‘Pill Man’ visits Boston as advocates push lawmakers for safe injection sites
“These are someone’s family members.”
Frank Huntley spent the six-year anniversary of his recovery from opioid addiction walking Boston’s streets alongside a skeleton covered in empty pill bottles.The Worcester man stopped with his creation, “Pill Man,” outside Boston Medical Center and at intersections near the area known as “Methadone Mile.” That’s the stretch of blocks around Mass. Ave. and Melnea Cass Boulevard where shelters and recovery services for those struggling with substance use disorders and addiction issues are concentrated. Pill Man is made up of Huntley’s own empty Oxycontin and Methadone prescription bottles. Huntley wrote on Facebook that he visited the area “to show people that there is hope, there is recovery.”“So please, help someone don’t judge them,” he wrote. “These are someone’s family members.”
https://www.facebook.com/PillManHelps/photos/pcb.2333711793557770/2333709876891295/?type=3&theater
Huntley began taking prescription opioids following a work injury that resulted in two major surgeries on his shoulder in the late ’90s, he told the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. For the next 15 years, he struggled with an addiction, losing his painting business and his marriage as he was consumed with his dependance on the pills.
Now he’s on a mission to raise awareness about opioid addiction.
“Drugs are making us die too young, way too young,” he told UniversalHub on Tuesday. “It’s a nightmare. We need to make sure these other prescription places, other pharmacies, other hospitals are educating us and we [are] not going to lose any more people.”
On the same day Huntley was in Boston, advocates, medical professionals, and bereaved family members urged lawmakers to implement supervised injection sites in the state.
“If there were a safe injection site and she had used it, she would be alive and with us still fighting to survive and beat her addiction,” said James Franchek of his daughter, Emma, at the public hearing held by the Joint Committee on Mental Health, Substance Use and Recovery for two bills related to safe consumption sites.
According to the State House News Service, an estimated 4,000 Massachusetts residents have died from opioid overdoses or related causes since the Legislature began the debate on whether to support the supervised sites for drug use two and a half years ago. Lawmakers said Tuesday there is no timeline for the advancement of the two bills under discussion.
Earlier this year, the state’s Harm Reduction Commission, a government-appointed group of local elected officials and health experts, recommended lawmakers approve the creation of sites where people struggling with addiction could inject drugs under medical supervision. Supporters of safe injection sites say the facilities save lives, reduce stigma, and are an effort of harm reduction for tackling the opioid epidemic.
Gov. Charlie Baker has expressed opposition to the sites, and U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling has said he would prosecute the consumption sites should they move forward. The federal government considers such sites illegal, but local officials have been touring facilities in Canada to see the sites in practice.
Those testifying in support of the measures on Tuesday told lawmakers that legal issues shouldn’t be a barrier to adding another “tool” for fighting the opioid epidemic, according to the Boston Herald.
“I need all the tools you can give me to keep people alive so they can attain hope and maintain recovery,” said Sarah Mackin, director of the needle exchange Access, Harm Reduction, Overdose Prevention and Education. “No one recovers when they’re dead.”
