Trauma as a Gateway Drug

When I 'visited' the Southeast Bronx in the early 1970's, I was surprised to learn [from the Lincoln Hospital House Staff Residency brochure] that 100,000 Heroin addicts resided in that community. I didn't have sufficient time to meet all of them, but I hope the Interfaith Social Justice and Community initiatives that have occurred there continue to be productive. The Young Lords [gang] takeover of the detox program, and accompanying the Pediatricians and Internal Medicine Residents who made "House Calls" in an area "Red-Lined" by Banks, where 85% of the housing was considered "substandard" or "deteriorated", was an unusual type of civic/social justice activity for what was considered a "Street Gang".

Tina Marie Hahn, MD posted:

I would like to please add that there is also an extensive destruction of the rural poor (when I tweeted the picture of the broken down trailer I grew up in that had no indoor plumbing or heat and that lead poisoned my younger brother, the Mississippi AAP retweeted it on the day the AAP announced it's position paper on poverty). Where I grew up there was no racism against people of color because there were no people of color, everyone had immigrated from Germany and if anything there was dislike of Jewish people (none of which made any sense to me).  There was discrimination based on your class and it was bad.  A classmate of mine shot him self in the head at age 12 from the brutal beating and bullying based on being poor.  I never saw a black person until I was 23 years old and moved to Ann Arbor -I grew up without a TV so didn't see a black person on TV either.   I didn't have the belief or money to go to some more expensive college off the bat and so I went to a very rural, very small community college.  I really don't want us to be divided up - based on the color of our skin.  I was attacked for no good reason by white police in a poor white neighborhood on 8/30/2015 because I lived on a poor street in a rural white community with a massive amount of drug use and with windows boarded up with particle board on most of the broken down houses - my neighbor told me later the people who lived there before me had been arrested for drug use so I guess it makes sense I was attacked but it was horrible.  Most days I want to rip off my skin and live without skin because I feel hated   because I have a skin color (white) that I absolutely hate myself. 

But yes trauma is a gateway experience.  But it is worse.  Marijuana can be used to treat developmental trauma.  It should be legal and allowed for that purpose.  But the real masters, make money on putting people in cages and selling their own sanctioned pharmaceuticals.   I read the New Jim Crow and Howard Zinn's a peoples history of the United States.    I beg all working class, poor and minorities to come together as MLK was working for in his poor peoples march to end the oppression that is killing us.   

 

Thank you and I do take seriously the serious racial problems we have but I do not believe they can be solved without looking at their intersectionality with poverty.  Thank you again.

 

 

 

 

Your experiences and views add a tremendous amount to the conversation.  I appreciate your words of wisdom.  It highlights for me the extreme inequities that continue to exist in our world and encourages me to do all I can to change society.  You are an angel, thank you for sharing your heavenly gift!  Peace, Bridget 

I just saw Michael Moore's new film. It offers an expanded view of drugs, drug use, trauma, and how we can do better in the U.S. in preventing and treating these issues. Daisy, thanks for making the connection between trauma, risk-taking, ways we try and handle our pain, and problematic drug use. The problem isn't drug use. The problem is the abuse of drugs that results from childhood trauma and the trauma that continues in our communities through the years.

Tina Marie Hahn, MD posted:

 the people who lived there before me had been arrested for drug use so I guess it makes sense I was attacked

Your narrative is like a window that let's others start to understand life experiences they may not have been exposed to. Thank you!

This little piece of your story also illustrates why police need intensive training on ACES and trauma-informed practices.

They committed a violent act on an individual based on an faulty assumption rather than accurate information. Incidents like this traumatize folks, and when they become the norm, they are a significant factor in fast tracking a community toward many of the outcomes that police exist to help mitigate. 

We empower these individuals on society's behalf with specific forms of power that ordinary citizens are prosecuted for (to break down doors, to shoot people without being prosecuted, to put others in handcuffs running red lights, etc.), and with that power comes a mandate to act with wisdom and self-control, devoid of bias and brutality. But we as a society have given police this power without equipping them with the tools necessary to act wisely and productively on society's behalf.

Police need to have training that frames everything they do with in the context of ACES and trauma-informed practices.

I would like to please add that there is also an extensive destruction of the rural poor (when I tweeted the picture of the broken down trailer I grew up in that had no indoor plumbing or heat and that lead poisoned my younger brother, the Mississippi AAP retweeted it on the day the AAP announced it's position paper on poverty). Where I grew up there was no racism against people of color because there were no people of color, everyone had immigrated from Germany and if anything there was dislike of Jewish people (none of which made any sense to me).  There was discrimination based on your class and it was bad.  A classmate of mine shot him self in the head at age 12 from the brutal beating and bullying based on being poor.  I never saw a black person until I was 23 years old and moved to Ann Arbor -I grew up without a TV so didn't see a black person on TV either.   I didn't have the belief or money to go to some more expensive college off the bat and so I went to a very rural, very small community college.  I really don't want us to be divided up - based on the color of our skin.  I was attacked for no good reason by white police in a poor white neighborhood on 8/30/2015 because I lived on a poor street in a rural white community with a massive amount of drug use and with windows boarded up with particle board on most of the broken down houses - my neighbor told me later the people who lived there before me had been arrested for drug use so I guess it makes sense I was attacked but it was horrible.  Most days I want to rip off my skin and live without skin because I feel hated   because I have a skin color (white) that I absolutely hate myself. 

But yes trauma is a gateway experience.  But it is worse.  Marijuana can be used to treat developmental trauma.  It should be legal and allowed for that purpose.  But the real masters, make money on putting people in cages and selling their own sanctioned pharmaceuticals.   I read the New Jim Crow and Howard Zinn's a peoples history of the United States.    I beg all working class, poor and minorities to come together as MLK was working for in his poor peoples march to end the oppression that is killing us.   

Thank you and I do take seriously the serious racial problems we have but I do not believe they can be solved without looking at their intersectionality with poverty.  Thank you again.

Thank you Daisy!  I'd also recommend reading The New Jim Crow by Michelle Rodriguez for anyone looking to explore this topic and, more importantly, learn about solutions to slow the systematic destruction of communities of color.

Daisy! This piece is incredible!!!! I believe you connected the dots in such an impactful  way.  This would make for a really great discussion topic as well to find out what types of TI approaches are successfully connecting the war on drugs with  race and trauma. Might you also be able to provide folks with the example of the SF task force that is addressing the possible connection between cannabis legalization and increased incarceration of communities of color? Thanks again for this piece.