ordered exemption to Canada’s illicit
States, including Law Enforcement Against
“Canada is engaging in some
drug laws.
Prohibition, or LEAP - a nationwide
fundamental rethinking,” she said, while
Providence Health Care’s website
organization composed of current and
“the U.S. is still making policy at the
reports that North America’s first clinical
former law enforcement officials, are
federal level on the basis of a lot of
trial of prescribed heroin took place at its
applauding this new law.
emotion and prejudice: Heroin users are
clinic from 2005 to 2008.
“We think it’s a step forward,” said Inge
bad people and if they die, that’s their
“The result of the study found that
Fryklund, a former prosecutor, LEAP
problem.”
patients given injectable diacetylmorphine
spokesperson and resident of Bend, Ore.
were more likely to stay in treatment and
emily@streetroots. org
“Instead of treating heroin .addiction as
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