 I'm really pleased to introduce our next speaker who will probably not be a stranger to many of you. Louise Beale Vincent is the Executive Director of the Urban Survivors Union and National Drug Users Union in the United States. Louise is a harm reduction consultant and educator, and she was the inaugural recipient of the Any Positive Change Award, established in honour of Dan Big at the 2018 National Harm Reduction Conference. Welcome Louise. Hello. I'm really grateful to be here today. Thank you so much for having me. I am a woman who uses drugs. I'm a woman who injects drugs. This is not something I've been able to say in a space and say and feel any kind of love. This is the space that I can say that. This is the space that I can walk in and a nurse greet me. This is a space I can walk in and a nurse greet me and believe me when she says you know what you're doing, don't you? I've never had that. I'm from North Carolina. This is in the U.S., very conservative. We're in the middle of passing drug-induced homicide laws right now, which means that you're using with someone and they die of an overdose and you go to jail for murder. This is undermining our good Samaritan laws. And most importantly, this is undermining every single thing we tell people who use drugs to do with people so that we can stay safe. Use with people. Be with people. Know the people you're buying from. These are the things that keep us alive and we steady criminalize these actions. User-led services are the heart of harm reduction. User-led services are where I have found love, are where I have been taught the expertise, where I've been taught everything I know about how to be a drug user and how to be well and how to love myself because believe me, I've been taught that I have nothing to share and I fight this ugly voice all the time and it's the voice that so many of us hear that says you use drugs, you're no good, you cannot do these things, you cannot be successful and that is a fucking lie and we have to fight that and we have to fight that. We have to fight it because the people we love aren't here anymore. Flawed it. My mentors and my friends, they would be proud of me. They would be proud of all of you to be in Porto where we have at least a realistic view, something that we can hold on to because I didn't want to come up here because I have so little to say with hope but I have been reminded while I've been here that there is so much hope in the small spaces, in the spaces where we have user-led services, in the spaces where our allies have listened to us, in the spaces where we're heard we are doing beautiful, beautiful things. We have drug users who are building services and growing and I am growing and I'm growing with my friends and partners and that is not a place I ever thought I'd be but we have to do more. We cannot fight for harm reduction and not fight for racial justice. We cannot fight for harm reduction and not fight for disability justice. We cannot fight for harm reduction and not have an intersectional response. We cannot do this alone. Drug users, we must stand with our allies. We must work with our allies and we must not stop. We must not stop. We must not stop when we feel like we can't go on anymore. We must not stop when we feel like we can't walk another step because we do have people to hold on to. We must move away from the hierarchies and move this way and listen to the consensus and listen to the people who know and I was talking with beautiful people today, people who are doing this and we must get drug users to the places where they need to be so they can learn from other drug users. I cannot learn in North Carolina where I cannot meet new people but I can learn here and that's what this is about and we need more drug users in more spaces like this so we can bring this knowledge back and we can be the experts that we truly are and show what we can do because when we work together I have seen drug users do amazing things. The international network of people who use drugs has brought me in and shown me so much. I sat with you know it's just amazing to sit with world people all around the world that use drugs that I respect. They're doing things that I was taught that we could never do. What a fucking dream man. What a dream and it can't be just a dream for me and that's when people like me have got to learn and this is hard. We cannot lead with fear and we cannot lead with ego and we've got to remember to step back and step out because I remember I was I was doing some work earlier this year and I thought you know that's not necessarily the space for me and I've got to remember that I can't be so afraid of my own safety and security that I lead with safety and security instead of lead with the principles that I know are correct and that's what we all have to do. Grant funding is important. Funding is important. All of these things are important but we have to lead with the knowledge that people who use drugs lives are at war and we're dying and we need to live and we can live and I'm so grateful to be here. I want to absolutely say how proud I am to have signed this. It is the global fund at the global level. Hold on I have the wrong paper excuse me. Alright the 320 NGOs signed on to this letter and this is really important. Man we need to show this where we go. This calls for the things that we need. This is what we need. It's at least a piece of what we need and so to have this and have 329 organizations signed on is something we can be really proud of. I'm super proud to be here today. I'm super grateful for all of you. Thank you for listening to me and thank you to the women who use drugs that have made this conference a success. Thank you.