Grieving in a World That Tells Us Not To

Grieving in a World That Tells Us to Look Away

Twelve years ago, I entered a social service worker program not really knowing how I got there or where I wanted to go. What I had was a sneaking suspicion that our society's systems and services were not structured in such a way that was overly supportive of the complexities of the human experience (spoiler alert: they’re not) and that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me (still doesn’t) so I wanted to know why.

I didn’t have the language for it then, though I was noticing the ways in which people suffer, the ways some people’s suffering gets dismissed, and the ways that policy can make suffering worse.

Like many people, I grew up with the messaging that “drugs are bad” and the people who use them are “weak, unsafe, distrustful, and [insert any variation of this hurtful and dismissive messaging]”. The power of this messaging shattered when my strong willed, smart, independent, loving, and wildly hilarious sister began struggling with her mental health and developed a problematic relationship with drugs.

While in college, I made fast friends with a classmate who gave me a crash course on the history of the (so called) “war on drugs” and was a safe spotter as I ventured into my own world of illicit, recreational drug use. It was this perfect storm that led me to becoming a (very privileged) drug user and harm reduction advocate.

At the time, I knew I was learning about drugs, drug policy, harm reduction, and social justice. I didn’t realize I was also learning about grief.

What is Harm Reduction?

At its core, harm reduction a philosophy and practical approach to reduce the harm associated with any behaviour. Wearing a seatbelt is harm reduction. Wearing sunscreen is harm reduction. Drinking a glass of water for every glass of wine that’s been drunk is harm reduction.

In consideration of unregulated drug use, harm reduction is providing people with the supplies, knowledge and support they need to use drugs in a way that protects their health, dignity, and autonomy. Harm reduction recognizes that many of the harms associated with unregulated drug use are produced by drug criminalization, stigma, poverty, and social exclusion, and advocates for the alleviation of suffering through evidence-informed, compassionate drug policy.

Harm reduction is also an intimate encounter with suffering. It is sitting with people when everyone else has left and every option has been exhausted. It is witnessing people survive circumstances no one should have to encounter. It is being in relationship with people whose lives have often been reduced to labels, statistics, diagnoses, criminal records, or causes of death.

This is where I find immense disenfranchised, anticipatory, and politicized grief.

Disenfranchised Grief

I’ve learned that the grief I’ve experienced isn’t often recognized as grief.

When expressing how I have been impacted by witnessing ongoing systemic violence and human suffering, I am told that “this is what you signed up for”, “you shouldn’t bring your work home with you”, and “you need to have stronger boundaries”.

Oftentimes these statements are made by the most well-intentioned people, which is strange because it is incredibly hurtful to tell someone not to grieve.

When I’ve lost a client due to a drug-related death, their death is often harshly regarded as deserved: the person “knew what they were doing”, they “knew the risks”, they “made that choice”. This language doesn’t just dismiss the person who died, it also attempts to determine whether the people left behind are entitled to grieve.

All of this could not be further from the truth.

The truth is that death is inevitable. However, preventable death that is proceeded by preventable human suffering should have no place in our world. My grief is not a professional failing; it is a totally normal response to completely abnormal social conditions.

Grief tells us that something matters to us. That someone mattered. That the relationship was meaningful. Grief asks us to stop, to notice, to remember, and to care about what has been lost. And perhaps that’s why grief can feel so restricted in a world that is structured around economics, productivity, and individual responsibility.

When Grief Becomes Political

On June 13, 2026, all of Ontario’s remaining Consumption and Treatment Services (CTS) sites (a.k.a. safe injection sites) were forced to close their doors after the Ontario government pulled operational funding; and imposed new restrictions to prevent CTS’s from seeking alternate sources of funding. For those of us who know the value of harm reduction, this is not simply a change in policy. It is a profound loss; it is the anticipation of multiple losses; it is necropolitics.

Necropolitics is a term for the use of social and political power that dictates how some may live and how others must die. When governments make decisions that knowingly increase the likelihood of death and suffering among particular populations, death and grief cannot be separated from politics. We are grieving the people that have died and will die, we are grieving the conditions that make suffering and death more likely, we are grieving the realization that some peoples suffering and deaths are normalized.

Late-stage capitalism has normalized a cultural acceptance that many people in our world are simply meant to go without. Go without shelter. Go without food. Go without healthcare. Go without rights, without choice, without their own voice. And when enough people are forced to live without, their suffering begins to look ordinary. We become accustomed to it. We avoid looking. We learn which deaths to mourn, and which to ignore.

To quote my beloved spiritual teacher Ram Dass, “if you think your happiness in this society comes from turning your eyes away from people that are suffering, believe me, your happiness is riddled with fear”.

Grief (not always so gently) asks us to look at this fear. Grief asks us to connect. To be vulnerable. To see ourselves in the eyes of another.

I believe it is our innate, shared human responsibility to help one another in times of need and, beyond the sadness I have for those directly impacted, I am sad for the members of my community who are indirectly impacted by the consequences of the CTS closures: The barista’s finding people unresponsive in bathrooms; those waiting an unbearable amount of time for an ambulance; the driver who gets out of their car to check on the person that’s slumped over in the bus shelter; the paramedics, fire fighters, police officers (yeah, them too), and healthcare professionals who are already inundated with high workloads and minimal resources that contribute to their own compassion fatigue, losses and grief.

And I am devastated because none of this has to be inevitable.

What do we do with this Grief?

Fear-mongering propaganda about drugs and the people that use them have made it so that we avoid, and look down upon people, rather than get to know them. It has cut off opportunities to see and connect with people that are creative, respectful, funny, knowledgeable, compassionate, trustworthy, dedicated, and all the other lovely (and sometimes not so lovely) qualities we all have, know, and uniquely contribute to our world.

Many of us have been positioned to feel hesitant, and potentially afraid, to see, connect with, and support others. The tricky thing with fear is that when we feel it, it activates our fight-flight-freeze response; this makes our world feel smaller and our choices limited.

And so, my encouragement for those reading this would be to get curious. What is it that you may be afraid of? What gets in the way of connecting with people who present a certain way? Where do these beliefs come from? Who benefits when we are made to feel afraid of one another? What information have we been given, and what information has been withheld from us?

This learning (and unlearning) may bring about an awareness of the biases, judgements, and inaccurate information that create barriers to human connection. And so maybe the next time we encounter suffering, perhaps we can resist the urge to look away and we can say “hello”. We can ask someone if they’re ok. We can offer water. We can listen. We can learn how to respond to an overdose. We can support evidence-informed policies that reduce suffering. We can allow ourselves to care. And we can grieve. Because people who use drugs matter. Their deaths matter. Their suffering matters. And the future that we can create together matters. I trust that the more we see and connect with those whose lives are ignored just as much as their deaths, the more loving, compassionate, and beautiful our world will become.

Here are some links to kickstart your learning!

Self-directed Harm Reduction Fundamentals - https://www.catie.ca/resource/self-directed-course-harm-reduction-fundamentals-the-foundations 

History of Drug Policy in Canada - https://drugpolicy.ca/resources/guides/history/ 

Evidence and Data - https://drugpolicy.ca/resources/guides/evidence/ 

Response to Ontario government CTS defunding - https://drugpolicy.ca/organizations-worldwide-denounce-ontarios-decision-to-defund-remaining-supervised-consumption-sites/