Host (00:00):
It's hard to believe, but this is episode number eight of the Gay In America podcast. Thanks for checking us out and keep coming back because we have some exciting new projects coming up. If you want to stay in the loop, remember to follow us on Instagram and Facebook. We'll also be on TikTok soon.
Podcast Fan (00:23):
Gay in America is an oral history podcast sharing experiences of gay people from all orientations, backgrounds, and ages in America. Our goal is to inspire each other to live our best gay lives and help us all understand that our shared experiences unite us as a community.
Host (00:46):
Buckle your safety belts because our next guest on Gay in America podcast is a man with a mission to make big changes in the world. He's tackling addiction, infectious diseases, racism, homophobia and politics in Minnesota. In fact, legislation he wrote to legalize not just marijuana, but also paraphernalia just passed in Minnesota. It's the first legislation of its kind in the United States, but I'll get out of the way and let him tell you what it's all about.
Eddie Krumpotich (01:21):
So my name is Edward Creech. I'm the Upper Midwest policy lead for the National Harm Reduction Coalition. I do public policy and grassroots efforts out of Nebraska, South Dakota and Minnesota. I'm a Minnesota and work primarily in the state of Minnesota, also with the Drug Policy Alliance as a consultant as well as a 9 8 8 suicide Dees escalator in my hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota.
Host (01:52):
Edward is a change maker, but his main focus has been on a program called Harm Reduction.
Eddie Krumpotich (01:58):
So harm reduction is not just a public health policy. Harm reduction is a social justice movement. I say that because it started in the early, late 1980s as a result of the AIDS crisis, particularly with individuals like the National Harm Reduction Coalition, who were on the front lines holding people's hands while they were dying and creating programs that saved the lives of people until a r t was developed in the mid 1990s. The harm reduction is how we save lives in our community. And who are we? We're people who are not the norm. We're the old weirdos, as they say a k A. The ones most disproportionately affected Realize that when we have disease profiles in this country, they affect the people that are most impacted by trauma. And so harm reduction stands up for those people. It's it's intersectioned, meaning that we go for homeless organizations and social justice movements, our black and brown indigenous populations. That's part of the deal, ma'am,
(03:04):
At its basic premise. Harm reduction understands that drug use isn't going anywhere, right? We're not going to all of a sudden get rid of drugs from our society. Harm reduction is meeting somebody where they're at and empowering them to make their decisions in the safest way possible. It's keeping our community safe in drug use, and it's also keeping the individual safe as well. So for years, we used an abstinence-based model of recovery. This assertion of harm reduction is basically saying, Hey, before someone even makes it to recovery, if they decide to, how do we keep them safe?
Host (03:41):
This program addresses more than just addiction and drug use.
Eddie Krumpotich (03:44):
There are a lot of crises that lie at the base of the iceberg here. So infectious diseases are way up in the United States. Harm reduction and the efforts that result from harm reduction reduce those infectious diseases by 50%, 50%. It's an astronomical number, and they've been doing it for decades. We also promote things like fentanyl test strips and xylazine test strips. The abstinence-based model has been, I would say, stuck in a low percentage of success for a very, very long time, and it has not moved the needle, and it hasn't done so because we haven't opened up the conversation to other modalities.
Host (04:20):
What does this mean for the LGBTQ plus community?
Eddie Krumpotich (04:24):
Well, we know that if you identify as an BT individual or LGBTQIA plus, you are astronomically higher for things like suicide and other components of mental health. I will give you an interesting statistic in a sociological study that was done, gay men who have weight issues and were former athletes, were the highest propensity of people with substance use the highest. And one can assert that. From that, you see somebody who is not loved for their identity, ostracized from a community because of things like weight issues and also very talented, which makes a larger degree of shame. Trauma speaks a very specific language. If you were born as somebody like me, a gay male, you're born with an intrinsic systemic trauma of rejection and abandonment, period. That's a hard stop. There is no denying that we're born into a society that did not love us on the exterior like we deserved it.
(05:24):
So people with trauma, the gateway drug is trauma, whatever it is, it's not cannabis, it's not a drug. It's traumatic events and traumatic responses. So the L G B T Q community, especially gay men, and that's who I'll speak for because that's my experience. Many of us got together in bathhouses. Were finding ways to party and to interact with physical intimacies, and it became our on trauma bonding, our trauma language. And so methamphetamine, particularly along with some other substances, became the party drug for us a few decades ago. As tough as it sounds, it starts with the empathy and tolerance and inclusivity that is currently being excluded, particularly from the LGBTQI plus community and people of color. Our communities are disproportionately hit by substance use and substance use disorder and suicide, and there's a reason for that. So if we want to make a mark in this space, we need to start looking at our individuals in our communities like we matter as much as they do.
Host (06:24):
I asked Eddie how an entire system can be changed.
Eddie Krumpotich (06:27):
It starts with education, right? And there's many modes of education that exists. However, when I came out to my dad for instance, it was one of those subversive conversations where on the outside it was loving, but on the inside, and those microaggressions were not so much. He would walk around the house with a rubber glove where I would go because I had H I V, no joke, and I love this man. He's one of my heroes. However, what I did during that time was I just modeled what it meant to be me, and over time, he began to just love me. For me. I mean, that was the evolution of our relationship. So it points to something much greater is that when people see LGBTQI plus population as people like them, meaning they model human, they model what it means to live in our society, things begin to change, but that also does not start without a revolution. And revolutions are protests, explicit advocacies. We're talking Stonewall and the H I V crisis, particularly in the 1980s for us. So for us, it's standing with our rainbow flag brothers and sisters, and then it's also picking our moments. So if we feel oppressed enough, we know when our back is against the wall enough to be able to come out and change that. And if we need to, we'll do exactly what we've done before.
Host (07:45):
Freddy, this is not just a professional mission.
Eddie Krumpotich (07:48):
I have been to 40 treatments, 40 chemical dependency treatments. I've had countless overdoses. I've been to 30 plus detoxes, I mean, you name it. And things were not working. I had a counselor at one point in my life tell me that, Eddie, you have the worst shame I've ever seen of anybody I've ever met. And I was like, oh, great. Well, that's fantastic. And so what happened was I began to experiment pharmacologically with other stimulants, meaning was it possible that something like Adderall or Vyvanse or methylphenidate could replace, for example, methamphetamine? And it was something that a doctor prescribed for me for A D H D, and then it got denied in a sober house. I almost lost my life as a result of relapses after that. And I had enough hearing. No, I was done hearing about Nancy Reagan. I was done hearing about the 1980s, and I was like, I'm going to change something. So I decided to write a sober home law, and I did this pro bono. I was in my apartment with my cat, and I just got pissed and I said, people are going to listen to me. And they did.
Host (08:49):
But how do you even get started on something like this?
Eddie Krumpotich (08:51):
Oh man, this is God. The first step was for sober home law in Minnesota. I was that pissed about what happened to me in a sober house, and I knew it had happened to others. So I was like, where do I go? How do I do this? So I found a law in 2008 that Minnesota had written but did not pass, and it had good bones to it. So I was like, what can I do with this thing? And so then I just started writing a law that built on that with the issues that I had. And then I started doing interviews. I call 'em grassroots, behind the scenes, like scandalous type interviews with people like, Hey, if you wanted to have something changed, what would you want changed? And it was that simple. And so I got it. And on the last day of the legislative session where you could turn in a bill, I had a retiring senator say to me, I'll take it up. Let's try that. We almost got it passed at the last second, but we gained a lot of good notoriety for being people of our word and for somebody who had a really good law. And so that built into my current advocacy. Today,
Host (09:52):
Eddie is trying to promote a different approach to how we help people who are addicted to drugs. But is it really that different?
Eddie Krumpotich (09:59):
We just passed one of the most important harm reduction bills in the United States. And by the way, I was writing that while using methamphetamine. This is one of those things that I really want to emphasize is that someone's drug use does not influence how they're going to behave. And this is really important because not all drug users are people who are in the gutter, are people who are on the street or are homeless. Now, I have been homeless many years of my life, so I was a high school history teacher and I was a teacher of the year in the state of Maryland and all those things that you look at. And then I finally hit the floor. But my last use of methamphetamine was a show and harm reduction. I was able to stop at certain points I was writing and advocating for this bill while using dope.
(10:47):
It really goes into this idea that most people who are out there who are using substances regardless of the substance, are able to do so in a way that works for them. And so what we're trying to do is figure out how to regulate policies both in statewide and nationally that create safe supply of substances, meaning that we know where things are coming from, we know what we're getting. We're lowering overdoses and also giving people the rights to live their life, but also keeping their community safe. There's a very important line distinction that's drawn there. So if we're using substances, and I'll bring alcohol into this. For instance, in prohibition era, late 19 teens, early 1920s, they decided to get rid of alcohol from our society, get rid of, they did. So because, and I quote this, they wanted to remove the scourge of society.
(11:34):
So they saw it very much like there were low lives out there that we're walking the streets. However, what happened was in the 1920s, we had one of the largest increases in organized crime in our nation's history. One of the most famous we're talking mobsters, and they all came because of an avenue of opportunity, and that was the removal of alcohol. So in the early 1930s, as a result of all that crime, they said, well, we're going to have to make a bargain. We know that alcohol is going to kill people, but we know that it is going to kill way more people if we don't legalize it. And so they legalized alcohol. And what do you know? We know that alcohol is the most deadly substance in the United States besides tobacco. We know it does all this stuff, but it doesn't get a lot of notoriety because most people are responsible. Look at the drug war. The same thing has happened. We make it illegal, and then all of a sudden crime goes way up. People are complaining that it's unsafe. Well, how do we do that? We do the exact same thing, whether we did in the early 1920s.
Host (12:35):
Eddie seems to be calling for something simple.
Eddie Krumpotich (12:39):
We've got our scars, right? Our scars are there, but our friends and family and our kids out there who are lgbtqi plus who are just discovering themselves, how do we want them to learn about how I love themselves? Do we want them to learn from somebody saying, you can't buy cake here, just go away. Or do you want them to say, Hey, you're welcome. Come on in. This is easy stuff, but it starts there. So society of love would be really nice. It's a tall order, however, it just takes one step at a time.
Host (13:09):
But can we legislate love tolerance and acceptance?
Eddie Krumpotich (13:14):
Yeah, I think we can legislate that. I think it depends on the situation at a time. Right now, we have a Supreme Court in power that is unlike we've seen in history, and this is a very one-sided, particularly conservative courts. Even during the Bush and Clinton, during Rehnquist and Roberts years, those courts had swing voters. Justice O'Connor, justice Roberts was a swing vote for a while. There's no stopping this court right now. There's no stopping what this court is going to do. So what we have to do is legislate this, right? So in the legislative process, the only way really around the Supreme Court is to actually pass law. So where do we do that? It's going to be hard to pass law at the federal level because of the fluency. So statewide, we're going to have to start rising up. The problem is not every state has the same ideas about how to serve their populations.
(14:09):
So we have to advocate at the city, at the local, at the state, at the federal level until things begin to change. There's so much hope because if you think about the 1960s, for example, when we call 'em our flower children who were experimenting and loving themselves in a way that was lost for decades, they were right. We are legalizing psychedelics now, which are the highest efficacy for treating mental health. They were spot on. It wasn't even close, and science has known this forever. Now, all of a sudden, middle America's hearing about ketamine and psilocybin, and they're like, oh, yes, it does work. And I'm like, it's been working for a long time, and they knew this when you were making fun of them in the 1960s too. Hopefully we can legislate something like that.
Host (15:02):
Eddie has simple advice for anyone who wants to get started making change in America.
Eddie Krumpotich (15:07):
Start with you. What do you care about? What is it that really drives you internally? And then find people who are the same way. Reaching out to your local organizations and saying, okay, look, if I care about homeless, and that is something that I am just so passionate about, find your local homeless organizations and say, Hey, I want to get involved and ask how they can participate. That is the very beginning of this stuff. So what I would suggest is don't take something that seems like it's momentous at the time, but it doesn't hit you like that. We all know what we're passionate about. It's usually something that has to do with our story, but that's how I would say it would be the best way to start.
Host (15:52):
Asked him what he thinks it means to be gay in America.
Eddie Krumpotich (15:56):
That's a tough question to answer. My story as a white gay male is very different than a lot of my brothers and sisters. I think that it's both one of communal love and systemic oppression. The people who I used meth with, for example, were the ones who saved my life, who spoke a language just similar to our own. And we all grew up in households that were not the best for us. It's a family. It was a family that I didn't even know that I had. When I think about being gay, I realized that I have brothers and sisters that speak a Skittle cocktail. You know what I mean? I can talk to them anytime and they know what my heart looks like just as much as they know what theirs looks like.
Host (16:42):
Did anything in this episode resonate with you? Go to the Gay In America podcast website where you can leave us a voicemail, comment, or type a comment in one of the episode notes. We'd love to hear what you are thinking about. This podcast is produced by me at Open Roads Media, L l c, and features new episodes each month. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share with your friends. Leaving Positive Reviews helps a lot more than you think it does, and we do love hearing from you. Tell us how this podcast has impacted your life. Go to our website where you can drop us a voice message. We may include it in a future episode of Gay in America. We need your help to keep this podcast going. Click the link in the show notes to learn how you can support this podcast. Your direct support helps us inspire and support more. Thank you so much for listening to the Gay In America Podcast and keep coming back for more inspiring stories about being gay in America.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
I.