A life-saving call shouldn’t come with strings attached 

Lieutenant-Colonel Ian Hutson has served as a Salvation Army officer for 40 years, including in alcohol and other drug addiction programmes in Wellington, Christchurch and Auckland.

OPINION: After 40 years working alongside people affected by alcohol and other drugs, I’ve learned that the question is rarely whether someone needs help. It’s whether they feel safe enough to ask for it. 

Parliament is currently considering the Drug Overdose (Assistance Protection) Legislation Bill, which would protect people from prosecution for low-level drug offences if they call 111 to help someone having an overdose or a bad drug reaction. 

Some have asked why such a law is needed at all given that the police can already exercise discretion over prosecution in emergency situations. Surely, they think, anyone would call an ambulance for themselves or a dying friend? But I’d invite them to spend some time with the people The Salvation Army helps in communities across New Zealand to understand that things are rarely that simple. 

For many of the communities we work with through addiction programmes like The Bridge, the police are not always seen as a source of safety. For some people they are the last people marginalised whānau would want to invite into their lives. 

I often think of a woman I met through one of those programmes who experienced extreme violence from her partner when she left with the children. That was a situation where police could genuinely have protected her, but she refused to call for help – the fear of what could happen if the police or other authorities got involved won out. 

Now imagine that same fear in a room where someone has stopped breathing due to use of illicit drugs. 

Or consider how shut out of ordinary healthcare many marginalised people already are. When we once tried to arrange a clinic for people from known gang communities, the local healthcare practice lost interest the moment they understood who might be coming through their doors. People notice when they’re not welcome and they stop asking for help. 

Or take families without homes. Many parents in that situation are frightened of being helped, because being noticed by officials might mean losing their children. They have learned to stay invisible. An overdose can feel like an impossible choice between a loved one’s life and the family staying together. No-one should face that choice. 

And then there are the young people who don’t want to call for help as they’d be mortified for others to learn that they’d been using drugs. Embarrassment and fear of consequences are powerful forces in a teenager’s mind at 2am. 

These are different groups with different lives, but they share one thing. When something goes wrong, their first instinct is to hesitate in seeking help. The uncertainty of not knowing what the police or other authorities might do, adds to a fear that they have experienced all their lives. 

Some opponents of the bill argue that police discretion makes a change in the law unnecessary, that officers would simply help rather than charge anyone. With respect, that misses the point. 

For the people I’m describing, it isn’t the likelihood of prosecution that stops the call. It’s the prospect of police involvement at all, and the uncertainty about what follows. Discretion exercised by an officer after the fact does nothing for the person deciding, in a moment of panic, whether to pick up the phone. Only certainty beforehand can do that. 

Many members of The Salvation Army commit to lives free of alcohol and drugs – a positive lifestyle choice we would encourage all to consider. But holding that conviction has never stopped us from meeting people where they are. We want to reduce the harm people may experience through drug use and for them to live long enough to find a different path, if they choose one. Our Bridge programmes run on a harm-reduction model – that includes abstinence through to responses as proposed in this bill. 

This bill does not weaken the law. Ordinary drug law continues to apply outside of emergencies. What this “Good Samaritan” law does is uphold the law while removing a barrier that is costing lives, with almost three New Zealanders a week lost to preventable overdose. It is not the whole answer. But it is something that helps, and we should take it. 

The Health Select Committee is accepting public submissions on the Bill until Tuesday June 16. If you believe a person’s life matters more than a drug possession charge, I encourage you to say so. It only takes a few moments of your time. 

And as we all know, time is precious. Some of the people I’ve worked with over four decades are alive today because help arrived in time. Too many others are not.