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Victor Mondaca: Harm Reduction on Winnipeg’s Streets

10 minutes ago
32 min read

Victor Mondaca once slept by the river in Winnipeg with nothing but the clothes on his back. Today he works in executive leadership in community-based housing and co-founded Nahuen Consultation with his partner Amanda, training frontline workers, librarians, students and everyday Winnipeggers in de-escalation, harm reduction and how to reverse an overdose.



We sat down with Victor, who is Mapuche, to talk about what actually makes a community safer, and why pushing people out of sight makes things worse.


We’re talking:

  • Recovery as something built over time through culture, family and purpose, and the role shame plays in keeping people from help

  • What reconciliation between police and Indigenous communities would actually require

  • How science can break down stigma around substance use, and why we treat some substances so differently from others

  • What real community safety looks like, and who gets left out when we push people out of sight


Victor’s argument is simple and harder to practice than it sounds: if we want safer neighbourhoods, the people most at risk have to be part of the “we.” He has responded to multiple overdoses while out in our city because the person was in plain view. Move people out of sight, and outreach workers can’t find them either.


As Victor puts it: “If the end goal is safety, then we need to look at the most vulnerable and ensure their safety too.”


Victor Recommends:



Learn more about Nahuen Consultation—including upcoming harm reduction training opportunities in Winnipeg—on their website.


Episode Transcript:


Stuart Murray 00:03

My guest today has spent life on both sides of the line most of us only read about. Victor Mondaca was raised in Winnipeg's inner city, and today he works in executive leadership in community-based housing while co-founding with his partner Amanda an organization called Nahuen Consultation. Nahuen trains people, frontline workers, shelter staff, librarians, students, ordinary Winnipeggers, in de-escalation, harm reduction, and how to reverse an overdose. Their courses have names like Beyond the Stigma: Science, Drugs, and Empathy, and in a city where paramedics responded to more than 800 opiate calls in a single month this past spring, that work has stopped being specialized knowledge and started being basic citizenship. Victor also believes that music is harm reduction. It's not a metaphor. It started with karaoke nights at a Winnipeg homeless shelter, and it turned into something the people who run Nahuen say reduces conflict and builds connection in ways that policy documents don't. He's not shy about what he thinks isn't working. When the Winnipeg Police Service unveiled a reconciliation cruiser this summer, he said plainly that it hasn't made anybody safer, and that pushing people out of sight only makes it more likely they die alone. With that introduction, Victor Mondaca, welcome to Humans, On Rights.


Victor Mondaca 01:35

Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm very happy to sit here with you.


Stuart Murray 01:38

And I understand you. We talked about a land acknowledgement at the beginning. I understand there's some things you'd like to just share with the listeners before we start getting into the actual questioning. Please go ahead.


Victor Mondaca 01:48

Absolutely. I come to this territory as an Indigenous person from Ariala, from the Mapuche people, whose traditional territory, Wallmapu, is what spans present-day Argentina. So one of the things I always like to add is we need to understand that colonialism isn't something that happened in the past; its impacts are present today. We see them in the displacement of land and culture, houselessness, in health inequities, incarceration, in child protective systems, and the disproportionate harms that Indigenous people experience from [unclear] and toxic drug supplies. Now, land acknowledgement should also carry responsibility. So I offer my respects to this land, to the original peoples and its caretakers, and to those who continue the work of protecting culture, strengthening communities, in challenging injustice and creating conditions where Indigenous people can thrive.


Stuart Murray 02:45

Excellent, thank you so much, Victor. I appreciate that. And there's a lot to unpack here. One of the things I wanted to just get this is a bit of a pivot before we get into some of the great work that you and your partner are doing. We're about to embark on what Canada has designated called Orange Shirt Day, and I just wondered as we get ready to acknowledge that important day, just maybe share with us, with the listeners. What does Orange Shirt Day mean to you?


Victor Mondaca 03:15

So Orange Shirt Day tends to carry a heavy significance. It's a very sad significance and why we're wearing orange shirts, but one of the things I also like to say quite a bit is we're still here, and I think it's a clear sign of, if we're going to look at it from a hope's perspective, it's to show that we are still here. My Indigenous [family] as well have seen the effects of colonialism there. I'm still standing here today. A lot of Indigenous folks are still here today. So through all the hardship, through everything that's occurred, we are still here. And I think that's a big piece, is just to have some hope.


Stuart Murray 03:57

Yeah, yeah. Okay, I appreciate that. That's a real sidebar. It's not why I asked you to come on as a guest, but I appreciate you sharing. Thank you so much. So, Victor, I want to make sure I got this right. The name of the company, Nahuen.


Victor Mondaca 04:10

Yeah, Nahuen.


Stuart Murray 04:11

Consulting. So, with the name Nahuen, tell us where does that come from? What's the importance to that, the work that you and Amanda are doing in the community?


Victor Mondaca 04:19

So, the word Nahuen comes from Mapudungun, which is the language of the Mapuche people, and it means energy and spirit. So a lot of the work that we do surrounds itself in that teaching, right? In the teaching that this is how we build spirit, this is how we help with the collective energies. It carries a really profound meaning to me as somebody who's rediscovering his Indigenous ancestry and going through the process, and also what that process did to me, and how it helped me be on this side now of substance use disorder.


Stuart Murray 04:52

Okay, and so Victor, what I'd love to get a sense of is a bit of your background, how your journey took you to a place that finds you now. I think in my introduction I talked to you, you've spent life on both sides of the line most of us only read about. Share with us, if you will, where did you get that moment where you went, okay, the life that I'm leading is not the life that I want to continue, I'm going to make a change. Just, was that something cultural, spiritual that allowed you to have that moment of reckoning, if that's the right word, my word, not your word. But just share with the listeners a bit about your journey to bring us to what you're working on today, and then let's really dive into some of the work that you and Amanda are doing.


Victor Mondaca 05:32

Absolutely. It was interesting for me because it all aligned at the same time. So everything happened in a very unique kind of way. So essentially, what led the change for me was, I had lost absolutely everything. I had gone [through] substance use disorder previously. Married, lost my house, my relationship, access to my children. For a time, I was sleeping in my vehicle. That vehicle got repossessed because I couldn't pay for it. So then I spent some time sleeping by the river, and I had a friend that lived close by, so she would let me use her shower and her washing machine, and I could just wash the clothes I was wearing. I only had a pair of jeans, some socks, and a shirt, so essentially I had just the clothes on my back, and that's all I had. And that's one of the big pieces here too, is that the help from my family was always there. So my family were always there. I had a place to go, but the shame that I felt is what kept me away from there. Right, just admitting that there was a problem, that there was all these things that happened, almost made it too real at the time. Till eventually, I couldn't really hide it any longer. I didn't need the support, I needed the help, so I went back to my parents, head down, and that kind of started the process. It started a process in me of seeking the help that I needed, going to see counsellors and therapists about unpacking some of that trauma that I was carrying with me, and then at the same time finding my connection to culture, right? And like I said, the interesting thing for me is it all happened at the same time. So as I started finding more about my Indigenous heritage, connecting to the cultural piece, I was also going through kind of the clinical version of what recovery looks like, and all that seemed to line up. So shortly after that, I started working for N'Dinawemak, which gave me purpose. So now I started building that foundation of culture, family support, therapy, and all those pieces. And then purpose came right after. So as soon as I found that purpose, I stabilized, and my life started getting exponentially better. So the more teachings that I got, the more ceremony I went to, the more doors opened up for me. And how I moved out of this was a combination of both support, culture, harm reduction. Everything that I talk about today is essentially the pathway that I used to show up on this side of substance use disorder.


Stuart Murray 07:59

And when you talk about family being important, was your family here in Winnipeg, in this area, to be there for you?


Victor Mondaca 08:06

Yes. Yeah. So I was fortunate, and like, acknowledge, for lack of a better way, my ability to have family that connected and family that wanted me safe and wanted me home. Yeah. It was me at the beginning that didn't want that, right? Because the shame plays such a huge role in what services we're accessing, even when they're outside of our family. Right, so I think that was the big piece, is just somehow overcoming that shame that I felt and acknowledging that there was an issue that needed help.


Stuart Murray 08:36

Victor, one of the things is that people that have had the journey that you've been on, I'm obviously very thrilled for you how you've turned it around and the difference you're making in the teachings that you're bringing to the community and your lived experience. But I think sometimes we lose sight of the fact that the change in your life is dramatic. It isn't just something that you kind of read a book or watched a TED talk or saw something and kind of got this sort of sense, hey, you know what, I can be a better person. You went from something I think was probably fairly dark to something today that is offering hope and opportunity, and building on the name of your company now, in terms of what you're trying to do. I always like to sort of just take a moment, because I hope it speaks as much about you for those that are listening as anything else, that they don't just gloss over the fact, oh, a tough guy at one point and now things are great. To make that transition takes a tremendous amount of inner strength, because it doesn't just happen over a weekend. I'm sure the first time you tried to make a change to go down a different path, there was a roadblock immediately in front of you, your old way that continued was there. How did you get through some of those dark day roadblocks? And the only reason I want to ask those questions, Victor, is that I don't want to just, to use that term, kind of jump the shark from tough times to, oh, things are good now, let's talk about the good things that you're doing. How did you deal with some of those very difficult, dark days that said, "You know what? It's just easier to stay where I am. Why am I trying to make this change?"


Victor Mondaca 10:11

It's a really good point, because there's so many barriers that one encounters on their way to, I don't want to use the term sobriety, but on that road. At the beginning, for example, I hadn't worked for almost two years, so I had an immense [debt], right, which also added to the stress, understanding all this was going to happen, but that eventually these things would have to get paid. So then, essentially, when I first started working, 90% of that was gone. You run into a barrier there, and then with not having a vehicle, I ran into a barrier there. Trying to get to work and not being able to drive somewhere, I didn't have a driver's licence at the time because it had lapsed, because I also couldn't afford to pay. There was so many different barriers, but I think that for me, as I started walking this path, and this was a teaching that an Elder gave me back then, he said, always focus, because as you start walking, the path starts to show itself. You just need to believe in this and start following the path that's showing you. So essentially, what he was trying to tell me, and I look back now, is just one step at a time. It was one slow, gradual movement forward that would inevitably lead me down this beautiful road. And there was some really dark times. There was relapse in my story. Like the first time, I think, that I had not used substance for a really long period of time was about six months, and then I fell back in again, and then I was gone for a few weeks, and then told myself, "This is it. We're done. We're stopping this. We told ourselves we were going to stop this." So a lot of internal dialogue, and then moving forward from there. And I had multiple of those slips. I had probably about three slips in total that were significant before I actually started to understand what was triggering me, right? Before I started to understand the association between substance use, people, places, and different things like that, right? And that's why a lot of the stuff that we talk about comes from the science perspective, because there actually is a lot of research that shows this is exactly what happened, right? Our brain builds associations with people, places, things, smells, music, and that all becomes one giant piece of this puzzle that sometimes I think we forget.


Stuart Murray 12:37

Yeah, and I appreciate you sharing that, because, as I said, sometimes people have to be reminded that it's not an easy path. But having said that, Victor, it's why I want to take a moment in this podcast to say to you, not that you've crossed the finish line, right? But congratulations on getting to where you are today, because clearly it wasn't easy, and you made some very, very difficult decisions, and I'm sure every day you wake up, it's still a tough decision. But you've got the strength and the courage, and your culture has brought you to a place where you can continue to go on and then pass on some of those teachings to others. So let's talk a little bit about that, Victor. I know you talk about some of the things around homelessness, that sort of thing, some of the issues that we face here in Winnipeg, and of course there is a civic election coming up, which is interesting, to see where some of the candidates may or may not touch on that subject. But when you look at Winnipeg in 2026, the fact that Canada itself basically put in a right to adequate housing, the National Housing Strategy Act. If you looked at Winnipeg in 2026, do you think that's a promise in reality that people can actually hold, or is it something on paper? And what do you think it would take to make it real?


Victor Mondaca 13:50

There's a few things there we can come back to a little bit. Everybody should have the right to a place to live, right? The fact that as a society we've become comfortable with folks staying in bus shelters, or we see these encampments, and we don't ask for more for those people, is a concern. Even from a community standpoint, to see our neighbours or community members struggling in that sense, and us growing this sense of fear around that instead of a sense of empathy and almost like civil duty to help, has become unfortunate. So, is it obtainable? I think here in the city, one of the things that we have an abundance of is abandoned buildings and houses. So, yeah, I think absolutely. The government that's in place right now has done tremendous things with moving certain things forward. Like, they announced the opening of the old Booth College, so it's a clear example of what happens when we have a building that is just sitting there vacant, and then somebody comes in, puts some investment into it, and then turns it into adequate housing. Right, so we do have the ability to do that. I think one of the big pieces that we miss sometimes is the disconnection between civic and provincial, right? So I think the city itself leans everything towards the province and says, "Hey, this is a provincial issue. You guys need to handle it on your level," but then is responding in real time at the civic level as well, right? So we need to, I think, understand a little bit better how that can be framed.


Stuart Murray 15:27

And can you talk a little bit about, from your perspective, how that might be framed, Victor? Do you have some thoughts on that you want to share?


Victor Mondaca 15:34

Yeah, we can. Well, one of the big pieces is becoming a community again. We've seen a lot of divisiveness occur over the last little bit, especially with these elections coming up. There's been some pretty hard lines drawn, and I think that's created even further divisiveness in the city, as opposed to an inspirational leader that's going to look at this and be like, "We all need to come together to help. All of us are responsible here. How do we do this as a unit?" So there's all these pieces, I think, that are being missed, especially when we're pointing fingers and we're saying these folks want to stay away from these folks. And I think Winnipeg as a whole has always been a very tight-knit city that shows up for itself, and we help each other consistently. Nowadays, I'm starting to feel that culture slowly start to slip in a different direction, and that's a very dangerous direction, not just for public safety, but for the individuals who are struggling and suffering most.


Stuart Murray 16:35

Yeah, yeah. So, Victor, one of the things that I wanted to, and I alluded to in the introduction, that you're not shy to say when things aren't working, and you talk about the Winnipeg Police Service that unveiled their reconciliation cruiser this summer. First and foremost, just share with the listeners, what is the Winnipeg reconciliation cruiser, and then I'm going to ask you why it didn't work, and I'd like to get some thoughts about how some people might look at why they felt that the Winnipeg Police Service's reconciliation cruiser might be a good thing.


Victor Mondaca 17:08

It's a vehicle. It's a police cruiser that they brought out that they put Indigenous art on. They have two police officers that are in the vehicle and they attend public events. So in that, I feel like there's more that could have been done as opposed to just a fancy police car that shows up at events. When we're talking about reconciliation, what does the process look like for the police department when interacting with Indigenous people, what is the cultural support offered, and what's the outcome projected to be if we change the response, versus if we show up at the table with something that looks good for a camera?


Stuart Murray 17:57

Right? And so yes, yeah, and so I appreciate that, because I think that people should get a sense of it if they didn't see it, just an understanding of what it was. And when that reconciliation cruiser, as the Winnipeg Police Service calls it, when that shows up, is there a sense for those people at the event that it shows up at to be drawn to it, or do they look at it and say, "I'm not sure that they're here to actually help. They're here to find information"? Or what's the purpose, from the people on the ground? How do they see the cruiser?


Victor Mondaca 18:31

There's still a lot of harm that Indigenous people have faced from police, and not just police like WPS, but just policing in general, right? We need to understand that. We need to look into the history of what it looked like when RCMP would show up to apprehend children, what the Sixties Scoop looked like, right, and then understand with that context why police are seen a certain way by Indigenous people, right. Those are the key issues, I think, that we need to address before we start looking at, like I said, the photo op pieces. Now, this is beneficial in a sense where we're building some level of relationship again, but I think here we may have missed the mark a little bit when it comes to how we're presenting this. Had that vehicle been attached to, let's say, an Indigenous Elder that was dispatched with WPS when an event occurred with an Indigenous person, then maybe things would have looked a little bit differently, felt a little bit differently, and then started building that bridge, right? If that was the grand scheme of things, maybe its perception would have changed slightly.


Stuart Murray 19:39

Yeah.


Victor Mondaca 19:40

You know what I mean, and start to build that bridge, as opposed to what we're seeing now, which is still that fear.


Stuart Murray 19:45

Yeah, for sure. And so, Victor, I have to really think how I can formulate this question properly. But I hear what you're saying about the reconciliation cruiser showing up with two members of the Winnipeg Police Service. Your suggestion, which I think is a great one, is to have somebody, when the police officers, say, for example, get out of the cruiser, if an Elder gets out, then those people that are looking at that vehicle might recognize one of the three, i.e. an Elder. There's somebody who looks like me, somebody that represents me. I want to just frame my question around systemic change, and one of the challenges is people might look at that and say there's a performative action to having an Elder come out of that vehicle. It's still part of the systemic change of how First Nations and Indigenous peoples have that relationship with police services. And then the other challenge is for somebody that might look at that Elder and say, "You've sold out. Why are you there?" And so it's a difficult situation, but one, I think, that we need to have more and more conversations about. And I know that when I went onto your website and saw some of the comments that you made, you talked about how do we change some of these systems. Just, if you were given sort of the blank sheet and someone said, "Okay, Victor, this is the Winnipeg Police Service. We want to try and figure out better ways to build a bridge," what might you say to them under the construct of what we look at with systemic changes that are overdue and have not really been taking place?


Victor Mondaca 21:24

I think the biggest piece is that we need to change the culture, right? Of the Winnipeg...


Stuart Murray 21:29

Police Service, or society, or... okay, culture.


Victor Mondaca 21:32

I think as with any policing force, we need to change the culture. Systems can be changed, right? Policies enacted, processes reviewed and checked, all those things can be changed. It's the culture that's the key pivotal point, because at the end of the day, if we haven't adjusted the culture to one that's more empathetic, or one that understands further the harms that have happened in the past, then the police will still respond from a place of heavy enforcement and different pieces. So I think if we're talking about what this looks like for me, besides a hard reset with policy, procedure, training, right? We need to have more understanding of what trauma looks like and how trauma responses play a role in interactions, need to have a better understanding of that cultural, historic piece, the colonialism that's occurred, and then on top of that, we need a cultural shift. We need that culture that's built within these systems that are designed to keep us safe to also shift, right? And I think the hard one to solve is how do we adjust the culture that's already predated all these new interventions that are coming in.


Stuart Murray 22:52

And so, Victor, with you, and I'll mention your partner Amanda at Nahuen, are you working to make some of those changes? Are you working with the Winnipeg Police Service or other community leaders to try to start injecting that conversation, that narrative, so that that construct starts to change?


Victor Mondaca 23:14

I like to say we are working with some pretty interesting organizations these days when it comes to how we're getting some of this information out, not to the level where we'd like the reach to be, but at the same time, our main focus, especially lately, hasn't been these bigger system pieces. It's been community. Okay, it's been within the neighbourhood, talking to folks that are experiencing a lot of, seeing folks that are unsheltered, the substance use and all that stuff. So we've gone in to further that education, and what we're hoping for is with that education to build empathy and understanding. Right. This is why Beyond the Stigma exists. Beyond the Stigma is literally using science and science-based knowledge to have folks understand the situation a little bit clearer, not just look at somebody on a consistent basis and be like, "Why are they still doing this? Why is this person still here?" And once we start explaining with a little bit more information, a little bit more science, I think we've had some really good results when it comes to how we're interacting with each other. So I would love to, right? I would love to just keep growing the knowledge base and have that information permeate through an entire system. At the same time, we have reached out to many different organizations and we haven't gotten any response.


Stuart Murray 24:39

For sure, yeah, no, and that is not a criticism. That's just part of what you need to do and what you're doing, and you want to build on the successes you've had. So that's important, Victor. When you talk about the science that's helping people to understand more, can you explain that a little bit more? Just give a little bit more airtime to what you mean by that. Science has disproved some of these stigmas?


Victor Mondaca 25:03

Absolutely. So we have a lot of information that we gather from different places. We have science now that tells us, through Dr. Gabor Maté, that trauma and stress and poverty don't necessarily lead to substance use disorder, but do play a role in substance use disorder, right? We have science that comes out of Dr. Carl Hart, for example, and he talks heavily on his research with cocaine users and how sometimes, with an alternative, we need to be cautious of what that alternative is, right? The alternative isn't an alternative just because we want it to be, but it needs to be for that person as well. And in some cases, the substance does win, right? Because it is providing something for that person right now that we cannot. So, just asking further questions about why these situations are happening, what's occurring. We go in depth about, for example, methamphetamine, what the processes are within the brain that cause the euphoric feeling and can potentially lead to dependency. With opiates, we talk about what that looks like, as well as what withdrawal looks like. So some folks aren't necessarily looking to get high anymore. They're just not wanting to be sick, because our bodies are really good at balancing themselves out. So the substance in the system now becomes the new norm. The body regulates to that, and the second that we pull the substance away, there's an influx of all these other neurochemicals that cause this withdrawal effect, right? And that can be debilitating for weeks, right? So when we talk about these things openly and actually describe what's occurring within the brain, the body, we start to understand a little bit more of the pathway of why people just, and I'll say it in quotations because I don't want to be that person, but why don't they just stop? Here's the reasons why they can't. Here's what the substance might be doing for that person that you're not seeing, right? This is all the stuff that we don't see, and we sometimes don't ask the questions, right?


Stuart Murray 27:15

Yeah, and I think one of the things that I've learned doing this podcast and talking to people like you that are in the community, trying to change some of the conversations, is that people look at it and think that the easy answer is to just stop doing it, stop whatever it may be, counselling them, saying the way to get better is to stop doing what they're doing, and that necessarily is not the right thing to do. And just kind of a side note, I always like to mention when I talk to people like you who are involved in this: my daughter lives in Amsterdam and did her PhD around harm reduction, and she's written a book on it called Futuring Harm Reduction. And we've had a lot of conversations, and I've learned a lot from her, just trying to demystify some of these stigmas that we constantly look at, by people saying that anybody that has a problem, that the solution to the problem is to stop what they're doing, and that just does not necessarily work. And again, you're aware of it, and my daughter is very aware of it, that we have to look at it and say that you have to give these people dignity in the life that they're trying to lead. And so let's talk a little bit about some of that, Victor, from your perspective. I know the province put in a safe injection site, and there was a lot of controversy about it. Just maybe share your thoughts on the process and how you feel about the end product.


Victor Mondaca 28:35

I'm thrilled. It's kind of late to the party, so to speak. But at the same time, I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled to see that there's a space now that invites people in and keeps people safe, right? And people who kind of naysay this will always use the same argument. And I've gone into these Facebook arguments at 2 o'clock in the morning when I've had nothing...


Stuart Murray 28:56

...to do.


Victor Mondaca 28:57

...about how they failed everywhere else. What does that mean? What do you mean they failed? That's always how I rebut this: people were kept alive. The systems that were attached to these sites may have broken down over government changes, funding requirements, different pieces like that, but nothing has ever failed. If you keep one person alive, then it's a success. If one person moved through that system into dignified care, then it's a success, right? So we need to stop looking at things sometimes from such a negative perspective, I think. And that's the big piece for somebody like myself. The way that recovery worked for me is I had to believe that six months from now things were going to get better, but that immediate need was still there, that sickness was still there, right? And then, how can I best describe this? Like with that path, there was a life that was being created that no longer had substance in it, right? And that's the big piece, is I wasn't expected to not use substance, right? My happiness came first, and then my connection to culture, and then substance use disorder was almost third seat there, and then eventually, with that time, I created a life that no longer required the substance. So, just to loop this all back, when it comes back to safe consumption in itself, that's what we're doing. We're trying to connect people with dignity. We're trying to connect people with happiness, health, and then further down the line, hopefully, we help them create a life that no longer requires substance. Not that sobriety is a requirement for all of those things. That happens later, as stability increases. So, in that sense, I'm thrilled that it's here. I hope to see more. Obviously, for me, I see harm reduction a lot differently than most people. I have a very extreme version of what harm reduction should be, because at the end of the day, we have a case in point in this, which is the legalization of alcohol. We have supervised consumption sites for that substance, which are bars, right? Because if you're too intoxicated, bartenders cut you off. That's safe consumption. We have all these systems in place that prevent harm from this one substance, right? And people argue legality, this is illegal versus this is legal, right? But this became legal because it was killing people and it was causing violence and it caused all these other things, so eventually, society said, "Wait a minute! No, we can't do this anymore. We need to regulate what this is." So when you go to the LC, you know exactly the concentration that you're receiving from the vodka that you're drinking. You know exactly what this is going to do to you. We have science here that tells us alcohol plus time equals this result, right? Which is why we now have breathalyzers with WPS. We have taxis, Ubers, Lyfts, all this system that's supposed to help us better mitigate the harms from one substance. But then we look at [another] substance and go, no, no, that's illegal. We're not...


Stuart Murray 32:21

And so, Victor, you've just hit a sweet spot, and that is, where does the conversation start? Because what you're saying is just so logical, yet people refuse to connect the dots as they're drinking whatever drink they like to take part in, and we need to find ways to have rational conversations, exactly the way you laid it out. It's not to throw shade on somebody who may like to drink glasses of wine or cases of beer or whatever alcohol they like to drink, but it's just to say, look in the mirror before you start to judge somebody else who is dealing with the same kind of thing. My daughter has said to me many times, with all the regulations around some of these illicit drugs, the worst drug in the world is alcohol, and everybody has access to it. And you said it beautifully, Victor, and I love the way you said it. I just wish that there was a way for you to get more of a platform to go out and educate people. They may not agree with you, and that's fair. But that's a very thoughtful way of just comparing what's happening at a safe injection site versus what's happening at your local bar.


Victor Mondaca 33:32

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's the big piece, is we've somehow, as a society, created this weird hierarchy of substance use, right? When, for example, people drink alcohol, that's seen one way. When people use methamphetamine, something completely different. But some folks will go to the bar, have a little bit too much to drink, purchase another kind of stimulant, and because the price point on that stimulant is higher, they see that as almost like a classier version of doing a substance. The chemical differences between snortable cocaine and smokeable cocaine aren't that different. So the effects may be changed only because of the mode of ingestion. But even that needs to be discussed, right? How we're ingesting substances, what can we do to make them safer? As humans, as mammals, we have always used substances. I think in the future we're not going to stop using substances. What we can mitigate, though, is the risks.


Stuart Murray 34:33

Right.


Victor Mondaca 34:34

And there's some of those underlying pieces, like the trauma, all the effects that happen from that. And like I said, yeah, alcohol is readily available. What are the things that pop up the most these days? I think these microbreweries, and good on them. Like, I'm not trying...


Stuart Murray 34:48

I hear you. No.


Victor Mondaca 34:50

I'm trying to say nothing to nobody.


Stuart Murray 34:51

Yeah.


Victor Mondaca 34:51

But at the same time, it's an ever-growing market.


Stuart Murray 34:55

Totally.


Victor Mondaca 34:56

I read somewhere, and don't 100% quote me on the number, but it's 70 to 75% of all motor vehicle accidents that are fatal had alcohol in some way attached to that accident. So we can't say that it's safer.


Stuart Murray 35:14

Yeah, we can't.


Victor Mondaca 35:15

We really can't. And even after we've taken all these steps to make that experience safer for folks, or as safe as possible...


Stuart Murray 35:22

Yeah.


Victor Mondaca 35:23

...there's still harm that comes from it.


Stuart Murray 35:24

Yeah, for sure. Hey, listen, I want to just explore a couple of things with you, Victor. The naloxone issue. I think you've talked about having, I guess I'll just call them classes or introductions, to talk about what it is, how to do that. Talk a little bit about what that program looks like. Anybody listening that says, "Hey, I'd really like to participate," talk a little bit about what you're doing and how people might get involved in that.


Victor Mondaca 35:49

Absolutely. We're consistently offering up different courses. We're trying to reach more of a broader community base as opposed to the organizational piece, because we understand that drug poisonings don't wait for nurses, harm reduction specialists, or people that work in the field to show up. Right, these can happen anywhere, at any time, to anybody. So it's important that we do that. But essentially, we go over the process. So it's not solely based on the response, because we talk about how to use naloxone, the dosage, what it does to the person. We go as far as explaining how naloxone actually works in the brain to start reversing the opiate poisoning. But we also talk about the language. We talk about the language around these things and how to approach that in a meaningful way. We talk about harm reduction in the sense of people. That's one of the big things people talk about on the other side, is that this is enabling, right? So we talk about how seatbelts don't enable car accidents; they just stop you from receiving serious harm in them. So it's multifaceted, the way we describe it, right? And one of the big things I like to do personally with a lot of the trainings is we open up in ceremony, right? We open up with smudge, we smudge ourselves, we say a prayer, and then we move into this like it's ceremony, right? Because I think that's one of the key pieces, is that when we're transferring information back and forth, because these are open forums, it's not just me speaking. I acknowledge everybody there as a knowledge keeper as well, right? Because we all carry some innate ability to understand, right? And some folks have even more understanding, potentially, than me. So we welcome that conversation that comes into that space. But then when we approach learning as a ceremony, then we see it for what it actually is, right? It's an exchange of information. There is ceremony there. There is something beautiful that occurs in those spaces. And then afterwards, when we're done, we do run through the demonstration. We teach people how to physically inject naloxone, where to do it, and we run through the entire process. And then from there, we end up with a sharing circle. One of the big pieces is I understand that some folks don't like the needles. I understand that some folks may have family members that are using substances or have already responded to a naloxone event, and I don't want to retraumatize them, [unclear]. I want them to be given a place to release and let go of those feelings, and to share openly about what they might be carrying. It's really important. So we always end it off in a ceremony as well. We take a very broad ceremonial or Indigenous teaching into these trainings as well.


Stuart Murray 38:32

And so, if somebody wanted to go to one of your sessions, they could simply go onto your website and find out where they might be able to attend one of those sessions.


Victor Mondaca 38:45

Absolutely, yeah. They can go to the website, social media. Everything always gets posted. We try to do it with advance notice, for individuals who need to look at their schedule. There's usually multiple different events occurring.


Stuart Murray 38:58

Yeah, and just give us your website, Victor, for those people that have a pen and paper ready to write it down.


Victor Mondaca 39:04

So it is www.nahuenconsulting.ca, I believe.


Stuart Murray 39:10

And that's N-A-H-U-E-N Consulting, right? Yeah, okay.


Victor Mondaca 39:22

Like I said, if they follow on the social media as well. And sorry, it's nahuenconsultation.com.


Stuart Murray 39:27

nahuenconsultation.com. Okay, fair enough.


Victor Mondaca 39:30

Yeah. So if folks want to follow us on social as well, we post pretty much everything that we're doing on there, and we do different pilots here and there. When we're designing a new training course, these things are open to the public and free of charge, just so that we can get some feedback...


Stuart Murray 39:46

Yeah.


Victor Mondaca 39:46

...and then adjust the training as required.


Stuart Murray 39:49

Sure. Okay. Awesome, Victor. A couple of myths that I know you're working against, and one of them is that getting people out of sight makes communities safer. What do you say to somebody who says, you know, I know what you're doing, but every time I go through a part of the inner city, I'm concerned. I see all these people. If they just weren't there, I'd feel much safer. What do you say to somebody who has that sort of a view?


Victor Mondaca 40:12

I guess my first thought is always the same. What you're saying is you don't want to see the suffering. You don't want to see the human suffering that's occurring in front of you, and that's okay in a sense, right? At the end of the day, we all want the same thing. I'm a parent. I have children. I want my kids to be safe. I want to feel safe in the neighbourhood. So, if the end goal is safety, then we need to look at the most vulnerable and ensure their safety too, and almost put them first, because at the end of the day, that's what's going to feed the rest of the public safety. Moving people away from sight is creating a more complex situation for individuals who are suffering and struggling, as outreach workers now struggle to find where they are. I've responded to multiple drug poisonings because the person was visible to me, right? And this is from me driving around or being out with my family. So, if that person wasn't instantly visible, then what would have happened to that person? And I think that's what it is. A lot of times when we talk about public safety, or when I've had the ability to speak on this, one of the big pieces is that we've gotten very comfortable with ignoring each other and wanting things to just go away. We can't dismiss each other anymore, right? A lot of times when somebody is asking for support, whether it's asking for change or something to eat, we just tend to ignore the person. Now, how often do I have to ignore you before you start getting upset with me, and then we start seeing an escalation occur, or potential for violence, or a potential for a lot of things? So, one of the things that I always like to talk to people about is using the "I see you, I hear you, I'll help you" mentality. So, I see you: acknowledge that the person is there. I hear you: if the person is asking for something, if you cannot provide that, that is okay, but at least acknowledge and speak to the individual. And if you can, then help. Right? And I'm not asking folks to walk around with pockets full of change and just help everybody. But this might be something simple. Might be a cigarette. Might be a coffee on the way out. It's just acknowledging the individual first and understanding that's a complex human, just like you are.


Stuart Murray 42:48

Yeah.


Victor Mondaca 42:48

And I think that the more we interact with each other, the more we see folks as actual members of our community. We'll see a de-escalation in a lot of events, and we'll see that general community safety start coming back, right? One of the things that we've become notorious for lately here is when we hear about an incident that occurs, we run home, we batten down the hatches, and close the door, and that's it. Nobody's going anywhere. The other day, we drove by the Exchange District. It was the light festival, and there were hundreds of people walking around, all providing safety for everybody else, and we see this through most of the festivals that occur in the city. So as more folks are there, it increases the public safety for everyone. I think the mentality we need to move more towards is that as a community, we are also responsible for our own safety, and if we're out there in numbers, that contributes. We can't always just say the police are letting the city go downhill and all these things. We are, too, when we forget that we're adding to this.


Stuart Murray

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and very well put, Victor. There's such great wisdom in some of the things that you're sharing. And I noticed that you talked about Dr. Carl L. Hart, who wrote a book, and you made a note of that in your podcast guest form, Drug Use for Grown-Ups, and it's obviously something that you would recommend people read.


Victor Mondaca

Absolutely, absolutely. Dr. Carl Hart's research is tremendous, and he has a very interesting take on things too. If you read into who he is as a person, you'll understand that he also uses substances. So he is a substance user, but then also has this giant title that I'm not even able to try to say in front of me, but he's done such good research around what substance use does to the person, the brain, and also, like I said, the study when it comes to cocaine users and alternatives, and then realizing that not all alternatives that we offer carry the same weight for that individual, and that, like I said, sometimes the substance is doing more for that person than anything that we can offer.


Stuart Murray 45:05

Yeah.


Victor Mondaca 45:05

So it just humanizes that experience. Yeah. Does it remove the harm from substances? Substances are harmful. They do cause harm. But if we look at it from a human perspective, we can sometimes understand why folks are starting to choose.


Stuart Murray 45:18

Yeah. Perfect, Victor. I'm just delighted with the conversation. We'll have many more in the future, but I think the hourglass is running out on this particular conversation. So I want to thank you. But before I sign off, I usually ask my podcast guests the question: when you signed on to do this, and Amanda, your partner, we communicated to get you on this podcast, from your perspective, were you saying, "Man, I really hope the guy asks me about this, because I'm really loaded for this question"? Is there a question that you were hoping I might ask you that I didn't?


Victor Mondaca 45:53

No, I think you asked all the questions that I loaded up. To be honest with you, I think we got to the big bulk of it, and where my passion is, and that's the huge piece, is community safety. Yeah, because I do, like I said, I do agree that we need safer communities, but how we get there is different, right? And you talked about having uncomfortable conversations, and that's okay, right? I'm for it. I don't have to agree with absolutely everything other people are thinking. As a society, that's how we're designed, which is okay. If you hear my side of the story and I hear your side of the story, and somewhere along the line we see that the end goal is the same, then we actually have more in common than people [think].


Stuart Murray 46:30

For sure. Yeah. Yeah.


Victor Mondaca 46:31

So, and that's the big piece.


Stuart Murray 46:33

I love that. Okay. So, on that note, Victor Mondaca, co-founder of Nahuen Consultation, thank you for taking some time to join me on Humans, On Rights, and continue the good work that you do.


Victor Mondaca 46:46

Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you.

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