Unknown Speaker 00:03 And I think that that paradox gets really confusing. And the bridge for me around in this column and B scale, that anytime there's this patronizing position whereby somebody looks down and someone says I'm trying to help you, I know how to help you, I know better what you need that you do that my feeling Unknown Speaker 00:27 is that the answer is Unknown Speaker 00:30 you know, don't you think you don't know half of what's going on with me and if we did, take your time so easy, you know, whatever that there has, Unknown Speaker 00:39 reminds me and this this is really, really helpful as progressed to hear you talk some more about what's going on but one thing that I that I think may put it a little bit of perspective is and it maybe you've actually seen this is that when she did that woman she will have the information and it's there to make sure Unknown Speaker 01:09 was that you know, people who are hired and they are not and and they addiction doesn't doesn't work nine to five, Monday to Friday as a hoax was that they had the information with them that at that point, when they wanted it, it would be there and these places would be available to them. So that was the whole point of doing the PowerPoint that way was was to recognize that and also to recognize that nobody else would do that. I mean, the current system is punitive you must go on Monday at nine o'clock but you must be the one of the first one to get money on Monday at nine o'clock and if you can't make it I've told people to go to sleep to absolutely ensure they will be one of the first because if they if they get high during the night and they fall asleep somewhere else or on the subway train they don't get it I mean so that there is it's true that the term system doesn't take into account the reality Yes, it's true. I mean, I know that that that information will be used but but it doesn't mean that I don't feel the way I feel about it and of the other two women who are still one of them is my age Hispanic and she will she will not go to a program she absolutely she wants to go to detox she wanted to build lashes but she wouldn't I really understood ourselves do this I really tried to network sitting someplace that we take for granted in HR Unknown Speaker 03:23 well through hard work I mean they're just Unknown Speaker 03:28 crazy because I mean there's there's a place in New York that's I think the one place that I noticed the Odyssey which has a program that is 20 minutes Unknown Speaker 03:41 they do five sets Unknown Speaker 03:47 but other specialty in the country like the United States and the first began this counseling, I use the word scholar and then the last word and and, of course the black woman a black man really so this leads if you don't know this little thing. Unknown Speaker 04:29 What we need to learn is that you can isolate problems and you don't step into drug abuse program and racist dashes you don't step into that. As you know a lot of battered women's shelter will take you if you're on drugs, which I always thought made sense at one point. I mean, does people who are trying to you know, make sure the house is safe and all those things. But then I realized like what do you do if you're a battered woman who is addicted to something and has some other health problem? Where do you go with everything and your wife said I'm into boxes? Unknown Speaker 04:59 Me have housing because housing has been sharing everything all their life. We have a person here that questionnaire and ask people how they want to run this clean, sober house to every group, every time they come, they have no idea because all their life, they had never their home. So we are working on that. Because they never watch. Somebody wants to communicate this. Everybody has different ideas, it's very hard to make a common case for people that have never had anything somebody hate to share, because they're sharing. So we're working on that questionnaire to come up Unknown Speaker 05:55 shortly. I mean, one of the things that I thought was very good. I think one of the secretaries actually said something about that it's really about, not about rehabilitation. It's about habilitation never experienced these things. Unknown Speaker 06:11 Mostly to say that not to minimize the problem that these people face getting help and willing to happen. But I know a lot of people that work in an occupant rehab interview with the rehab, Smithers, they are fully expected to get into the Drug Rehab Center in Manhattan. And I know a lot of people have been 12 Step groups, their counselors that work there. They are, in my experience, really aware of the problems and that they know their battery, sexual abuse of children. And they know, I mean, a lot of them they know these things, they, they don't quite compartmentalize them, but they do have a working awareness of it. And it's kind of like, understanding. There are places out there, of course, they're unbelievably expensive. I think they were just like their days $14,000 Unknown Speaker 07:13 per person. Yeah. Because really is Unknown Speaker 07:16 there some sort of selection process by the people who actually have to close certain jobs, and then that also create a column and then being able to hit Buy, because privilege is like a lot of money being poured out. And these people don't really care about getting rid of their growth problems. They, you know, there's just something they have to do their job is a really complicated problem. Everything everybody's talking about this is true. is completely. Unknown Speaker 07:46 No, there are there are I mean, I learned a great deal. Unknown Speaker 07:51 I learned something that I think should really be illuminated, which is that incest survivor support groups and the rehabs are a matter of course, Unknown Speaker 08:00 it was it was how unusual, oh, maybe we ought to illuminate them. They said don't bother every single place. It doesn't matter, of course, that we made them assess Unknown Speaker 08:08 survival supporters. And all of that is just a question I was thinking about beginning of using some of these cases, an organizing tool for local health care and whatnot. And I wanted to ask a legal question, which is, in one of the cases, you mentioned that the judge said, Lauren should have done this, and this and this, but there was no three sections available care. And I was thinking of the pitfall, if you were, could you ever argue, you know, on appeal, or whatever, those things are not available for free and the pitfall. And if you want to use it as an organizing tool to get those things in the pitfall might be if those things ever were in our vision of society available, and somebody chose then not to do it that sort of caught between a rock and a hard place and Unknown Speaker 09:07 making that kind of argumentation to ask. It's a good question, because my opponents often raise that they said, Well, what if you have a woman who has, you know, treatments available, almost the same, which is whether or not somebody takes advantage of those things, they want to be available. And there are going to be people who do things that I don't want, that are a waste of their lives. You know, I don't know why we were created to be vulnerable to addiction, and prejudice and all the things that are lousy, that seem to be as much a part of our culture as all the good things about struggling freedom and being healthy and taking care of other people. And so I'm willing to accept that there are going to be some people who won't take advantage of it. And that still doesn't mean that I'm going to want to turn over the power the state to decide what's best for those people. How is the state going to be able to make the decision that they This person doesn't need to go through the struggle with alcoholism to get to someplace better in their lives. That that's just that doesn't then give you the right and the statement was decisions. For the other reasons it's good, I don't want the state to be empowered to force women to go to a program where d s happens to be the new drug treatment. So it's just it's true that it's harder to argue, because then you have to be willing to accept that you can't make people do the right thing. That that's part of it. For pure cranks, everyone's getting told that you can't make people do the right thing. And then you don't want the government deciding anything. And I'm willing to live in a country in a society where people aren't necessarily helpful all the time, or they're making choices. Unknown Speaker 10:49 So what you say is that you would like you would like the centers to be Unknown Speaker 10:53 available to people, Unknown Speaker 10:55 when they got ready to stop drinking, drugging, whatever. So like, how do you intend to, like we're working towards this goal, but like, I'm, it's like, I'm done with it. Like, how would we go about doing it? Once we leave this room? Unknown Speaker 11:14 I know, that's a good transition, you know, what you can do? And I forgot to put their names and addresses on here, I will send you please. There are there are actual things that you can do. First of all, some of you I would really like an answer, because I think we need there are more potential lawsuits about getting the treatment that exists to not discriminate. You can lobby for them. And clauses that require non discrimination among those programs that exist, you know, the ACT UP group just had a huge action. And often in Washington, you know, a range of things ACT UP has gotten together to go pick it to get drugs in this country to true days that were in there. Where are we at the FDA around? Are you 486 and drug treatment that's appropriate for pregnant women. I actually thought I there is a group now that's formed that's starting to develop action. It's called wham Women's Health Action and liberalisation. That's one group to contact. I actually wanted to form an act up to have a group that really looked at women's issues and abortion rights. That was the equivalent was sitting passionately, all of a sudden, it struck me what the name of it should be. It was knocked up. Actually, somebody came up with the acronym it would no, no, no CT up with VMware and an octa national network of citizens concerned with privacy. Joining them, being involved in the legislature at any moment could be on the verge of proposing legislation. And I think it Westchester somebody's working on legislation for mandatory reporting and criminalization, making sure that you write letters to your legislator saying don't do this. And more than that, saying, I want to see money because going to commit to working on reproductive rights, any part of the reproductive rights agenda, any part of the feminist agenda for reproductive rights, because it's all connected, this stuff is happening in large part because of the anti choice movement, education, you know, doing things like this. Do you want to suggest? Well, Unknown Speaker 13:37 I wanted to ask about the lawsuit with the inferences because mom made me an addict. I mean, I can see that as a real question to, to some of the issues that you brought up. So if I had reproductive rights, my chart if I have no choice, but the child has one choice and the child is forced to be born, an addict be forced to be more brain damage. So in the name of child child's whose mother was forcing them, right, but they had no choice, right. But Unknown Speaker 14:09 that's a point of view that, again, is why I suppose and I think we all should any of these actual third fact was a case in Illinois Stallman where a woman was driving a car got into a car accident, baby was more injury, somebody sued on her behalf. And fortunately, the Supreme Court of Illinois said no way. They said we will not create the legal fiction. You said babies have rights women have rights. Unknown Speaker 14:35 But honestly this is hypothesis. I don't I don't know I don't support this but I can just believe that as the repercussions. The mother has rights okay. So now look at these babies are going to start suing them on Unknown Speaker 14:48 and the court fortunately said we will not adopt the legal fiction that woman and fetus are separate. We will not create pregnancy we will not turn pregnancy into a hostile relationship with the mother And the court said, if we start here where we draw the line, you know, everything a pregnant woman does have some effect on us. And they recognize what pregnancy is that you cannot guarantee anything, no woman can guarantee that she's going to give birth to a perfect baby. And that this notion that we can guarantee that by threatening pregnant women, either with lawsuits or prosecution is, is part perhaps of that whole eugenics history, that notion that you can create perfection by controlling other people. And the court just said, no way. But another court in Michigan did allow somebody to sue, on behalf of the baby that was born with serious damage to its teeth because the mother took tetracycline during her pregnancy, such a crime, you know, should all be boardy Yes, daughters try to sue your mom's a lot of these kids are with the sad thing that doesn't come out is that a lot of these cases are brought? I think not because there's some ideology behind it. But because there's some insurance thing, and the only way to get coverage there for the crowd is to do other things for young lady that. Educate yourself. The other entity I know about, okay, and if you can, if you can volunteer your time, I volunteer Unknown Speaker 16:23 my time. And Unknown Speaker 16:26 I'm interested in Unknown Speaker 16:28 what I'm saying is that I want to take this further. That's why I asked her the question, you know, I want to, I want to see that there are places for women who can afford drug treatment, because I know for a fact wanting in order for a woman to go into a decent drug treatment program, she has to have gha insurance. She can't even have Blue Cross Blue Shield. Shield, they turn over when Unknown Speaker 16:53 you have to work on that. There are other problems quality, complete negligence. They will help. Unknown Speaker 17:09 You know, the places that you speak up and speak. Live in in any borough. One place Yeah. To get for women to get in hair in your matching, how long is only getting a cleaner? Unknown Speaker 17:32 But what's happening with those lawsuits? And what's what's going to happen? Unknown Speaker 17:41 In the criminal camps, well, the problem with them is that they're always a very individualized, you get a case here and there. You know, we're fighting desperately hard, but they're now like that was the first real victory anywhere in the country. And there are now five cases in Florida. And there's there several and the ones in Massachusetts and Michigan are based on the drug trafficking theory and work somewhere. So we're doing it. So I keep thinking that if enough people never groups finally come out against this, which they haven't. By the way. I mean, it is time to start picking the AMA, the AMA will not come out clearly in favor of abortion. They are not yet they are talking about a maternal fetal policy that protects the woman and they still are coming out with really becoming a very aggressive force and that we need to be putting pressure on medical groups to start taking a stand against this. Unfortunately, they are so respected as well as getting our own voices heard. You know, one of the things I've done wrong today. It's you know, AIDS doesn't let a panel on, ACT UP doesn't let a panel on AIDS happen. And now having a person with AIDS on the panel trying to have personal events, we ought to be hearing from some of these women, about their losses, you know, we need to get them to testify before Congress. And we need to end what I try to do with each of these litigations is to make it into an organizing opportunity. And to bring in groups and, in fact, each of these cases, in Johnson, we got the American Public Health Association and a bunch of medical news that hadn't come out with a positive statement against this to write an amicus brief so we use each case to get these folks on record. Unknown Speaker 19:23 Although the Do you have an idea that is there in the world now the whoever is having babies has the potential to whenever people are having babies Unknown Speaker 19:41 now. Yeah, New York, New York and other places routinely tested. There's a whole area I didn't even touch on which is these babies are automatically taken away. Foster Care, the foster care people may well be addicts themselves, who were doing foster care to raise money. Nobody's getting them into their nightmare and that's again another area to start looking at how protesting against the automatic removal of babies, the reliance on a single positive toxicology, they only tells you the woman use drugs in the previous 72 hours, it's all it tells you don't tell you that she's a good parent, that parent anything else. And changing the family law Family Court practices, pick up the federal court find the judges who are the judges who are coming down, especially out in Nassau County, horrifying decisions, when they took away a baby from a woman who had not yet been a drug addict was clean got pregnant, still two or three joints during delivery out Unknown Speaker 20:38 terrified. Unknown Speaker 20:43 So just make sure that there's been some research just a little thing done on a and the other programs and why why they work or not and who they've worked with. To the extent that there's any take on this, it's obviously a hard thing to research, it appears that the people that end up the prototype of successful AAA covered person is somebody that had something to lose, when it when the going gets rough, any of us that have ever been addicted or are close to people have no you know, process, and that it's going to be something they're some of the more they're to some degree that will allow, you know, support getting through the rough moments. In my own sort of exploration with this stuff, I come to this conclusion that if we ever deal with these problems, apart from questions of political polarization, empowered communities, and access to resources, we are, are going to be hopelessly lost. Because if we don't do that connection, because really, I think that was smart, and very aware of what's up. And when somebody says to me, you know, watch, you go through hell, and I want you to go and like everyone's saying, go here and do that. And then when you're done, you're still going to have is a very rational human to, to know. And I hope that we don't assume that our only options are to either say coercive criminalization on one extreme, or moral relativism, I can get to be who I want you to be on the other extreme, as opposed to, let's figure out how all of us have the kind of power in our lives and access to resources and Sasa channel. But I just hope that this anti addiction movement that any of us are involved with continues with the question of class control, Unknown Speaker 22:54 or at least looks that also looks back. Because what what's happening in the programs that I see, and what I see through the National Black Women's Health Project is we're not talking about moral relativism, we're not talking about imposing a particular point of view, we're not talking about ignoring all the things that affect people's lives like poverty, racism, prejudice, but that people don't have a place where they have an opportunity to know even what's going on themselves. We just aren't given that, to talk about what it feels like whether it's being addicted or having to work in the kinds of environments we work in. I want to end first of all, saying one thing and trying something out to you just that I read a book about drug treatment programs for women, written by some men from a program in New York City for a long time. And they pointed out that when the national when the government began to fund drug abuse treatment programs, they acted as if there were no women at all pregnant or not. And in the book, they said something that I found amazing, they said, you know, in the 70s, we started to get some programs because of the feminist movement. What are we gonna do now? And they were saying that, that they were acknowledging them the feminist movement is a large movement and the push for these things wasn't as strong in their perception was that they weren't saying there isn't. And but they placed it right in our laps and we're the people who made the difference in the seven days please come back and help Unknown Speaker 24:32 coming out, you've actually not anyway, all research everything, not work. There's no gender specific needs that the academic content we've always had. We don't have Unknown Speaker 24:54 Can we just as a closure thing, go around the room and just say one word than that? Your thinking has come to you in terms of healing but what you've learned today Unknown Speaker 25:07 just one word Unknown Speaker 25:25 overwhelming double breasted Unknown Speaker 26:22 just one word to describe what you're feeling as a result of what you've been hearing. Unknown Speaker 26:28 It's very Excellent