Harm reduction advocates must acknowledge the Black community’s unique experiences with addiction

On a recent panel about addiction, one panelist said she wished she had resisted the stigma many had tied to substance use, stating that many of her friends were simply trying to have fun and a society obsessed with “respectability” viewed them as deviant and not worthy of care. After that, another panelist relayed a heartbreaking story of his mother being so deep in the throes of addiction that she would rather leap out of a moving car to pursue drugs than visit her sick daughter in the hospital.