Louise Vincent, a heroin user who bravely navigated multiple overdoses, the amputation of her leg, and the tragic death of her daughter from opioids, passed away on August 31st at her home in Greensboro, N.C., at the age of 49. She was a pivotal leader in a movement dedicated to expanding access to vital harm reduction methods for drug users.
Her mother, Sarah Beale, confirmed that Ms. Vincent had been grappling with a blood disorder and chronic health issues, stemming from her past injection of fentanyl, which years prior had been unknowingly mixed with Xylazine, a powerful horse tranquilizer.
The daughter of an English professor and a teacher, Ms. Vincent earned her master’s degree in public health in 2013, all while confronting her own addiction. That same year, she co-founded the North Carolina Survivors Union, one of the nation’s pioneering organizations offering critical safety measures and support to drug users striving for recovery.
“We often cling to one narrow narrative about recovery that simply doesn’t resonate with everyone,” she was quoted saying in Scalawag, an online magazine focusing on marginalized communities in the South. “This notion of getting clean, staying clean, being completely abstinent. It implies you’re either entirely sick or entirely well, with no middle ground.”
Ms. Vincent was deeply frustrated—and driven—by the intolerance within the rehabilitation community towards individuals who experienced relapses.
“It’s ironic,” she told The Greensboro News & Record in 2021. “‘Hi, my name is Louise. I can’t stop using drugs, so I need your program.’ And then, ‘Oh, you’re going to kick me out because I can’t stop using drugs? Funny. I just told you that was my problem.’”
With limited options, these individuals continue to face exposure to hepatitis, H.I.V., and other diseases transmitted by contaminated needles, compounded by an increasingly unpredictable drug supply often tainted with dangerous cutting agents.
“As my good friend always reminds me, ‘This isn’t your mama’s heroin!’” Ms. Vincent wrote in 2021 in Filter, an online magazine advocating for safer drug use. “Many healthcare providers still operate under the assumption that we’re dealing with heroin, which is no longer the case. We’re encountering fentanyl, tranquilizers, and novel cutting agents.”
The North Carolina Survivors Union, operating from a modest community storefront in Greensboro, equips users with testing strips to identify the ingredients in their drugs. A prominent sign on its wall declares: “We stand for loving drug users just the way they are.” This powerful statement encapsulates the challenge that advocates like Ms. Vincent present to drug policies that prioritize abstinence, incarceration, and rigid rules for accessing medications like methadone, which is used for opioid addiction.
“Louise truly embodied the spirit of harm reduction,” said Maia Szalavitz, author of “Undoing Drugs” (2021) and a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, in an interview. “The central tenet is that we need to care about people who use drugs, whether they use drugs or not.”
In 2021, the Biden administration unveiled several initiatives championed by the harm reduction movement, including funding for the purchase of test strips to detect fentanyl impurities. While critics likened this approach to providing alcohol to alcoholics, supporters argued that drug users deserve to maintain their dignity while battling addiction.
“Too often, the fundamental challenge facing all harm reduction programs is that people are so incensed with those who use drugs that they wish to coerce them into abstinence through punishment,” John Oliver stated in 2022 during an extensive segment on harm reduction on his HBO show, “Last Week Tonight.” “But that’s not how any of this works.”
He subsequently aired a segment featuring a television interview with Ms. Vincent.
“What we often do is precisely the wrong things to help someone,” she articulated. “We sever their ties to community. Then we strip them of their freedom. And when people finally have nothing left, they will use until they die.”
Louise Mae Beale was born on March 15, 1976, in Greensboro. Her father, Walter Henry Beale III, was an English professor at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, and her mother taught in high schools and community colleges.
Louise was a bright and spirited child.
At just six years old, she was independently ordering pizzas for delivery. By age 11, after being kept home from Sunday school for not being ready on time, she took a cab to meet her friends.
By seventh grade, she had begun drinking alcohol. Eventually, older students introduced her to LSD and cocaine.
“I was a good kid,” she shared with The News & Record in 2013. “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 sought solace in self-medication through increasingly potent illicit drugs. Overdoses became a recurring nightmare. Her frequent hospitalizations left her feeling utterly worthless.
“When medical staff implement security searches and require room sitters, leave us to suffer in pain and withdrawal, and outright deny visitors, we often leave against medical advice,” she wrote in Filter. “We are treated as if we alone are responsible for our condition and therefore deserve our suffering.”
Ms. Vincent enrolled in Greensboro College in her mid-20s, earning a bachelor’s degree in sociology in 2005, all while navigating intermittent drug use.
In 2007, she pursued a graduate degree in public health at U.N.C. Greensboro, where she became involved in a needle-exchange program. In 2013, a hit-and-run incident left her ankle severely crushed, necessitating the amputation of her leg. Despite this profound personal tragedy, she earned her master’s degree later that year.
While attending a conference in Colorado, she encountered the founders of the Urban Survivors Union, an organization dedicated to promoting harm reduction strategies.
“Initially, when I learned about harm reduction, I wrestled with an internal conflict, having grown up in the South and being ingrained with all the conventional beliefs,” she recounted to Scalawag. “It was a genuine struggle. Am I doing the right thing? Is distributing syringes to people…is this truly acceptable?”
In establishing what would become the North Carolina Survivors Union, Ms. Vincent initially operated discreetly. Drug users would contact her via cellphone, and she would meet them to supply syringes, naloxone, and occasionally administer CPR. All the while, she continued her own personal struggle.
“I didn’t embark on harm reduction work to rescue the world,” Ms. Vincent shared with NPR in 2023. “I wanted to rescue myself.”
In 2016, Ms. Vincent’s 19-year-old daughter, Selena Vincent, tragically died from an overdose in a rehab facility. Ms. Vincent had personally trained Selena in the use of naloxone, yet the center itself did not provide it.
“The infuriating truth about Selena’s death is that it was entirely preventable,” Ms. Vincent lamented.
She contemplated turning to drugs to cope with her grief, but her dealer refused to sell to her.
“I’m relieved to be doing okay right now,” she acknowledged. “But I know it’s only this work. It’s only the feeling that I’m contributing to something meaningful.”
Ms. Vincent had a long-term relationship with Selena’s father, Carl Vincent, whom she married shortly before his death 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 oversees the North Carolina Survivors Union’s syringe program. Her father passed away in 2021.
Ms. Vincent was a co-author on numerous academic papers, collaborating with public health researchers such as Nabarun Dasgupta from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“She was utterly brilliant,” Professor Dasgupta remarked in an interview. “She pinpointed systemic problems and articulated injustices in truly remarkable ways.”
She was also a firm believer that public health researchers must collaborate directly with individuals who use drugs.
“Given the alarming rise in drug-related illness and mortality, it is imperative to include people who use drugs in public health initiatives,” she wrote in a 2021 article for the journal Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy, a collaboration with Professor Dasgupta and others. “Our lives depend on it.”