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The heart is a door to everything. . .
By Kathleen
How Frighteningly Strong Meth
Has Supercharged Homelessness
Skid Row in Los Angeles. Photo: David Swanson/Bloomberg via Getty Images
By Benjamin Hart, Intelligencer, December 6th, 2022
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/12/sam-quinones-on-meth-fentanyl-and-homelessness.html
Sam Quinones has covered gangs, crime, and the border for 35 years, including a ten-year stint at the L.A. Times.
He established himself as a leading voice on the opioid epidemic with the 2015 book Dreamland, which told the story of how prescription-drug companies and a sophisticated black-tar heroin operation in Mexico wreaked havoc across the U.S.
In his follow-up, 2021’s The Least of Us, Quinones focused on the rise of two synthetic drugs: fentanyl, which had become ascendant in the intervening years, and a frighteningly potent form of meth that can quickly inflict tremendous damage on users.
The extreme effects of these drugs, Quinones believes, has worsened the homelessness crisis in America.
I spoke with Quinones about the ravages of meth and fentanyl, how they have exacerbated social problems around the country, and what local and federal governments can do to stem the problem.
In your book, The Least of Us, and in an Atlantic piece last year, you wrote about the rise of very pure meth, which is produced in a different way than the variety that used to flow into the U.S.
The effects have been devastating, but this still seems like a fairly under-the-radar phenomenon. Has it gotten more attention since you wrote about it?
My book highlighted this problem that people were seeing all across the country, and now people are trying to understand why it’s happening. And I think more and more people are coming to the conclusion that the meth coming from Mexico is being produced with much more potency. [Read more…]
Volunteering as a Reader
at WISH Foundation
in Vancouver’s DTES
Three times now in the last few months, I’ve been to Wish Foundation on Wednesday evenings from 7 to 9:30 to do readings, but mostly to listen to the women speak of their struggles with addiction, their pain and issues. We laugh, we cry, we process together.
Some of the staff at the Foundation have been curious and wanted readings, too. What amazing stories of resilience, from the street to giving back, working to help with the change.
All these women are incredible. It is an honour to be invited. My next visit will be September 14th.
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Almost two years ago, October 2020, WISH created a shelter. Here is a post in the Vancouver Sun and below is info from their website, October 2021, a year after it was created.
Working as a Reader
with Women in Recovery
I have been volunteering since 2016 at John Volken Academy in Surrey, a therapeutic community for young people in recovery from many different kinds of addiction.
At first, I taught sewing and crafts, then I began taking the women on outings to visit therapeutic horses and outdoor theatre.
As we got to know each other, they were curious how I made a living, wanting to know about the information I share in readings.
Lately, when I visit the women on Monday evenings, we pull cards.
We sit in a circle around their large dining room table, and they pull 3 cards from each of the decks I use — I work with 2 Tarot decks and my own, Cards of Balance.
Then we discuss what is going on in their lives, with aid of the cards.
There are often fun gasps of amazement as the cards mirror what is happening for them, encouraging them along on their incredibly courageous paths.
Being with these women is a highlight of my week.
I feel so blessed to be included on their journeys
as they change into Who They Truly Are.
Being a Reader
I work as a reader online (to book an appointment please go: here) and in person at TAP, Fort Langley, corner of Mavis and Glover.
When I do readings I use the Tarot, and a deck I have created myself called, Cards of Balance, that focuses on Universal Laws, Divine Qualities, our dimensional reality connected to a 13 chakra system.
Often I talk about the importance of sitting still in the heart — out of the mind — imagining a pebble drop from mind to heart and sitting there heart listening.
It’s quite different from being in the mind and meditating.
With consistency, one can become quite adept at communicating with our guidance, through the heart.
The other thing I always tend to mention when I’m a reader is how important it is to be balanced, in equal Love for the Divine Mother and the Divine Father, which relates back to our own mother and father, or our early life caregivers.
Face Masks
for Admiral Seymour School
& Total Donated
March 30th, I found my way to the office of Admiral Seymour School, 1130 Keefer Street, Vancouver to deliver face masks.
It’s a strange thing when the outside door to the office is locked due to a pandemic.
Luckily, 2 children running by said to go up some outside stairs, and once inside I wound my way around to the office, looking at pink arrows on the floor designating which side of the hall to stay on.
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