From Russia with love
July 26, 2021
Natasha’s story: Jail, the ‘register’, rehab and life without harm reduction
UN: So how did a nice Russian girl like you end up as a nicer person who uses drugs, Natasha?
Natasha: I was born in a Russian city and grew up in the suburbs of Sydney. My mum came out as a refugee from the hectic times. My dad stayed in Russia; he was a businessman who was doing very well for himself in the new post-Communist era and decided to stay. But I moved with Mum.
UN: How did you find growing up in Australia?
Natasha: For as long as I could remember I have been a free spirit and a social butterfly. I prided myself on being able to punch the biggest cone, do an impressive tackle in footy, know every lyric to a rap song and so forth. I felt safe smoking pot and was not a fan of alcohol. I liked to be in control and being a girl who hung around a lot of guys I believed that alcohol put me at risk.
When I was a teen, there were surfies who drank and skaters who smoked pot. I could neither surf nor skate, but my preference of pot meant that I hung out with the skaters. Funnily enough, the skaters didn’t skate much either — we were all too busy having a sesh! We were like family. Most of us had similar reasons for not wanting to be at home — stressful parents who either weren’t coping (like Mum) or were abusive. Together, we didn’t feel so alone and scared.
UN: And then you grew up.
Natasha: Fast forward six years, I met a guy and madly fell in love, like a typical 18-year-old. He was paroled to his mother’s house for selling drugs and had lots of connections. I had cash. Together we start dealing pot. I found out he was on the methadone program and that made me curious about opioids. At some point, we decide to get heroin together. It was love at first taste and I started using heroin daily — and several times a day. I couldn’t see a reason not to. I was very happy. A few months into it, I got locked up for the first time. I’m not even sure for what — either I don’t remember, or I won’t tell you, but let’s leave it at that!
UN: So how did you end up back in Russia?
Natasha: Well, after that, I kept on getting locked up on a regular basis. I reckon I woke up in the Waverly cells at least 50 times, was transported to the Surry Hills holding cells 4 or 5 times and ended up on remand at Mulawa about 5 times. The longest time I spent in Mulawa was 4 weeks. In jail I met a lot of women who also used drugs like me and who in my opinion had never harmed anyone. I could not understand how they were locked up. These perfectly nice women were mothers whose kids were in foster care and whose partners were locked up as well. It was very confronting.
The women were lovely to me — I was 18 and looked about 14, I was terrified and was lucky that some women in there looked out for me because I was so young. Most of the time I’d get locked up for forgetting to attend court, breaching my bail, breaching something else, forgetting to report or some other crap. I have never harmed anyone and although I enjoyed my drugs and was occasionally a red-hot mess, I was a harmless and fun mess. I was a young kid using drugs and missing legal appointments, I was forgetful and a bit irresponsible, and I could not comprehend how society had equated that to a crime.
Eventually, through constant police contact, I was looking at a year. I’d never done time and was terrified. I called my mum for the first time since leaving home and asked for help. She rang a lawyer and begged the judge to not lock me up. I was given a year’s house arrest and then through court I was able to leave the country for ‘treatment’. Ha, I just wanted to not get locked up, I was not planning on getting any treatment.
UN: So if you didn’t have any treatment lined up, what did you do in Russia?
Natasha: I quickly understood that I was out of my depth. I did not have the cultural fluency to safely use heroin over there and started using speed with a younger crew. There is no Housing, no Centrelink, no harm reduction, no government-funded detoxes or rehabs, and a lot less hope for a good quality of life for people who use drugs. Life expectancy for drug users is much shorter, HIV and hep C among the IV drug using community is widespread. Of the people who injected drugs that I met, I reckon at least 10% had HIV and 90% had hep C.
UN: Wow, those figures are crazy. I read that there are currently 250 people who use drugs still getting HIV every day in Russia. And the rate of hep C is now around 70% of users. Do you think the new hep C treatments have made a difference?
Natasha: My Russian friends love the new treatment as it’s much cheaper than the old one — not to mention much more pleasant! There is no Medicare or PBS, so people have to pay for it themselves. But with the new cheaper treatment, at least now some people can afford to get treatment.
UN: Tell us about living without harm reduction services?
Natasha: You can get fits because there are certain chemists in Russia who will sell them to you. You soon learn who will sell them to you. Yeah, the chemists might treat you like scum, but I’ve had that in Australia, too. You can’t get fits for free and there are no wheel filters, tourniquets, sterile waters, spoons or any of the stuff we take for granted here. The stigma isn’t any worse than Australia, because there are so many users, so people are kind of used to it. There are a few government detoxes but no rehabs and no Opioid Treatment Program.
But the main difference is that there is a register of people who use drugs and once you get on it, it’s almost impossible to get off it. You get on the register if you get arrested, go to detox or even get identified as a drug user by someone in a government service — police, health — that kind of thing. There is also a register for people with mental health issues.
Once you are on a register, you can’t get a job or a licence to drive. If you have been to jail — no job, no licence. I know it is hard here if you have experienced any of those things, but there you can’t get a job unless you work on the black market — and even then it’s hard. And remember, there is no Centrelink or Housing to support people who are doing it tough. Because it’s a community-minded society — not like Australia’s individualism — people are supported by their families. So you don’t see homelessness, but there is a lot of overcrowding and tension.
Once you’re a ‘registered drug addict’ you only get off if you have been abstinent for several years. It also takes you a long time, if you can get a job ‘off the books’, to save up for the very expensive process of hiring a lawyer and lodging for the many court appearances you have to attend. You also have to be able to advocate for yourself, and then be strong enough to go through the taxing process of showing you have changed and saying how sorry you are. So it’s not only the cost, there’s the humiliation and emotional weight of the process as well.
UN: Did you end up arrested in Russia?
Natasha: The top two countries in the world with the highest rate of imprisonment are the USA and Russia. They don’t just criminalise drug use in Russia, they criminalise being poor. I mean, I guess being poor is a sin everywhere, even in Australia. But no, I didn’t end up in jail but I did end up in rehab. I became pretty mentally unwell.
UN: How was rehab?
Natasha: Rehabs are quite expensive and I was lucky that my father supported me. Not many people have that, but I was and am really grateful. I would have ended up in jail very soon if I hadn’t gone to rehab, and I didn’t ever want to be there again — especially in Russia. Being at rehab set me on a journey of finding myself and what’s right for me — a path I’ve been on ever since. To be honest, I didn’t feel well enough to leave after my 6 months was up, so I ended up working at the rehab and stayed another few years. But Russia stopped being right for me, so I returned to Australia.
UN: Were you changed after your time in rehab?
Natasha: Of course, but I still started using when I came home and then went on to use for another few years. You know, I love drugs but I don’t really love who I become when I use them. I lose my capacity to do other things important to me. I feel passionately about reducing the injustices that occur today and I have worked a lot around homelessness. That work is very important to me. But I find it hard to do when I use. I know other people can use and do that stuff — I have seen it — but for me, it’s not possible. So, I became abstinent again and have done that for a few years now. It works for me. I am so not one of those people who thinks everyone should stop using. But I am one of those people who needs to not do it themselves.
UN: Are you happy now?
Natasha: I am. I’ve set myself up to live a life that is important to me. I’ve got the experience and qualifications I need and now I want to spend the next 10 years advocating for system reform. I think it’s unfair that people who use drugs are stripped of all their rights at times. It shits me that the government adds harmful substances to pills so you can’t shoot it up. People still shoot it up and experience unnecessary harm. That’s just one small example.
It shits me that drug prohibition leads to so much harm to so many people who don’t deserve the treatment they get. I think policing around drugs leads to more corruption and just like the alcohol prohibition in America led to the boom of the Mafia, I feel policing around drugs only leads to the rich getting richer. I wish we as a society would spend more money on housing, cultural education, childcare, schools and other social supports instead of spending ridiculous amounts on drug busts, jailing people who use drugs, and supporting a whole industry around denying people’s own choices around their lives.
UN: And that’s why we are proud to be part of a community of people with lived experience of drug use. Thanks for an amazing interview, Natasha. Udachi! (good luck!)
Natasha: Spasibo (thank you), that was really fun!