Joseph Fourre’s son Harlan was 31 when he died of fentanyl poisoning in 2023. Joseph says it was the first and only time he had ever used drugs.
“He was a great kid, he had his whole life ahead of him,” says Joseph. “He had two payments left on his car, he was investing in the stock markets, and he was thinking about getting married to his first girlfriend.”
In every other instance, Harlan would say, “No thanks, I’m good,” when offered drugs. Now, his father is taking that message to kids around the province. He is speaking at schools and communities around northern Manitoba to teach them about the risks of even occasional or recreational drug use.
“There was this one — I’ll never forget him, he was 14 years old. And he had tears in his eyes, and he said, ‘I’m really sorry for your loss, but thank you. Thank you for trying to save our lives and bringing us this information, because we didn’t know.’”
Joseph spoke at the Pikangikum First Nation Youth Conference in Winnipeg on Thursday. He told his son’s story and demonstrated how to use naloxone.
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Daniel Keeper, a child-care worker from the northern Ontario nation, says a lot of the drug use in their community is recreational and they want to prevent it from escalating.
“We don’t get that strong stuff coming into our community as of right now, so we wanted to get ahead of it,” says Keeper.
Since Harlan’s life was cut short, Joseph wants his legacy to be lasting. He hopes to achieve that — and prevent other families from feeling the same grief he’s felt — by getting the prevention message out to as many people as possible.
“I firmly believe that if we’re going to have any kind of success dealing with the opioid crisis that we find ourselves in, it needs to be a balanced approach,” says Joseph.
“We need treatment, and we need prevention and awareness.”
