UNHOUSED

a person is using illicit drugs, some unhoused folks said the powerful, often lethal opioid is banned from their communities.

“If anybody caught you with it over here, you could get beat up on sight,” said Skittles, a houseless man living on the west side of Colorado Springs. “ ere’s a certain look with heroin and a certain look with fentanyl. I can tell the di erence and fentanyl isn’t allowed.”

Skittles has lived on the streets, o and on, since he was about 12 years old. ere aren’t many drugs he hasn’t tried. ough fentanyl and heroin can look similar, Skittles said he can di erentiate easily from his decades of personal drug usage. He’s lost friends to fentanyl overdoses and recently revived a friend experiencing an overdose using naloxone, an overdose-reversing nasal spray.

“It was very scary because he didn’t even turn blue for a while. No warning, and by the time he turned blue, I’m sure he would have been dead and there would be no bringing him back if I didn’t know what to do,” Skittles said. “It doesn’t take much of that fentanyl sh— to kill somebody.” e worst part, Skittles said, was the friend had no idea he was using fentanyl.

“It’s like playing Russian Roulette with ve bullets,” Skittles said. “It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

After the friend was revived, Skittles told his friend that he needs to get fentanyl testing strips — available at most pharmacies and community health centers — as well as start carrying naloxone.

Along with clean supplies for drug use, Southern Colorado Health network provides a variety of health and hygiene products, as well as emergency supplies like naloxone in case of overdoses.

“I was like, look, dude, you’re gonna die if this happens again,” Skittles recalled, clenching a feast and staring straight ahead. “ is s– is very, very bad.”

Skittles was an alcoholic for 20 years. He spends most days chasing benzodiazepines with a bottle of Kentucky Deluxe Whiskey. e combination helped him sleep through frosty winter nights and took his mind away from ashbacks of an abusive childhood.

He had enough one day.

“I just got tired of it, honestly,” Skittles said. “Just kind of happened.”

Losing friends to fentanyl and COVID-19 is common for those outside, added Jimbo, another unhoused person and one of Skittles’ friends.

“Being out here is backward,” Jimbo said. “Right is wrong and wrong is right. All your friends are dying o and you just have to keep going.”

Now, Skittles drinks alcohol on occasion and smokes cannabis to make it through his days.

He keeps a sandwich bag of weed in a jar of peanut butter. A halfripped-o label reveals the crystalized green nuggets. He points to cannabis as a lifesaver for him and those around him.

“I’ve seen a lot of hard s— and I know what it can do, and it isn’t good,” Skittles said.

“But these days, all I want to do is hurt a cheeseburger,” he adds, cracking a half-smile and nodding his head. “Loving and hurting a cheeseburger. at’s it for me.”

Approaching solutions

Higgins and Chizmar said the waron-drugs methods of criminalizing addiction are ine ective and often cause more harm than good, as they drive people to use illicit substances without knowing what is actually in their supply.

“We know that recovery, over the long-term, is something that’s oriented around building community and connection and nding some way to feel ful lled and have direction,” Higgins said. “It’s di cult to do that in prison.”

Higgins said Colorado Springs needs more non-criminalization resources across the spectrum of usage, from sober living facilities, detoxi cation centers and simple harm reduction methods like naloxone and fentanyl test trip accessibility.

“I think there’s a lot more to treatment in terms of how we meet people where they are at,” Higgins said. “Mandated treatment tends to not be as successful as treatment that participated in on a voluntary basis.” ough such programs have been criticized as “enabling” illicit drug usage, research does not support this. Chizmar also said clean needle access and places to safely dispose of needles is vital. Such access helps prevent the spread of diseases which can often be terminal.

“ is has been an incredibly important intervention because it’s extremely e ective and there’s over 30 years of research that demonstrates that,” Chizmar said. “It’s primarily a disease prevention model.” is Rocky Mountain PBS story via e Associated Press’ Storyshare, of which Colorado Community Media is a member.