Episode 38: The Knock

Just a heads up. In this episode we talk about suicide and child apprehension. Now the safety of children is very important to me. When I was around 10, someone who took care of me and my sister was not safe for kids to be around. So I don't take this stuff lightly. If you have trouble listening to this kind of story, you might consider skipping this episode. How much do you love me? 24,000 a million. 24,000 a million. I love you. A gazillion, bazillion, gammillion, jadillion. I think I love you more. When I look in your eyes like that. Who do you think loves who more? You love me more? Both. That's nice. I like it being equal. You're a good boy. I'm Garth Mullins. This is Crackdown. Episode 38. The Knock. There was another warning about cocaine today. Crack now has spread to almost every American city. In the 1980s and 90s, panicked politicians and media figures sounded the alarm about crack babies. Frequent women were smoking this new drug, crack cocaine, and giving birth to addicted babies with serious health issues. These women, often poor and black, were vilified, deemed incorrigible, irrational, and beyond the reach of public health policy. And the headline said the taxpayer would be on the hook for the cost of their sick children. The new study says that babies born to women who use cocaine during pregnancy are three times as likely to be born with birth defects. They tend to be what we call jittery. They're very, very high risk for cerebral palsy, mental retardation. They are prone to hypertension, strokes, and sudden infant death syndrome. The dogs take away the dream from every child's heart and replace it with a nightmare. Your hearing clips from a documentary by Retro Report made in partnership with The New York Times. In 2013, Retro Report took a look back at all the fear around crack babies. It turns out the moral panic was largely inspired by one deeply limited academic study. And there just isn't compelling scientific evidence to back up many of the media's extraordinary claims about birth defects, cognitive disabilities, and withdrawal symptoms. In fact, most of the harms found in that study were caused by the kinds of poor nutrition and medical care that come with poverty. The panic around crack babies was rooted in racism and poor bashing, and it tore many families apart. The moral panic around crack babies may have faded, but it still haunts us. It reflects to blame and punish moms that use drugs instead of supporting them, is as strong as ever. If the state sees you as a mom, whether you're cis, trans, non-binary, or too spirited, it measures you against some kind of 1950s ideal of the perfect mother. You have this sacred duty to your children to put aside your own happiness, your own health, your own safety, for a higher maternal calling. You're expected to raise stable, productive citizens with little recognition or support, and that's a kind of duty that just isn't expected from dads. On today's show, we're going to talk about what it's like to be a mom trying to survive the drug war. Do you want to introduce yourself for the tape? I'm Hawk Feather Peterson, and my pronouns are they them. And I am, I call myself an activist and an advocate for drug users, and I do that as a person with living experience as an active substance user and as a parent. Yeah, I have a big old family. Lots of kids. And yeah, I, um, I want people to be aware of the risk I'm putting myself in to have this dialogue because I am very, very aware of how many listeners are going to listen to me casually talking about being high, while acknowledging that I'm a parent and are just going to be disgusted and think I'm horrible or consider calling the ministry on me. Hawk Feather, you're taking this risk for a reason though. Oh my gosh. Or a real political reason. And maybe you should just be really explicit about that. Like, why are you telling this story to us? Yeah, I'm telling this story because I, I am a good parent and I don't know exactly how to describe this. I'm taking this risk because I can. So I think I'm obligated to have the platform, I have the platform and the privilege to defend myself. Most my kids are older, um, most people because most people are grossly uneducated about substance use. They don't recognize that that drug use happens on a spectrum and that we have the ability to control our use. People just don't think that that exists. Um, so it's like an epiphany to people when you suggest that it's okay to parent and be an active drug user. Um, we, you and me have both been sitting here having this intelligent conversation well on prescribed opioids. Yep. And, uh, this is literally me. Hi. Exactly right. Yeah. Thank you for making the time. Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Hawk Feather is in their early 40s and has kind of a west coast hippie style. They're a visual artist, primarily an illustrator and a painter. Drug use is a theme in some of their work, but instead of depicting used rigs and tip over pill bottles, they draw, earthy and gentle images of poppy flowers and coca leaves. Hawk Feather had a hard time when they were young. As a queer person, they always felt like an outsider and it didn't help that they grew up in the conservative town of London, Ontario. When Hawk Feather was coming up, the town had a mayor who refused to allow pride celebrations. And instead of being voted out of office, that mayor was reelected in a landslide victory. Hawk Feather decided to move the next day. Fear and anxiety began when Hawk Feather was a teen, and it never left. They went on SSRIs, tried counseling, yoga, self-help podcasts, you name it. None of it worked. And when Hawk Feather's mental health struggles reached a crisis point, they ended up in the hospital. But then they tried heroin. Hawk Feather says it felt like being a small child and laying on their grandfather's chest, listening to his heartbeat. Hawk Feather raised their family in a little town on the BC coast. Now it's a kind of getaway for the rich. But back in the day, it was a hippie community, surrounded by coastlines and forests. It was a great place to make art and raise kids. But one problem with Hawk Feather's little town was that there weren't many options when it came to healthcare. There's one doctor willing to prescribe to substance users. And he considers himself like the addictions doctor. And then what's your relationship with this doctor? What is he boomer kind of old dude? You know he's young go getter. He's very, very friendly. Type a doctor that if I'd had an art show, he'd come to support. And I had a miscarriage at one point. He came to the hospital just to offer emotional support. And so I at least thought we were very, I thought we had a great relationship. You kind of trusted him. Very much so. And I was very open with him about my use to a degree. Hawk Feather says their doctor thought of them as a kind of tidy success story. A former illicit drug user who was now stable on methadone. But the truth was methadone was only doing part of the job. It was great at keeping away dope singness. But there was no euphoria like heroin. And it was way less effective at curbing anxiety and depression. And so Hawk Feather would chip. They take methadone every day and occasionally when it was safe use a little heroin as well. And that combination was working for Hawk Feather. Until. An unprecedented move by BC's chief medical health officer for the first time ever Dr. Perry Kendall has declared a public health emergency over the explosion of overdose deaths. The numbers are By 2016, B.C.'s heroin supply was rapidly being replaced by fentanyl, which was far less predictable. It was a terrifying time to be wired. Hock further worried that if they kept chipping, you know, just to keep an even keel, that it was just a matter of time before they overdosed. "So I went longer than usual before I really felt like I didn't have a choice, like months longer to the point that I was definitely suffering in my mental health, missing work, sleeping for whole days and not engaging my family, and just really hurting, starting to feel depressed, who none's safe degree. And even that waited quite a bit longer." "So it's like a time bomb. It's like you can hear this ticking like. " "I can. So you're faced with fentanyl which will kill me. I have no tolerance for it. For nothing, which will maybe kill me." But then Hock further found an answer to their problems. In nearly days of COVID, the government started letting doctors prescribe hydromorphine, or delauded, to drug users in order to reduce the risk of overdose, and allow us to follow the pandemic rules to self-isolate. The lot it isn't quite heroin, but it has a lot more kick than methadone. "So you now are aware, oh, I could maybe get prescribed to lot it. Hydromorphine." "Do you want to felt like I can have the medicine I need and not die? That's pretty what it felt like." "You must have just been like this change is everything." "It was like Christmas. Yeah, I was like, holy shit, this change is my whole world, right? It just felt like a door opening." It wasn't like Hock further could just sign up online or go to a new doctor who specialized in prescribing delauded. To get on this program, they'd have to go talk to their family doctor, and they knew that to convince him, they'd likely have to tell the truth about chipping. They'd have to explain that they'd been using illicit drugs, and they were worried they might odion fentanyl. Hock further wasn't sure how the doctor would react. But closing the truth would mess up their tidy success story, and would reveal that they'd been dishonest. Because it was COVID, everything was done over the phone. Hock further booked an appointment and waited for the doctor to call. "You wouldn't know exactly what time, so it actually meant sitting in a state of extreme anxiety for hours and hours waiting to find out." "Please sir, could I have some delauded?" "He laughed, literally." "He laughed." "Yes, pretty much." "What words was it like?" "The words were literally." "This program's not for people like you." He told me it was the equivalent of him enjoying a glass of wine, and wanting to come to the drinker's lounge on the downtown east side and take it out of the hands of someone who needs it. "I was one of the co-authors of that policy that let doctors prescribe delauded, and I can tell you that this is not how it was supposed to work. There was no rule that said the medication could only go to people who were the most marginalized. It was meant to go to anyone at risk of overdosing. Anyone it could help." But many doctors didn't follow the guidelines as written. They made their own decisions about how to give out the medication, and frequently that meant refusing to give it out at all. For months, Hawkfeather continued the grind, relying mostly on methadone. There was no other doctor in town, no other way to get regularly prescribed delauded, so they started to call around and ask people about it. Hawkfeather can't be sure, but they wonder if someone reached out to their doctor and told him he had to follow the new policy. Either way, one day, completely out of the blue, he seemed to have a change of heart. "I was at work as an outreach worker, and my doctor who is the addictions doctor was there taking care of some of our street and trench substance users, and I was there doing outreach. Any literally walked up to me in a group of people and went, 'So you want some safer supply?' Just like that. It was the strangest thing. I was like, 'You know I do. Yes, I do.' He was like, 'Well, it comes to me. We'll get it sorted.' When I came to try again, one of the first things he said to me was, 'So I guess we're going to have to call the ministry.' And I was like, 'What?' So he meant, 'We're going to have to call the ministry of child and family development,' which is the people who send out the van to come and take away kids from families. Yes. Within BC's ministry of children and family development, sits CPS, or child protection services. For decades, experts have found that CPS actually operates as a family policing system. They apprehend kids when there's no evidence of abuse or neglect. They disproportionately target indigenous families. They often send kids to homes that are not safe. And in more than half of their investigations, drug use is a factor. I think in a lot of people's heads, they're like, 'No, no, the ministry is there to help. So why be afraid of them? Unless you're doing something wrong, why would you be afraid of them?' I don't think people know. You can have your child removed because you used 20 fucking years ago. You can have your child removed because your parent used drugs. And people will be like, 'No, that doesn't happen all the time.' You know, if you use drugs, the lens that you are scrutinized through is opaque. They're not looking to see how you even. They're not even trying to see how you parent. The doctor's words rang in Hawkfeather's head, so I guess we're going to have to call the ministry. Hawkfeather knew whatever they said next could change their entire life. Hawkfeather took a breath and told the doctor that they thought bringing up the ministry was stigmatizing. The doctor asked why. Hawkfeather said because you're making an assumption about my ability to parent, based on my substance use. They couldn't tell if the doctor was entirely convinced. Hawkfeather left the doctor's appointment with their script for delauded but had no idea what was going to happen next. If you hear that the ministry is looking your way, your immediate instinct is to run. I think I literally even said to my partner we should leave. We should just go. We can go to Calgary. We'll leave. Let's pack up. We could go right now. I don't think I even have the words to express to you the terror of thinking someone has the ultimate power to walk into your home and take your children. What is that? I can't think of anything more primal. The idea that a stranger has that power is just devastating. It's terrifying. I remember from your text chat, we were, we chat back and forth on text a lot on messenger or whatever. You were like pissed that day. So mad. I was so mad. Truthfully, I doubt there are many birthing parents or mothers that can go to their doctors and ask for safer supplies. I doubt there's many on the program. I think they're just out there facing the risk of death because the risk of apprehension is so terrifying. Under prohibition, there's always going to be stigma around mothers who use drugs. This is Jade Boyd. You've heard her on the show before. Jade is an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia and a research scientist at the BC Center on Substance Use. Her research focuses on women and gender diverse people who use drugs. So we can have all these harm reduction in overdose supports, overdose prevention sites regulated on a pharmaceutical grade drugs. But a lot of mothers aren't going to want to access them because of fear of being reported to things like child protection services. Back in 2016, when BC's overdose crisis was first declared, Jade started to research newly opened overdose prevention sites on the downtown east side. It was clear that these sites were going to be critically important, but Jade wondered if everyone would feel comfortable accessing them. So to find out, she started interviewing a group of mothers who use drugs. One woman, she started talking about how she certainly wouldn't access an overdose prevention site if she had her children with her for fear of repercussions. She wouldn't even get supplies from somewhere like clean needles for that same risk. I've also heard from someone that they don't have a great child care situation, but they don't want to take their kids into the methadone clinic when they go because they don't want to remind the doctor that they have kids. They want to allow that to be forgotten so that the doctor isn't thinking, "Oh, you failed your Pist test today." And there's little Johnny in the waiting room I better call up the MCFD or whatever. Absolutely. You definitely don't want to remind them. And that means you're not getting the health support and social supports that you need. It's devastating. According to the Chief Medical Health Officer of the First Nations Health Authority, indigenous women often avoid detox or withdrawal services because they're scared of losing their children. And they're right to be afraid. For decades, the state has apprehended children on the mere suspicion of any illicit drug use. In BC, the government now says they'll only take children when a parent has problematic substance use. But child protective services remains a black box. What defines problematic and non-problematic drug use isn't public, which means there are no fast and hard rules parents can refer to. And these rules, even the reformed rules about child apprehension, they still give the state or the individual social worker or child apprehender a lot of sort of subjective room to maneuver and discretion. Just like even when there's reforms in the law, the police still have all this kind of discretion, the cop on the beat or whatever. Still is the final arbiter of what and how to implement the whole Leviathan of rules and things that are behind them. And that has the effect of just thinking the hammer could come down on you at any time. Yeah, like we know those who have more support who are more economically stable and benefit from privileged from the social fabric, they're not going to be under the purview of social services or everyday police in the same way that those who don't have those support are going to feel. So of course, it's the poor black and indigenous families are going to be more impacted by this fear of constant surveillance and regulation and that fear of children being taken away can result in an increase of overdose risk. I think this is really important, right? It is the is that even if your kids aren't taken, the fact that they could be the fact that this sort of damage is hanging over the heads of all these parents and families. I think it's terrifying. Yeah, a lot of what we're talking about just the day-to-day fear of scrutiny. That's like a penopticon where you feel like you're always under observation. And that's extremely stressful in and of itself. To avoid detection, many of Jade's participants described using drugs alone. This is how the majority of overdose deaths happen in BC. If the government's intent is to reduce drug use and especially to reduce drug use amongst mothers, their policies seem to be having the opposite effect. Jade found that the CPS surveillance, drug tests and threats of child apprehension drove many of her participants to increase their drug use. For one participant, their drug use only started as a result of her kids being taken away. Do you find yourself using a little bit more to calm down that panic? Yeah, you really can't deny it. We know, of course, harm equals self-care and soothing. That's my self-care. You want that little blanket around you? You want to feel better? Fear of child apprehension has changed Hawkfeather's life forever. They now work at an organization called PAC, Parents Advocating Collectively for Kin. Hawkfeather's job is to support parents who are targeted by the family policing systems because of their drug use. In some ways, doing this kind of work has made Hawkfeather feel safer. It's a way to take action to build up community power and to directly help individual mothers and parents who are being unfairly treated. But the work can also make Hawkfeather feel less safe. It's a constant reminder of the kind of damage that the state could cause in their own life. It's made them parent more defensively, robbing them of a sense of security that many families take for granted. Are you a kid, you know? I was just trying to figure out how good I was at. And it was amazing. That was good. You're a pro. He's a kiddie a lot. Did you guys have a kiddie? Yeah. His name is Onyx. Onyx? What color? Black. Luckily, child protection services didn't come around to Hawkfeather's house looking for their kids this time. Hawkfeather can't be sure why, but they suspect things would have turned out different if they weren't white. One thing you said to me in the text, I was trying to find it, but it's like you said, like, I can only imagine if I was indigenous with the consequences. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm sure they would have been called just for me asking. I don't think there would have been a, I wouldn't have had the privilege of a request or like a dialogue with my physician about whether or not he should call. If I was indigenous, I 100%. You know what? If I was indigenous, my kids wouldn't have even been with me and had this conversation. There's no way to overstate how important this is. Colonization is the very root of Canada's child welfare system. Even though indigenous kids make up less than 8% of the children in Canada, more than half of the kids in foster care are indigenous. And the number of kids in care in British Columbia is even higher. You know, 65% of the kids that are under the care of the state in British Columbia are indigenous. Can you say anything about the role of colonization in child apprehension? Obviously the forced removal of indigenous children from their families go way back and we're looking at residential schools when indigenous children were forcibly removed from their homes. And that causing intergenerational trauma. And as, you know, as those started to close down in the 50s, then, you know, there's regulation of those families through social workers. And the overrepresentation of indigenous children then taken into care as part of what we call now the 60s scoop, which is essentially just extended into what we now would call the Millennium scoop. So it's impossible to talk about children in care in Canada without thinking about the legacy of colonialism because it absolutely impacts the numbers that we have of indigenous children taken away from their families. And of course, this is exacerbated if we think about it in relation to substance use. Are you sure you got enough beverages there? We got Pepsi, Coke, water. What's in the cup? Water. Water. So you got two kinds of water. Now this is everything I've ever dreamed of. And it's not Pepsi, it's Pepsi. What does that mean? Well, because most of us don't have tea, right? Right. Pepsi, can you introduce yourself for the tape? I'm Ellie Taylor. I started my life so homeless, 14 year old, Native girl. And I spent 20 years on the ground with the DTS, the war in the poor, living in the shelters. And I'm hardcore. I believe in grassroots. Ellie always greets me with a big smile. They're really a warm person and a good listener. I always notice them at Vandio meetings, locking in with people and nodding along as they speak. Ellie has fought for drug user rights, housing rights, indigenous rights, human rights of all sorts. In 2019, they were at Vancouver City Hall advocating for unhoused people living in Oppenheimer Park. It's an epidemic. All over Vancouver, there's 22, uh, 100 people that are homeless. So it's not just a downtown eastside issue. These are vulnerable people, people that have had hard lives, no protection. And so we really need to work to give them the respect they deserve as human beings. I mean, they're just the same as you and me. When I told Ellie that we were working on this episode, they told me that they had a story to tell. Something that shaped their life completely. Something that's taken 20 years to feel ready to share. You were originally from Lake Bebeane First Nation, right? - Forbebeane. - Is that where you're born? Yes. And what's it like for somebody who's never been. what is it can you describe like the territory a little bit? Now imagine if you were in the. you're sitting there, this is a lake I'd op up, go to. And the nighttime you could look up in the sky and you understand that you're part of these vast into the universes. Because there is no light pollution. None. And I mean, no electricity where we are when we're doing this. You would see wild horses, you would see the sunsets so beautiful because none of it was missing. You would see the full ecology, the beauty of it all. And you would see your importance to be small in it. My dad had worked his way at a poverty. He wasn't given much of a life and he had a pretty large house. Hardly any money. We hardly had any kind of money things and we never had any extra curricular. I never got school pictures. I never went to anything. As far back as Ellie can remember, they understood that the Canadian state tears indigenous families apart. Their grandfather survived residential school and that experienced echoed down the generations. Ellie remembers the CPS workers in particular. They visited the res frequently. They were polite, practical and vicious. And when they arrived adults would run inside and frantically clean their homes. So this is the worker. where the buttons are right up, but it's like a Donald Black cardigan. It's not a business perspective, it's like a black sweater, it's done right up. White little toss here, pen here. Oh, we're here because we have some complaints. What's their face doing? It's like a complete poker face. Oh yeah? Yeah, and when they talk to you, they don't use the motion. At least even the cops will yell at you and give them how you can get them. The Ministry just, "No, this is the director's, this is the truth and this is what we're doing." Everyone understood what was at stake. The government social workers would frequently remove kids from their homes. And all too often, those kids did not end up in safe places. Children in foster care in BC have ended up in abusive homes. Some have even been warehouseed alone in cheap motels. Ellie always wanted to be a mother. And when they were 23 years old, they gave birth to a daughter. We'll call her Yvonne. Ellie says on the very day that Yvonne was born, a ministry worker showed up at the hospital and said, "Your first nations, so we're here to help you." Ellie told the social worker to go away, that they didn't want their help with anything. It was a terrifying encounter. Ellie was left to wonder how the ministry knew they'd just given birth and what triggered the visit. The ad is a suspicion that it probably had something to do with a recent administrative change. Not long before Yvonne was born, Ellie had registered as a status Indian with the federal government. "My youngest was Red Flagged because I'm status, right? And I'm half an absolute." "What does Red Flag mean?" "Okay. Red Flag is the automatic that you are a bad person and capable of raising your kid." "Who raises the flag?" "That's minister's it." "Yes." "And they have you in their sights as soon as you have. " "That is number." "Right." "And you've given birth in the hospital." "Right." "And so when you were pregnant with it, you were thinking like this could happen." "Oh fuck yeah." First nations, leaders of long complained about birth alerts. Critics say it's unconstitutional. Now a class action lawsuit has been filed in BC. CDV's medical correspondent, Avis Favreau, has that? At one point, BC was apprehending on average 22 babies a month between 2018 and 2019 when the province finally ended the practice. Now some mothers in BC have filed the first class action lawsuit of its kind. On behalf of the thousands of parents affected, saying birth alert practices are unconstitutional. Birth alerts, also known as red flags, are now illegal thanks to pressure from indigenous activists and allies. And the BC government is currently being sued for the harms that they've caused. But 20 years ago, when a van was born, they were still common practice. Birth alerts work like this. If government social workers deemed you to be high risk, they'd issue a directive to maternity units across the province. You'd likely have no idea this happened. Then, when you gave birth, hospital staff would see the birth alert and be required to call a social worker. Right away, you'd be under the state's microscope. The class action plaintiffs say the birth alerts were often issued without any supporting evidence. They were preemptive, a suspicion of future failure, and they were disproportionately used against indigenous, racialized, and disabled mothers. Birth alerts have sometimes led to babies being snatched from their parents mere hours after being born. And there was a birth alert for Ellie, and a social worker did come to the hospital. But they didn't take baby Yvonne away that day. Though as the years went on, they sure kept their eyes on them. They do random drug tests, make you do performances. Right, so they could show up at any time, saving your face in a cup. Yeah. And they're going to test to see what's in the piss. Absolutely, or oh, our random visit. Let's see how many times that this happened to you. 25 times. Right, so they just show up out of the blue. Yeah. These visits were terrifying. It was like being stalked. Ellie knew there was always a piss test just around the corner. At the urging of social workers, Ellie had tried to stop using drugs. But that was easier said than done. They'd used drugs regularly since they were just 12 years old. Rock and meth helped sue the mental anguish that came from a brutal childhood. A childhood that included abuse, poverty, and homelessness. Drugs helped with all of it. And later, Ellie found that drugs could also help them hold things together as a parent. I never hit my kids. They didn't believe in any physical punishment. I had to suffer from violence. I know what I was like. And I've never even really screamed at my kids. I think raised my voice four times. It's not that I'm a great parent, but I think that's pretty damn good. And yet the Ministry of Veterans say that, no. So I went to three different triple programs and I found out that's a dead end. It made me way worse. Oh yeah, my anxiety became crippling at that point. And they said, now you're mentally ill. Because I was depressed because I was fucking sober. This was a brutal time for Ellie. They were caught in a game you couldn't win. When they were on drugs, the state thought of them as a junkie. When they were off drugs, the state thought of them as crazy. But Ellie tells us no matter what the Ministry thought, their kids were all right. And when Ellie needed a hand, their parents were always there to help out with childcare. But Ellie knew that none of this mattered. They'd seen kids snatched in this kind of situation before, and the pressure was unrelenting. Ellie remembers the day that everything changed. It was a Sunday morning in 2006. Yvonne was just three years old. Oh my God, I'll never forget. BPD, RCMP and all these different subpolices and also Ministry. It's the same knock. I called the government knock. Like it's the knock of doom. That sound is doomed. So your heart's jumping because you know, oh, I got something in my system that's measurable in my God. It's not just measurable, I'm not as up. I'm as up. Right. Right, which is why I'm down there and my birds are on the upstairs. Yep. And then when the knock came, oh shit, I knew. She's playing in the yard. My parents are sitting up there. You know, Ministry of Children from these. It's RCMP. When the door was opened, my heart dropped because I saw it down at the bottom of the driveway, because there's a little bit of a hill. What I call the Ministry of Vehicle that teach your kids. Now, everyone on the residence was rich vehicles. So it's a beige sort of SUV they use or a black SUV and they always have tentative windows. So when they put the kids in, they can't see you anymore. Right. And so in that moment, at the bottom of the driveway, you could see this vehicle there and you knew what the vehicle was for. Yeah, because all my friends. All right. What do they do? They come up. Stars. It's playing in your parents. And they come through upstairs. But instead coming on, which I'm expecting them to engage with me, they just go right into the arm. Apparun. They make sure workers will never forget. Wondered each of her arms. Pick her. And she goes, stop. She's screaming for you. Oh, honey. They take her and slamming the vehicle. That's it. I just wanted to ask if you don't want to talk with us, you don't have to. But you had mentioned that you have a scar on your finger. Yeah. So can you describe the scar? I can't see real good. Can you describe it for us? It's locked up. And it broke that knuckle. And it's when I tried to. So my pinky has damage because I did try to grab my daughter and then I saw the door. And then there's other injuries in my hands from the side. So hang on a second. You try to get your daughter out of the beige van. Yeah. Before the lock. And then slam the door in your hand and then drove away. Yeah. Oh, fuck. Yeah. I just, the brutality at everyone's experiences is very, I wouldn't even believe this. Like, let's be honest. Who would believe people would be so capable to be such monsters? I reckon everybody in Canada ought to believe it because it's the whole history from the very beginning till now. Woo! You said it. It's it. The last time you saw her? Yeah. That was in 2006. So the reason they took was? I'm depressed. You were depressed. Yeah. And a drug partaker. And that I was a danger to her and myself. And I was sectioned. At the same time. They sectioned you at the same time. - Yeah. - And how long were you section for? - Six months. - Wow. - I didn't wanna live. There's a good thing they sectioned me. - I literally fell into this deep hole. I never had this happen, who has? So I was sitting in a state where it was just like, I didn't wanna live, right? And I just didn't. - After I've gone was taken, Ellie was forced into a mental health treatment facility. In the months and years following the apprehension, Ellie's drug use increased. They were chronically homeless, totally distraught. In these types of situations, the state frequently wants you to get sober to get your kid back. But imagine trying to do that. Imagine trying to stop using drugs or stop drinking right after your kid has been snatched from you. Like Ellie, the participants in Professor Jade Boyd's study found this challenge nearly impossible. - So this person is talking about how she felt. When her children were forcibly removed from her. The only reason I'm even using heroin is because it became so stressful that it was unbearable. I wanted to kill myself, I was in so much pain. There wasn't a second during the day when I didn't feel completely fucking overwhelmed with grief. And my children still feel like that. And so do I. Thank God for heroin. There's no question. Drugs helped Ellie cope with the loss of their daughter. And Ellie is come a long way. Life can still be a struggle, but they've accomplished a lot. Today, Ellie's in a masters of counseling psychology program. And when they're not at school, they're often out organizing or speaking at a rally. - Did I get Ellie open to the front seat? Hey, everyone, it's Ellie Taylor. How are y'all doing? Give me a year! (crowd cheering) I am not a junkie. I am a human being. I deserve to use safer. And I want to save lives. (soft music) Last year, the BC government passed Bill 38, which creates a path for indigenous nations to reclaim jurisdiction over child and family services in their communities. This, along with the formal and the birth alerts, are steps in the right direction. But we still have a long way to go. Despite changes, activists and experts say the government is still regularly snatching kids from their families without real evidence of neglect or abuse. And all too often, these policies are driven by a powerful urge to punish mothers who use drugs. - Of course, we want children to be live safe and happy lives and people get really mad if you even talk about mothers using drugs. But there's a lot of research saying that it's your relationship with the drug. It's not the drug itself. If families have the supports that they need, they're not dealing with criminalization under prohibition. They're not dealing with poison drug supply. They're not dealing with poverty or housing precarity. If the children are not being harmed in any way, there's ways to be a really great parent and use substances. And we know that there's lots of people who use drugs. And our fine parents, it might just be legalized drugs like alcohol. So prohibition obviously plays a giant role in structural violence that families are facing. - This story is not about abusive or neglectful homes. Kids need to be safe. And people around here are very protective of kids. The worst insult you can use in our world is goof, which means child abuser. There's also a generation's old tradition on this part of Hastings Street. If a mother's pushing a stroller or a dad's carrying a toddler on his shoulders, people warn each other, kids on the block, and the dodgy activity ceases. Rock smokers stop and tuck their pipes out of sight. Dealers pause business. Everyone tries to straighten up a little. The phrase, "Kids on the block" is passed on. And a little bubble of respect follows the family down the street. Over the years, crackdown has laid out a blueprint for governments. How to stop the mass deaths. Safe supply, decriminalization, full harm reduction, we should co-write policy. You know the list. But none of that is going to benefit mothers as long as that sort of damacly hangs over them, so long as they feel the eyes of the state on them, and fear that knock on the door. [MUSIC PLAYING] [CHATTER] Crackdown is produced on the territories of the Musqueam Squamish and Sloughith nations. Our editorial board is Simone Marsh, Sheldokaster, Jeff Loudon, Dean Wilson, Laura Shaver, Raya Jean, and Rest in Peace, Dave Murray, Greg Frez, and Sherees Kewaden. This episode was conceptualized written and produced by Sam Fen, Alex DeBour, Lisa Hale, Jade Boyd, and me, Garth Mullins, production assistance by Hawk Feather Peterson and Ellie Taylor. Both looked at the script and listened to early drafts of this episode, special thanks to West Coast Leaf and to PAK for their consultation. Crackdown's academic director is Ryan McNeil. The music in today's episode was written and performed by James Ash. To learn more about this topic, please check out our website CrackdownPod.com. You'll find lots of suggested reading there. If you like what we do, please support us at patreon.com/crackdownpod. Thanks for listening, stay safe, and keep six. [CHATTER] [END]