A moment of silence and reflection for those lost to opioids

If the true measure of a society ishow it treats its most vulnerable members, the way that we treat our drug users shows London still has a long way to go.

That was the strong message that Brian Leister, executive director of the Regional HIV/AIDS Connection, used to kick off Friday's vigil in memory of the 400 Londoners who've lost their lives to opioids in the past 10 years.

A crowd of about 100 gathered in London's IveyPark, despite the threat of rainto share their stories and pay their respects to those who have died.

Among them wasJosh Arthur Vanbiesbrouck, who is in the midst of his own recovery process and says the overdose-reversing drug naloxone has saved his life 'at least seven times.'

Vanbiesbroucksaid recovery is made doubly difficult because of the judgment that comes from all areas of society, including healthcare professionals.

"Addiction doesn't discriminateit can be your husband, wife, daughter, son. Neighbour you don't like, neighbour you do like. It could be anybody, and people really gotta wake up to that," he said, adding thatthe stigma and shame of addiction can keep drug users from accessing housing and healthcare.

'Statistics have no beating heart'

Many speakers talkedabout remembering thelives behind the staggering numbers that are often used to tell the story of the opioid crisis, and seem to come out every week.

London poet laureate Tom Cull touched on this idea as he read hispoemAbide, which he wrote with the vigil in mind.

An excerpt reads:

Numbers can't count lives;
statistics have no beating heart,
can't tell you that one good story,
that joke that spit out your morning coffee,
cannot seduce you with a smile, those eyes
that said, I love that you love that I love you.
Numbers don't add up---no ledger can hold
the complicated riches of even one life.
We search now for a new math.

"I think if we cannot connect with these lives as lives, then we can't really begin to work on the problem because we see it as external to ourselves, external to our concerns," said Cull.

The vigil happened in the midst of London's heated debate aroundthe location for a permanent supervised consumption site.

The health unit has proposed two sites at 241 Simcoe St. and 446 York St. Two other locations372 York St. and 120 York St.have been proposed and discarded, after the landowner of the first site walked away from lease negotiations and business owners near the second site opposed the project.

Leister says he hopes the vigil will remind Londoners that treating opioidaddiction is a question of saving livesand that all lives are worth saving.

"Everyone in our community is important, including people who are caught up in the tight grip of addiction, and we just want to pause and acknowledge that at this juncture in time," he said.