I interview friends, colleagues, and experts, on harm reduction and its implications in Canadian society, from the theory to the practice, to the practical. I am a Member-at-Large for Outreach for Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy and writer for Karmik, Fresh Start Recovery Centre, and the Marijuana Party of Canada. Here I interview Evan Loster, part 5.
*Audio interview edited for clarity and readability.*
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You described the context for the CSSDP. I want to shift the conversation to other organizations. What other organizations would you recommend individuals look into if they have further interest in getting involved, knowledge – in whatever capacity they can?
Evan Loster: In Canada, I would recommend the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition. They are the reason for the CSSDP and its progress. They are the ‘parent’. They have more power and experience through life and career work. There’s a starting point.
I am a huge fan of MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. Their work is amazing. If I could be involved with them, eventually, that would be part of my dream. The paradigm pushed by them with the therapeutic use of psychedelics is important.
There are misconceptions about them used in a recreational way, which is not reflective of the experiences. Some might assume hallucinations. Others see this as a transpersonal change. That’s one major organization, which I love. They formed Zendo Project.
They test harm reduction services for psychedelics. There’s the Open Societies Foundation. There’s the American version of us, Students for Sensible Drug Policy. There are others. There are online campaigns to tell stories and reduce stigma.
It’s a huge step in the elimination of the stigma. There are multiple organizations out there. They fight for change. It is a growing movement. As I become more involved in it, I did not realize the number of frameworks and support.
Even through social media, you can tweet, retweet, like, or follow someone, there’s something right away. It is like an organism grows. Its dendrites are growing and making new connections and becoming bigger, and bigger.
Once involved in networks and organizations, it leads to more networks and organizations. It grows. You choose the level of involvement as well.
Jacobsen: There have been attempts to unify the various organizations on a small scale. Medium-term to short-term partnerships for this. What is the importance of partnerships between organizations to make larger changes?
Loster: It is looking at the fact of a single human having a great belief. However, unless compiled with other minds, your belief will only be good to yourself. When you combine organizations, not only does it bridge the gaps in spite of differences, it gives a larger voice.
It gives a larger following. In this sense, rather than 100 minds together, you can have 10,000 minds and opinions. Many more ideas too. It is essential for the change. You need the multidimensional perspective.
It is important for the change for everyone. There will always be differences, especially if you do not include these people. You want to keep people included without marginalizing people. Like the United Nations event, an event with a single mandate unifies everyone.
When on that level, you’re thinking of the entire world. You meet individuals from Guatemala, Columbia, South Africa, the United States, and so on. You learn about damaging organizations like Smart Approaches to Marijuana.
They are a perfect example. They are smart approaches to marijuana, but they are a front for the standard policies – non-evidence-based and punitive policies. They demonize the substance, have irrational claims that the science disputes, and so on.
You can have complete ignorance, too. A country like Malaysia will have policies ‘based on human rights,’ but they support the death penalty. You’re not laughing at the country. It is humorous. How can they say that?
You can have someone from Montreal and Indonesia agree with you. When you come together, your culture does not matter. Your beliefs matter. There’s a human rights lawyer from Indonesia. It is another country with the death penalty for traffickers.
They’ve killed foreigners like Australians. He wanted to talk about drug policy. He was silenced by his own country. He had a position in the roundtable and talked to us. He might risk the entire culture that he’s from. He might not be able to return to the country dependent on the political ideology there.
He’s crying as he’s speaking to us. He’s had friends killed for drug related offenses. We see that first hand. Afterward, everyone observing from upstairs (those without seats) stood and clapped. We weren’t clapping as individual organizations.
We clapped as individual humans that realized the truth he was speaking as well as giving him an acknowledgment of his sacrifice. His pain and suffering. That we’re all there for him. We never met before. We aren’t from the same country or culture, not the same race or gender.
However, with the same belief, we support each other. When organizations come together, they have the same belief. You can see if organizations work together and through their mandate. It is the biggest thing. You have a collective power. The more people, the better the greater the voice.
Jacobsen: With respect to CSSDP, there are ways to get involved with it. What do CSSDP most need from volunteers? How can potential volunteers expedite that to help out?
Loster: CSSDP needs more ground members, more chapters. The board can use for help. However, it doesn’t matter the size of the board without the youth starting to form groups and make changes. If you have 100 board members dictating tasks, starting campaigns, and so on, without chapters, nothing is happening.
We can start a campaign and post on social media. We don’t get followers or chapters, or momentum in the movement with people. The biggest thing is chapters and youth becoming involved in CSSDP.
Youth advocating for sensible drug policy. That’s the biggest thing. It starts and creates a chapter. If you want to get involved with us, you can start a chapter. If there’s a chapter near you, you can start there. There’s nothing limiting the chapters from influencing their own development.
We don’t have huge resources to start a huge event. Imagine a chapter hosting an electronic music festival with the need for drug testing. We would support it. However, we don’t do it. The chapter does it.
There’s nothing limiting a chapter. They can grow and become their own entity. The big thing is chapters becoming bigger and independent for their own community. W can change things at the national level through advocacy.
The changes happen piecemeal with a conversation with friends, family, and fellow peers and altering the mental state of politicians. If every community begins to change, the national side will too.
Eventually, you will have the same situation with the states. You have states with a belief pattern, legalizing cannabis. As well, the federal disagreement. Of course, it will become ridiculous. Individual states will legalize and the federal will not. People won’t care.
It is self-empowerment for people. It boils down to people empowering themselves to the point of making a change in their own lives. It starts small and becomes large.
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Evan.
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Original publication on www.cssdp.org.
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Photo Credit: Getty Images
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