Louise Vincent, a courageous individual who battled heroin addiction, faced multiple overdoses, the amputation of her leg, and the profound grief of losing her daughter to opioids, tragically passed away on August 31st at her Greensboro, N.C., home. She was 49.
Her mother, Sarah Beale, confirmed her passing, stating that Ms. Vincent had been struggling with a blood disorder and chronic health issues stemming from injecting fentanyl laced with Xylazine, a horse tranquilizer, years prior.
Despite her personal struggles, the daughter of an English professor and a teacher earned a master’s degree in public health in 2013. That same year, she became a pivotal figure in establishing the North Carolina Survivors Union. This pioneering organization was among the first in the nation to provide vital support and “safety rails” for individuals, like herself, striving to overcome addiction.
Ms. Vincent once eloquently articulated the problem with rigid recovery models, noting in Scalawag magazine, “We have one acceptable narrative about recovery that doesn’t fit everyone. This idea of getting clean, staying clean, being 100 percent abstinent. You’re either all the way sick or all the way well. There’s no middle ground.”
She was deeply frustrated by the rehabilitation community’s lack of tolerance for users who relapsed, a sentiment that fueled her advocacy. She recalled telling the Greensboro News & Record in 2021, “It’s like, ‘Hi, my name is Louise. I can’t stop using drugs, so I need your program.’ ‘Oh, you’re going to kick me out because I can’t stop using drugs? Funny. I just told you that was my problem.’”
Without accessible support, many users continued to face severe health risks, including hepatitis, H.I.V., and other diseases transmitted by unsafe needle practices, compounded by the escalating dangers of drugs contaminated with fentanyl and other harmful cutting agents.
“This ain’t your mama’s heroin!” Ms. Vincent asserted in 2021 in Filter, an online publication dedicated to promoting safer drug use. She emphasized the critical need for healthcare providers to acknowledge the shift from traditional heroin to a landscape dominated by fentanyl, tranquilizers, and novel cutting agents.
The North Carolina Survivors Union, operating from a modest storefront in Greensboro, actively equipped users with testing supplies to identify dangerous drug ingredients. A powerful message displayed on its wall, “We stand for loving drug users just the way they are,” encapsulated Ms. Vincent’s challenge to conventional drug policies that prioritized abstinence and incarceration over compassionate, life-saving support.
Maia Szalavitz, author of “Undoing Drugs” (2021) and a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, described Ms. Vincent as “the embodiment of the spirit of harm reduction.” Szalavitz elaborated, “The idea is that we need to care about people who use drugs, whether they use drugs or not.”
In 2021, the Biden administration adopted several harm reduction initiatives, including funding for fentanyl test strips. While critics likened this approach to enabling addiction, proponents argued it affirmed the dignity of drug users in their struggle. As John Oliver famously stated on his HBO show “Last Week Tonight” in 2022, “So often, the problem facing all harm reduction programs is that people are so angry with those who use drugs, they want to try to punish them into abstinence. But that is not how any of this works.”
Oliver then featured a clip of Ms. Vincent, who powerfully declared, “What we do is everything wrong to help a person. We disconnect them from community. And then we disconnect them from their freedom. And when people finally have nothing left, then they will use until they die.”
Born Louise Mae Beale on March 15, 1976, in Greensboro, she was the daughter of Walter Henry Beale III, an English professor at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, and a mother who taught in high schools and community colleges.
Louise was a remarkably bright and spirited child. By age six, she was independently ordering pizzas, and at eleven, she once hailed a cab to join friends after being told to stay home from Sunday school.
Her path diverged in seventh grade when she began drinking alcohol and was later introduced to LSD and cocaine. Reflecting on her youth in 2013, she shared with The News & Record, “I was a good kid. Thoughtful. Kind. But it was like going from Barbies to crack. I stepped off the ledge and fell face first into chaos.”
Diagnosed with bipolar disorder as a teenager, she self-medicated with increasing amounts of hard drugs, leading to repeated overdoses. Her frequent hospitalizations left her feeling devalued. In a piece for Filter, she highlighted the dehumanizing treatment: “When they have security searches and room sitters, leave us in pain and withdrawal and refuse to allow any guests for us, we leave against medical advice. We are treated as if we did this to ourselves and deserve our condition.”
Ms. Vincent pursued higher education, earning a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Greensboro College in 2005, despite her ongoing struggle with drug use. Her dedication to public health continued as she enrolled in a graduate program at U.N.C. Greensboro in 2007, focusing on needle-exchange programs.
In 2013, a hit-and-run incident crushed her ankle, leading to leg amputation. Undeterred, she completed her master’s degree later that year. Her journey into formal harm reduction advocacy began after meeting the founders of the Urban Survivors Union at a Colorado conference.
Initially, she faced internal conflict. “When I first heard about harm reduction, I had an internal battle in my own heart because I grew up in the South and I was conditioned with all the same junk,” she confided to Scalawag. “It was a real battle. Am I doing the right thing? Is giving syringes to people … is this OK?”
The image of Louise Vincent in 2019, smiling subtly, perfectly captures her spirit as described by Maia Szalavitz: “Louise was kind of the embodiment of the spirit of harm reduction. The idea is that we need to care about people who use drugs, whether they use drugs or not.”
In her early days with the North Carolina Survivors Union, Ms. Vincent operated covertly, responding to calls and meeting users to provide syringes, naloxone, and even CPR, all while still battling her own addiction. “I didn’t start doing harm reduction because I wanted to save the world,” she told NPR in 2023. “I wanted to save myself.”
A profound personal tragedy struck in 2016 when her 19-year-old daughter, Selena Vincent, died from an overdose in a rehab center. Despite Ms. Vincent having personally trained Selena in naloxone use, the facility did not have it on hand. “The maddening truth about what happened to Selena is that it was avoidable,” she lamented.
In a moment of despair, she contemplated returning to drug use, but her dealer refused to sell to her. “I’m glad that I’m OK right now,” she later said. “But I know that it’s only this work. It’s only feeling like I’m a part of something that matters.”
Ms. Vincent had been married to Carl Vincent, Selena’s father, shortly before his passing from cancer in 1998. She is survived by her mother, Sarah Beale; another daughter, Summer Benton; a sister, Stella Beale; and her partner, Don Jackson, a human rights activist who continues her work managing the North Carolina Survivors Union’s syringe program. Her father passed away in 2021.
A testament to her intellectual prowess and commitment, Ms. Vincent co-authored numerous academic papers with public health researchers, including Nabarun Dasgupta of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Professor Dasgupta lauded her, saying, “She was flat-out brilliant. She identified problems in the system and could frame injustices in truly amazing ways.”
She was a steadfast advocate for the inclusion of drug users in public health research, asserting in a 2021 article, “Given the rising rates of drug-involved morbidity and mortality, it is high time to include people who use drugs in public health efforts. Our lives depend on it.”