His Name Is Ray (Fentanyl Crisis Documentary)

Introduction

HIS NAME IS RAY puts a face on the growing fentanyl and homeless crises’, not through statistics or sweeping generalizations, but through the eyes of a man whose life has spiralled out of control. Ray once had it all — serving in the Coast Guard, a father, a husband, a man with a purpose. But his addiction took it all away. Now, the former sailor lives on the streets of Toronto with an entire population that has fallen through the cracks. With a remarkably intimate lens, the audience follows Ray on his precarious journey to get off the streets and back on the water, where in the ultimate achievement of the oblivion he craves—he could just sail away from it all. After compelling audiences at TIFF and HOT DOCS, HIS NAME IS RAY has resonated across the globe, winning the Special Jury Prize at the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival. [Taken from YT description]

Quotes

“He’ll smack you in the head and stuff like that. I don’t feel like going there spending $50 bucks and getting smacked in the head, you know what I mean, when I got a needle in my arm, that’s not my thing to do. So I kind of cut him off right, I go to other people and now that what he’s done, he’s realized this and he’s gone to all my other people and threatened them, and now I can’t go to them because they won’t deal with me because they’re scared of him.”

“I truly need it for pain, I just overdo it a little bit, I indulge in it … because you do get a good feeling off of it right, but there’s consequences to a good feeling.”

“This sunset on the water is just beautiful. That’s what I just die for – the sunrises and the sunfall, I just miss it so much.”

“You can say you don’t talk to your parents but think about what we’ve done for you and we can’t do it anymore for you Raymond. We can’t take it anymore with you. It’s very sad Raymond. We can’t understand your situation actually because we’ve never been into anything like that. Oh, by the way, you’re a grandfather again, a little girl. You haven’t seen her yet, Raymond. You know what your daughter said about you? I said, it’s so sad that Raymond isn’t here at the wedding, we’ve sort of given up on him. She said, we never give up on anybody. She hasn’t given up on you.”

“I know this isn’t the best way of doing things but at the moment this is the only way.”

“One of these days I’m going to get back on the water. It doesn’t take a lot of money, just the right time, right place. I don’t need a nice, expensive sailboat, just something to get me on the water moving.”

“Because you are our friend, I’d rather you do it here so we can save your life as opposed to doing it somewhere else where you can’t be saved.”

“This is the fentanyl, it’s not heroin at all. It’s a synthetic opiate and that’s about a point, $20-$25 … with this stuff here, it’s so hard to tell how much you’re putting in your system. That’s why so many people are ODing because they take a shot of a normal dosage that you take regularly and they go under.”