International Remembrance Day for people who have died in the War on Drugs 2015

Each year, we all find ourselves drawn to a special day in which to remember, to grieve, or to celebrate those moments of the past that were both meaningful and life-changing. When great sacrifices were made or when humanity shone at its brightest.

For my community, perhaps our most treasured day, is 21st July: It is International Remembrance Day for people who have died in the war on drugs. Yet this is not a war with a beginning and an end. It has been unrelenting in its attacks on communities and insidious in its reach across the world.

It has become a war and a crusade; one that targets many of societies most marginalised and often accepts nothing but capitulation, submission and defeat. Never have so many, been so judged by an entire world of people so ready to blindly condemn.

International Remembrance Day is to remember those we know, and those we don’t – from our villages, towns and cities across the world. The vast majority of these deaths are not just deaths from drugs, but from the laws of prohibition and the fallout.

Entwined in a net of misguided and ignorant drug policies, my community is struggling on too many fronts and we keep on burying our dead. This conflict only speaks the words of prejudice and fear, of suspicion, of racism and always of contradiction. Yet the damage is being done to you and me. It is my mum and your dad, it is his sister, and her brother, it is their child and our community.

But today, united as comrades across the world, we will pay tribute to our heroes. We will remember the laughter, the characters, the escapades; we will remember those we have lost with the dignity they deserve but rarely got. We will celebrate their thirst for another life, another road, another way. And we will respect their choices and lifestyles.

The 21st of July is a time when the community of people who use drugs can remember and pay tribute to our friends; and all those funerals we couldn’t attend and all those deaths that no one acknowledged and all those moments when we never got to say goodbye.

July 21st is the day when all across the world, we will carry our torch of dignity and hope and remember our friends.

For Chris, for Mickey, for Trisha, for Jimmy, for Sean, for Eric, for Tony, for John, for Susan and Karl, for Ritchie, for Michael B, for Amanda, Gary O and for too many more…

Anon

For more information, please see:

• Support don't Punish Campaign
• Anyone's Child Campaign
• Drug User Peace Initiative

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