Deal Us In
Jack
of
Hearts
The Heart of It: Dan Bigg, Defiant Love for People Who Use Drugs
Thank Dan Bigg. He created the first community-based naloxone distribution program in the 90’s, despite it being illegal at the time. He paved the way for today’s distribution efforts. Fund barrier-free naloxone distribution.
“Any positive change as a person defines it for him or herself is our definition of recovery.” - Dan Bigg
"25 years after the approval of naloxone, the Chicago Recovery Alliance (CRA) lost a co-founder and beloved colleague John Szyler to overdose and decided something more needed to be done. Under the leadership of Dan Bigg, co-founder and director of CRA, and Dr. Sarz Maxwell, they made the decision to start distributing naloxone to the people who used syringe services - even though it was not legal at the time.
For CRA, this act was based on the recognition of several important concepts:
People who use drugs are the primary witnesses to overdoses
People who use drugs have many legitimate reasons to not engage EMS/911 and in fact did so very infrequently
People who use drugs already employed a whole array of creative methods of reviving their peers that had been passed down through many generations via word of mouth
There was an easy to use, very safe, and extremely inexpensive “pure antidote” to an opioid overdose
CRA worked with Dr. Maxwell to order a supply of the drug and began giving it out and the world’s first coordinated naloxone distribution program was born. Almost immediately people returned to say that they had used the naloxone to revive a friend, peer, partner, stranger, roommate, neighbor, family member." - From Remedy Alliance
This life saving work that we often associate with police or health departments was actually developed first by people who use drugs. This is important. Naloxone Distribution, Fentanyl testing strips, syringe access, these are all interventions that were created by people who use drugs in order to save and improve one another’s lives. Because contrary to what we are often told, people who use drugs value their lives and the lives of their community.
The founders of harm reduction understood that to truly reduce harm we must address the systemic harms that are trickling down into individual lives. We must shift power and resources to those who are most in need and who know the most from lived experience. People who use drugs are the leaders of our work to end overdose, so we ought not villainize but instead listen and learn from them.