photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Author and journalist Sam Quinones, on screen, discusses his book, "The Least of Us, True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth," at an event May 8, 2024 at the Lawrence Public Library. The event was moderated by Dr. Bruce Liese, a clinical director for an addiction research and treatment program run through the University of Kansas, who is showing Quinones' book to the audience gathered at the library.

Sam Quinones is neither a doctor nor a scientist, but he’s seen and talked to enough addicts that he has a piece of advice that he wishes the groups Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous would heed.

“I think they need to lose that second word,” Quinones told a local audience Wednesday at the Lawrence Public Library who had gathered to hear the author and journalist discuss his latest book on the meth and fentanyl crisis in America. “I think they need to be not anonymous. We need to be telling their stories.”

Quinones, author of “The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth,” was the keynote speaker at Wednesday’s library event, which also featured a panel of local experts on drug, treatment and recovery issues.

Quinones, who interviewed many addicts for his latest book and previous works that explored the explosion of Mexican-produced drugs into America, said the stigma of drug addiction is a major barrier to an addict’s recovery.

“The only way people change their mind about a topic is through storytelling,” he said. “Storytelling is the most powerful tool we have … The problem with addiction is it has always been hidden.”

Panel members largely agreed. Many said progress will be made when drug addiction is viewed more similarly to medical conditions like diabetes or hypertension.

“An important thing to remember is that addiction is a brain disease,” Chrissy Mayer, chief community based services officer at DCCCA, said. “It is not a moral failing. Chronic conditions do have relapse, and you can recover again.”

However, when addicts do have a relapse, that is often a time when they begin to lose familial or community support, said Dr. Nana Dadson, chief medical officer at Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center.

“That is when they need the most support possible,” Dadson said.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

David Hawley, an owner of the Avalon Wellness and Recovery center in Lawrence participates in a panel on issues of addiction on May, 8, 2024 at the Lawrence Public Library.

And sometimes a story is the support they need. David Hawley, who has been in recovery for 20 years and is now a co-owner of a soon-to-open private drug treatment center on Iowa Street, said many things can cause an addict to decide to try recovery. Often it can be hearing from someone else who has.

“I was tired of sacrificing everything for that one thing,” Hawley said of his moment where he entered recovery. “I listened to someone else’s story, and he said something that just struck a nerve with me.”

Lieutenant Mark Mehrer, with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, and Zijun Wang, assistant professor at the University of Kansas’ Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology, both urged that storytelling should include parents talking to their children.

Mehrer, seeing the impacts on the streets, said parents need to understand that both Topeka and Kansas City are major drug trafficking hubs for meth and fentanyl, and that even mild experimentation that their children may undertake with drugs can result in death due to how many products are being unknowingly laced with deadly fentanyl.

Wang, who runs a laboratory that studies the impacts of drugs on the brain, agreed with that assessment, and also urged parents and children to be extra knowledgeable about what they are putting into their bodies.

She made a point to tell the crowd, for example, that many of the claims downplaying the medical impacts of THC — the chemical in marijuana that makes you high — still are lacking much-needed scientific backing.

“Watch out for wrong information flying around,” she said.

In his latest book, Quinones wrote extensively about the impact a new synthetic version of meth is having on the homeless population. At times in “The Least of Us,” Quinones wrote about criticisms of tent cities and how they have become “pods of exploitation where people used dope, sold dope or performed acts that allowed them to procure it.”

However, a crowd of approximately 130 people who filled the library’s auditorium heard very little discussion on that or similar topics. Most of Quinones’ talk focused on how the book came to be and some of the stories that most moved him.

Quinones often came back to the importance of telling those stories. He said it is true that many people’s addictions are shaped by outside forces that could include childhood trauma, economic calamities, mental illness or other factors they have little control over. But he also told the audience that for storytelling to have its most impact, it also must be “unvarnished.” He said that means also telling those stories that don’t always involve some outside force that has led to an addiction.

“We need to be forthright about the failings of people who get into this as well,” Quinones said. “It is not correct to say this is only a consequence of outside forces. This is about human beings, and we all screw up. All of this has to be part of the story.”

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Zijun Wang, an assistant professor in KU’s Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, makes a point as a member of a panel discussing issues of addiction. Wang participated in the panel with officials from the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, DCCCA, Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center and a new, private drug addiction treatment center on May 8, 2023 at the Lawrence Public Library.