1 00:00:00,320 --> 00:00:07,760 Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ethan Nadelman, and this is Psychoactive, a production 2 00:00:07,800 --> 00:00:11,840 Speaker 1: of iHeart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the show 3 00:00:11,880 --> 00:00:15,400 Speaker 1: where we talk about all things drugs. But any views 4 00:00:15,440 --> 00:00:20,040 Speaker 1: expressed here do not represent those of iHeart Media, Protozoa Pictures, 5 00:00:20,200 --> 00:00:24,840 Speaker 1: or their executives and employees. Indeed, heed as an inveterate contrarian, 6 00:00:25,120 --> 00:00:28,000 Speaker 1: I can tell you they may not even represent my own. 7 00:00:28,800 --> 00:00:31,600 Speaker 1: And nothing contained in this show should be used as 8 00:00:31,640 --> 00:00:42,440 Speaker 1: medical advice or encouragement to use any type of drug. Hello, 9 00:00:42,520 --> 00:00:46,479 Speaker 1: Psychoactive listeners. Today's guest is somebody I've known for a 10 00:00:46,680 --> 00:00:51,280 Speaker 1: very long time and maybe just about the most brilliant 11 00:00:51,680 --> 00:00:56,760 Speaker 1: and persistent and innovative journalist writing about drugs and addiction 12 00:00:57,240 --> 00:01:02,000 Speaker 1: over the last five to thirty years. Her name is 13 00:01:02,240 --> 00:01:05,600 Speaker 1: Maya Solivits, and you may have seen her articles in 14 00:01:05,680 --> 00:01:10,440 Speaker 1: all the prominent magazines and newspapers. She's written three books. 15 00:01:10,600 --> 00:01:12,920 Speaker 1: I mean, the first one, back in two thousand six, 16 00:01:13,040 --> 00:01:17,960 Speaker 1: was an expose on the whole troubled teen treatment industry. 17 00:01:18,120 --> 00:01:21,040 Speaker 1: It was called Helping any Cost, How the troubled teen 18 00:01:21,080 --> 00:01:24,160 Speaker 1: industry cons parents and hurts kids? And then she wrote 19 00:01:24,160 --> 00:01:28,319 Speaker 1: a brilliant book called Unbroken Brain, A Revolutionary New Way 20 00:01:28,319 --> 00:01:30,959 Speaker 1: of Understanding Addiction about five years ago, which was part 21 00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:33,640 Speaker 1: of her own story that we'll get into um. And 22 00:01:33,680 --> 00:01:35,800 Speaker 1: then more recently is a book that just came out 23 00:01:35,800 --> 00:01:40,000 Speaker 1: a few months ago called Undoing Drugs, The Untold Story 24 00:01:40,120 --> 00:01:44,240 Speaker 1: of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction. But I 25 00:01:44,280 --> 00:01:46,520 Speaker 1: just want to make clear that, I mean, Maya has 26 00:01:46,560 --> 00:01:48,400 Speaker 1: been doing this for a long time. So back when 27 00:01:48,440 --> 00:01:51,760 Speaker 1: I was running Drug Policy Alliance, we gave her the 28 00:01:52,080 --> 00:01:55,560 Speaker 1: Edward Brecker Award for Achievement in Journalism back in two 29 00:01:55,600 --> 00:01:58,360 Speaker 1: thousand and five, before she even written any these three books. 30 00:01:58,720 --> 00:02:01,960 Speaker 1: So she is really, uh, just a really singular figure. 31 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:04,600 Speaker 1: So Maya, thank you ever so much for being on 32 00:02:04,720 --> 00:02:06,640 Speaker 1: with me today. Thank you so much for saying all 33 00:02:06,640 --> 00:02:09,239 Speaker 1: those nice things about me. I really appreciate it. So 34 00:02:09,600 --> 00:02:12,720 Speaker 1: you know this book, I mean, first of all, I'm 35 00:02:12,760 --> 00:02:15,400 Speaker 1: trying to think you and I first met. I think 36 00:02:15,440 --> 00:02:19,400 Speaker 1: it must have been three I think I was maybe 37 00:02:19,440 --> 00:02:22,440 Speaker 1: still teaching at Princeton, but it moved to New York City. 38 00:02:23,120 --> 00:02:26,400 Speaker 1: You had your experience, which you've been very open about 39 00:02:26,440 --> 00:02:29,200 Speaker 1: about being a uh, you know, a quote unquote junkie, 40 00:02:29,240 --> 00:02:31,960 Speaker 1: A heroin addict, cocaine addict in your younger years, and 41 00:02:32,000 --> 00:02:35,120 Speaker 1: you had come out of that and avoided getting caught 42 00:02:35,200 --> 00:02:37,800 Speaker 1: up in the in the grips of the criminal justice system. 43 00:02:37,840 --> 00:02:41,600 Speaker 1: When a judge treated you favorably, I remember talking about 44 00:02:41,600 --> 00:02:43,760 Speaker 1: methano and at that point you were almost a little 45 00:02:43,800 --> 00:02:47,480 Speaker 1: anti or hesitant about methano. Although obviously you've come around 46 00:02:47,520 --> 00:02:50,040 Speaker 1: with the Evans. But I'm just curious what was that 47 00:02:50,200 --> 00:02:52,680 Speaker 1: about back then, because I think you your your views 48 00:02:52,760 --> 00:02:55,359 Speaker 1: changed shortly thereafter. But in the book you talk about 49 00:02:55,360 --> 00:02:57,440 Speaker 1: how you recognize the methan on work for a lot 50 00:02:57,520 --> 00:02:59,720 Speaker 1: of people, but for you, for some reason, it had 51 00:02:59,720 --> 00:03:03,480 Speaker 1: it right that was complicated. I had gone to rehab 52 00:03:03,520 --> 00:03:09,360 Speaker 1: in and in rehab by doctors, by people I thought 53 00:03:09,440 --> 00:03:13,200 Speaker 1: were professionals, by everybody who was there. I was told 54 00:03:13,280 --> 00:03:17,240 Speaker 1: that twelve step abstinence recovery is the only way to 55 00:03:17,240 --> 00:03:22,200 Speaker 1: get better, and that if you are on methodone, you 56 00:03:22,320 --> 00:03:26,320 Speaker 1: are still high. You are not in recovery, you are 57 00:03:26,360 --> 00:03:30,799 Speaker 1: not so called clean. And since I was being told 58 00:03:30,840 --> 00:03:34,400 Speaker 1: this by all these professionals, I believed it. I wrote 59 00:03:34,440 --> 00:03:37,600 Speaker 1: an anti methodone op ed at some point in the nineties, 60 00:03:37,880 --> 00:03:41,480 Speaker 1: and I have spent the last whatever many years atoning 61 00:03:41,640 --> 00:03:45,240 Speaker 1: for that because I realized that I was wrong and 62 00:03:45,280 --> 00:03:47,680 Speaker 1: that I had been taught wrongly by all of these 63 00:03:47,720 --> 00:03:50,720 Speaker 1: mainstream figures that I had trusted. And so this is 64 00:03:50,720 --> 00:03:53,320 Speaker 1: not to say the twelve steps can't help people, but 65 00:03:53,680 --> 00:03:57,839 Speaker 1: the idea that methodone is a big failure and that 66 00:03:58,040 --> 00:04:03,080 Speaker 1: buprenorphine doesn't count as recovery is just killing people to 67 00:04:03,200 --> 00:04:06,720 Speaker 1: this day. So we have two medications that cut the 68 00:04:06,800 --> 00:04:10,480 Speaker 1: death rate from opioid overdose and just opioid addiction in 69 00:04:10,560 --> 00:04:15,360 Speaker 1: general by or more. These are method on and puperdorphin 70 00:04:15,520 --> 00:04:19,640 Speaker 1: if you stay on them. And this is even more 71 00:04:19,680 --> 00:04:22,680 Speaker 1: true than it used to be because of fentanyl in 72 00:04:22,720 --> 00:04:27,400 Speaker 1: the supply now. So it's basically like, we have a 73 00:04:27,680 --> 00:04:31,440 Speaker 1: treatment that cuts the death rate in half, and yet 74 00:04:31,480 --> 00:04:35,520 Speaker 1: we prioritize a treatment that doesn't have any impact whatsoever 75 00:04:35,720 --> 00:04:39,240 Speaker 1: on mortality and may actually make it worse. So when 76 00:04:39,279 --> 00:04:41,840 Speaker 1: I sort of began my journey in the addictions world, 77 00:04:42,440 --> 00:04:45,880 Speaker 1: I I had learned one set of myths on the street. 78 00:04:46,680 --> 00:04:49,360 Speaker 1: I had learned another set of myths in like school. 79 00:04:49,960 --> 00:04:53,800 Speaker 1: I learned another set of myths from treatment and recovery programs. 80 00:04:54,360 --> 00:04:59,400 Speaker 1: And it wasn't until I started reading the scientific literature 81 00:04:59,480 --> 00:05:03,000 Speaker 1: across any different disciplines that I really began to understand 82 00:05:03,040 --> 00:05:07,840 Speaker 1: what I was talking about. It is embarrassing, but I 83 00:05:07,880 --> 00:05:11,760 Speaker 1: think it's important to note this because a lot of 84 00:05:11,800 --> 00:05:16,760 Speaker 1: people share these misconceptions to this day, and we see 85 00:05:16,960 --> 00:05:21,560 Speaker 1: people with addiction as experts on addiction as soon as 86 00:05:21,600 --> 00:05:25,320 Speaker 1: they have say, ninety days abstinent. We wouldn't say a 87 00:05:25,440 --> 00:05:28,839 Speaker 1: cancer patient who's been in remission for ninety days is 88 00:05:28,839 --> 00:05:32,120 Speaker 1: a cancer doctor, but we kind of do that equivalent 89 00:05:32,240 --> 00:05:36,240 Speaker 1: in the addictions field. And while experience is really really important, 90 00:05:36,520 --> 00:05:40,120 Speaker 1: it has to be tempered with data. I remember sometimes, 91 00:05:40,160 --> 00:05:43,000 Speaker 1: you know, will we be organizing conferences or panels and say, well, 92 00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:45,680 Speaker 1: you need a so and so representative, a representative, a 93 00:05:45,720 --> 00:05:48,400 Speaker 1: drug user, representative, youth. And I used to think, what 94 00:05:48,440 --> 00:05:53,120 Speaker 1: a ridiculous IDEA Experience with drugs varies traumatically across the spectrum, 95 00:05:53,400 --> 00:05:56,760 Speaker 1: So the notion of individuals sort of standing up as representatives, 96 00:05:56,800 --> 00:05:59,200 Speaker 1: you know, is a little flawed. What's important, of course, 97 00:05:59,200 --> 00:06:02,560 Speaker 1: it's more general lee to have multiple voices in a 98 00:06:02,600 --> 00:06:06,760 Speaker 1: way coming from lived experience of people, without assuming that 99 00:06:06,800 --> 00:06:09,680 Speaker 1: one person's lived experience is this sort of basis for 100 00:06:09,760 --> 00:06:13,920 Speaker 1: establishing policies, whether in a program or more broadly exactly. 101 00:06:13,960 --> 00:06:16,440 Speaker 1: I mean, one of the things that I have taken 102 00:06:16,440 --> 00:06:18,960 Speaker 1: to saying recently is that if I stood up and 103 00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:22,040 Speaker 1: I said I speak for all white women with red hair, 104 00:06:22,200 --> 00:06:24,680 Speaker 1: people would think I was nuts. But if I get 105 00:06:24,720 --> 00:06:26,799 Speaker 1: up and say I speak for all people with addiction, 106 00:06:27,040 --> 00:06:30,560 Speaker 1: people will sometimes believe me. And that's not right, because 107 00:06:30,680 --> 00:06:34,120 Speaker 1: we're all unique. And one of the most harmful things 108 00:06:34,200 --> 00:06:37,200 Speaker 1: in the drug policy and treatment field is this one 109 00:06:37,240 --> 00:06:40,359 Speaker 1: size fits all mentality and this idea that everybody with 110 00:06:40,400 --> 00:06:44,960 Speaker 1: addiction is a liar, a thief, a cheat, a manipulative person, 111 00:06:45,600 --> 00:06:51,120 Speaker 1: as sociopath essentially, and those stereotypes come from the racist 112 00:06:51,200 --> 00:06:56,920 Speaker 1: history of our drug laws and criminalization of certain substances. 113 00:06:57,760 --> 00:07:02,040 Speaker 1: So we have to fight against this dehumanization because there's 114 00:07:02,040 --> 00:07:04,120 Speaker 1: no other group of people that we say they're all 115 00:07:04,160 --> 00:07:06,400 Speaker 1: the same right now, And I think that's I think 116 00:07:06,400 --> 00:07:08,960 Speaker 1: that's exactly right, you know, I mean, even going back 117 00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:10,960 Speaker 1: to methodon, sorry to start off by putting you in 118 00:07:10,960 --> 00:07:12,760 Speaker 1: the spot on that thing. They're little embarrassed it on 119 00:07:12,800 --> 00:07:14,800 Speaker 1: in your past. But you know, somebody, we both knew 120 00:07:14,920 --> 00:07:17,640 Speaker 1: Dr Robert Newman, who was the head of a major 121 00:07:17,720 --> 00:07:21,240 Speaker 1: New York City hospital but whose great passion was making 122 00:07:21,240 --> 00:07:23,840 Speaker 1: method on main earn his treatment more available to people. 123 00:07:24,160 --> 00:07:28,960 Speaker 1: And Bob was simultaneously the leading global advocate for making 124 00:07:29,040 --> 00:07:31,960 Speaker 1: methanon available for people who had had a problem with 125 00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:35,360 Speaker 1: street heroin or other illicit opioids, and at the same 126 00:07:35,400 --> 00:07:39,120 Speaker 1: time the leading antagonist an opponent of the method on 127 00:07:39,200 --> 00:07:43,680 Speaker 1: treatment industry. The folks involved on the industry side of methodon, 128 00:07:44,000 --> 00:07:46,480 Speaker 1: we're not always serving the interests of their patients. They 129 00:07:46,560 --> 00:07:48,760 Speaker 1: might have been pursuing profit, they might have been pursuing 130 00:07:48,760 --> 00:07:52,360 Speaker 1: their own ideologies, etcetera. And then when you have methon programs, 131 00:07:52,360 --> 00:07:54,880 Speaker 1: you have some rights that are you know, that are 132 00:07:55,040 --> 00:07:57,960 Speaker 1: very strict hyper control. They kick anybody out if they've 133 00:07:57,960 --> 00:08:00,760 Speaker 1: ever tested positive for marijuana, if they don't show what periodically, 134 00:08:00,800 --> 00:08:02,800 Speaker 1: if they don't to hear every rule. And then you 135 00:08:02,840 --> 00:08:05,720 Speaker 1: have what might be called harm reduction oriented method on programs, 136 00:08:05,760 --> 00:08:08,160 Speaker 1: which are much more about meeting people where they're at. 137 00:08:08,400 --> 00:08:12,880 Speaker 1: The problem is our regulations. Our regulations force even the 138 00:08:12,920 --> 00:08:17,560 Speaker 1: most harm reduction oriented method of program to make people 139 00:08:17,560 --> 00:08:19,560 Speaker 1: show up every day for the first ninety days at 140 00:08:19,640 --> 00:08:24,360 Speaker 1: least to have very frequent urine testing, to have frequent 141 00:08:24,600 --> 00:08:27,960 Speaker 1: counseling requirements, and all of these things that we don't 142 00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:32,120 Speaker 1: require for any other medication. And this comes from our 143 00:08:32,200 --> 00:08:36,920 Speaker 1: history and our current laws which say that providing and 144 00:08:37,640 --> 00:08:42,079 Speaker 1: opioid or cocaine or any other illegal drug to comfort 145 00:08:42,440 --> 00:08:47,080 Speaker 1: a quotes addict is not legitimate medicine. And so in 146 00:08:47,200 --> 00:08:50,920 Speaker 1: order to get around this early Supreme Court decision and 147 00:08:51,240 --> 00:08:55,080 Speaker 1: the Controlled Substances Act that kind of embodied that further, 148 00:08:55,760 --> 00:08:59,880 Speaker 1: people have to dance around so that they see met 149 00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:03,760 Speaker 1: the donn as assisting the treatment, so we have medication 150 00:09:03,920 --> 00:09:07,160 Speaker 1: assisted treatment when in fact it is the medication that 151 00:09:07,280 --> 00:09:09,679 Speaker 1: is proven to cut the death rate, not the counseling, 152 00:09:09,720 --> 00:09:12,440 Speaker 1: not any of the other stuff. We'll get into more 153 00:09:12,480 --> 00:09:14,840 Speaker 1: of the issues in the present later on, but what 154 00:09:15,080 --> 00:09:19,440 Speaker 1: I personally found so fascinating about your book was your 155 00:09:19,520 --> 00:09:23,240 Speaker 1: going into the historical origins of harm reduction, especially in 156 00:09:23,280 --> 00:09:26,360 Speaker 1: the US, going back to the really the early eighties. 157 00:09:26,559 --> 00:09:29,440 Speaker 1: And interesting of course, um for me is I know 158 00:09:29,880 --> 00:09:32,320 Speaker 1: and or new a lot of these folks, some of 159 00:09:32,320 --> 00:09:34,920 Speaker 1: them are still active, and so I want to ask 160 00:09:34,960 --> 00:09:37,680 Speaker 1: you if you could sort of, you know, use their 161 00:09:37,720 --> 00:09:42,440 Speaker 1: story as a way um of maybe explaining the broader concepts. 162 00:09:42,600 --> 00:09:45,280 Speaker 1: But let me start off. I think you rightly trace 163 00:09:45,400 --> 00:09:49,960 Speaker 1: the origins of harm reduction to two places, one in 164 00:09:50,040 --> 00:09:54,679 Speaker 1: the Netherlands and the second to Liverpool. So let's just 165 00:09:54,800 --> 00:09:58,440 Speaker 1: start with the Netherlands, right, and you talk about the 166 00:09:58,559 --> 00:10:02,000 Speaker 1: history of the junkie unions the Junkie Bund I think 167 00:10:02,040 --> 00:10:05,439 Speaker 1: they were called, which then spread around Europe. But explained 168 00:10:05,559 --> 00:10:10,320 Speaker 1: their significance, right. So a man named Nico Adrian's, who 169 00:10:10,360 --> 00:10:14,840 Speaker 1: was himself a heroin injector, founded the first Junkie Bund 170 00:10:15,440 --> 00:10:23,200 Speaker 1: in Rotterdam in or and he got support from public 171 00:10:23,240 --> 00:10:26,760 Speaker 1: health officials, from other people who used drugs, from drug 172 00:10:26,800 --> 00:10:31,200 Speaker 1: policy reformers. At the time, they were facing a outbreak 173 00:10:31,440 --> 00:10:36,040 Speaker 1: of hepatitis B, which usually isn't deadly, but in this 174 00:10:36,080 --> 00:10:39,000 Speaker 1: case it was being deadly in some instances, and I 175 00:10:39,040 --> 00:10:43,400 Speaker 1: think maybe that was actually early HIV, but we don't know. Anyway, 176 00:10:43,640 --> 00:10:47,760 Speaker 1: he realized that clean needles would solve this problem. As 177 00:10:47,800 --> 00:10:50,680 Speaker 1: an injector himself, he knew that it was nonsense that 178 00:10:50,720 --> 00:10:54,520 Speaker 1: people liked to share needles, so he started the world's 179 00:10:54,520 --> 00:10:57,719 Speaker 1: first needle exchange. He gave people clean needles, and he 180 00:10:57,800 --> 00:11:01,760 Speaker 1: took the used ones off the street, and this meant 181 00:11:01,840 --> 00:11:06,320 Speaker 1: that when HIV did show up for noticeably real in 182 00:11:06,480 --> 00:11:10,240 Speaker 1: the next three or four years, Rotterdam had a much 183 00:11:10,360 --> 00:11:14,920 Speaker 1: lower rate of infection amongst its ivy drug users compared 184 00:11:14,960 --> 00:11:20,119 Speaker 1: to even Amsterdam. And so when the HIV virus was discovered, 185 00:11:20,920 --> 00:11:23,600 Speaker 1: Amsterdam and the rest of the Netherlands was like, oh wow, 186 00:11:23,640 --> 00:11:26,560 Speaker 1: we have something here in Rotterdam that can work for this. 187 00:11:26,640 --> 00:11:30,800 Speaker 1: So they just expanded needle exchange very broadly. And the 188 00:11:30,880 --> 00:11:34,400 Speaker 1: Dutch have always been really pragmatic about drug policy. They 189 00:11:34,400 --> 00:11:37,280 Speaker 1: have the marijuana coffee shops, you know, And it was 190 00:11:37,400 --> 00:11:41,560 Speaker 1: kind of the same drug policy reformers there who also 191 00:11:41,840 --> 00:11:44,120 Speaker 1: began to be concerned about what they called hard drug 192 00:11:44,200 --> 00:11:48,120 Speaker 1: users as well, because they recognized that making marijuana illegal 193 00:11:48,600 --> 00:11:52,720 Speaker 1: was just harming their children, and they also realized that 194 00:11:52,760 --> 00:11:54,680 Speaker 1: it wasn't working so great for the people who are 195 00:11:54,720 --> 00:11:58,680 Speaker 1: using these other drugs either, So they developed this whole 196 00:11:58,720 --> 00:12:02,840 Speaker 1: sort of pragmatic, practical way of dealing with this as 197 00:12:02,880 --> 00:12:05,959 Speaker 1: a medical and health issue. To provide the context, in 198 00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:09,760 Speaker 1: the seventy six the Dutchet passed the law that basically 199 00:12:10,000 --> 00:12:14,560 Speaker 1: decriminalized but did not fully legalize cannabis marijuana, although they 200 00:12:14,600 --> 00:12:18,040 Speaker 1: didn't authorize the creational coffee shops that kind of evolved 201 00:12:18,480 --> 00:12:20,240 Speaker 1: out of that change in the law in the same 202 00:12:20,280 --> 00:12:22,720 Speaker 1: way that some of the cannabis dispensaries began to evolve 203 00:12:22,720 --> 00:12:25,440 Speaker 1: in the mid nineties in California, not actually authorized by 204 00:12:25,440 --> 00:12:28,199 Speaker 1: the government, but that same law that kind of decriminalized 205 00:12:28,240 --> 00:12:31,400 Speaker 1: cannabis had actually gotten tougher on the white powdered drugs 206 00:12:31,880 --> 00:12:35,920 Speaker 1: um But even in that context, there was this pragmatic tradition, 207 00:12:36,200 --> 00:12:38,240 Speaker 1: and when they started giving out needles, it wasn't like 208 00:12:38,240 --> 00:12:39,920 Speaker 1: we'll only give you a needle if you give us 209 00:12:39,920 --> 00:12:42,520 Speaker 1: back a dirty one. It was like, throw your dirty 210 00:12:42,520 --> 00:12:44,680 Speaker 1: ones in here. But even if you don't have any 211 00:12:44,679 --> 00:12:46,360 Speaker 1: dirty ones to throw in, we're still going to give 212 00:12:46,400 --> 00:12:52,160 Speaker 1: you a clean needle, because that's what's pivotal there. We'll 213 00:12:52,200 --> 00:13:06,320 Speaker 1: be talking more after we hear this. Add Now you 214 00:13:06,360 --> 00:13:08,360 Speaker 1: then shift the story. In fact, you ground the story 215 00:13:08,400 --> 00:13:12,040 Speaker 1: even more as you said in Liverpool. Yeah, So what 216 00:13:12,240 --> 00:13:17,360 Speaker 1: happened was they watched as Edinburgh, which was very similar 217 00:13:17,480 --> 00:13:24,400 Speaker 1: socioeconomically to Liverpool, had this horrific HIV outbreak. The first 218 00:13:24,440 --> 00:13:27,720 Speaker 1: time they tested their IVY drug users. They discovered that 219 00:13:27,800 --> 00:13:30,559 Speaker 1: half of them were already HIV positive. And this is 220 00:13:30,600 --> 00:13:33,200 Speaker 1: at a time when AIDS was basically a death sentence. 221 00:13:33,960 --> 00:13:37,040 Speaker 1: So they had all these young people, they had a 222 00:13:37,080 --> 00:13:41,120 Speaker 1: really high rate of unemployment, they had a lot of heroin, 223 00:13:41,679 --> 00:13:44,120 Speaker 1: and they had a lot of injecting, and so you 224 00:13:44,160 --> 00:13:49,320 Speaker 1: would see these teenagers literally who were already HIV infected. 225 00:13:49,760 --> 00:13:52,600 Speaker 1: And they realized that they had actually helped create the 226 00:13:52,640 --> 00:13:56,160 Speaker 1: situation because when they started freaking out about how many 227 00:13:56,240 --> 00:14:00,199 Speaker 1: kids were injecting, they cracked down on needle availability, they 228 00:14:00,200 --> 00:14:04,720 Speaker 1: shut their methodon program, and they also started arresting more people, 229 00:14:05,200 --> 00:14:07,920 Speaker 1: and all of this meant that there were fewer clean 230 00:14:07,960 --> 00:14:11,680 Speaker 1: needles available, and there were still a ton of users, 231 00:14:11,800 --> 00:14:14,160 Speaker 1: and in fact even more because they cut off the methodon't. 232 00:14:14,559 --> 00:14:20,080 Speaker 1: So you end up with this absolutely horrific outbreak among 233 00:14:20,160 --> 00:14:24,880 Speaker 1: young people. And Liverpool had the same socio economic conditions. 234 00:14:24,920 --> 00:14:28,760 Speaker 1: They had super high youth unemployment, their factories were shutting down, 235 00:14:28,760 --> 00:14:33,239 Speaker 1: the docks were shutting down, They had real serious economic problems, 236 00:14:33,680 --> 00:14:36,120 Speaker 1: and they also had a lot of heroin and a 237 00:14:36,120 --> 00:14:39,440 Speaker 1: lot of injecting, but they did not have HIV yet. 238 00:14:40,120 --> 00:14:44,080 Speaker 1: So public health officials and people who were injecting drugs there, 239 00:14:44,600 --> 00:14:47,520 Speaker 1: came together and said, you know, if we don't want 240 00:14:47,520 --> 00:14:50,680 Speaker 1: to be Edinburgh, we got to do something. They knew 241 00:14:50,720 --> 00:14:53,400 Speaker 1: that the Dutch had started needle exchange, so they knew 242 00:14:53,440 --> 00:14:55,640 Speaker 1: that was part of what they wanted to do. And 243 00:14:55,880 --> 00:15:01,360 Speaker 1: Dr John Marks had already been prescribing heroin to a 244 00:15:01,440 --> 00:15:04,400 Speaker 1: lot of people because he'd taken over the practice of 245 00:15:04,440 --> 00:15:07,160 Speaker 1: a previous doctor who did that. And at first when 246 00:15:07,160 --> 00:15:09,240 Speaker 1: he came in he was like, oh, this is a 247 00:15:09,320 --> 00:15:11,760 Speaker 1: terrible idea. We're supposed to be getting them off this stuff. 248 00:15:12,320 --> 00:15:15,600 Speaker 1: And yet he saw that actually prescribing to them, they 249 00:15:15,600 --> 00:15:18,040 Speaker 1: were functional, They just kind of looked like everybody else, 250 00:15:18,400 --> 00:15:21,440 Speaker 1: and that this was indeed a way of reducing the 251 00:15:21,480 --> 00:15:26,560 Speaker 1: harm associated with their addictions, and it did not prolong addiction. 252 00:15:26,880 --> 00:15:30,800 Speaker 1: In fact, he found there was less dealing because if 253 00:15:30,800 --> 00:15:33,280 Speaker 1: you didn't have to support your own habit, you were 254 00:15:33,320 --> 00:15:37,240 Speaker 1: not seeking income by selling to other people. So it 255 00:15:37,360 --> 00:15:40,880 Speaker 1: also had a kind of anti crime effect, not only 256 00:15:41,000 --> 00:15:45,000 Speaker 1: on things like shoplifting, but also on dealing itself. And 257 00:15:45,120 --> 00:15:48,000 Speaker 1: so the police were actually in favor of this, which 258 00:15:48,080 --> 00:15:50,280 Speaker 1: was one of the things that allowed them to do 259 00:15:50,440 --> 00:15:53,600 Speaker 1: stuff that is very hard to do. Anywhere else. Now. 260 00:15:53,640 --> 00:15:56,400 Speaker 1: I was also just say, to put this in context again, 261 00:15:56,800 --> 00:16:02,160 Speaker 1: John Marks was unusual character, a very colorful personality, because 262 00:16:02,200 --> 00:16:05,760 Speaker 1: in fact, the British system, which basically said that doctors 263 00:16:05,760 --> 00:16:08,800 Speaker 1: are allowed to prescribe any drug in the pharm of copeda, 264 00:16:08,840 --> 00:16:12,280 Speaker 1: including heroin or cocaine, went back to the nineteen twenties 265 00:16:12,400 --> 00:16:14,440 Speaker 1: or before. At the same time the U s Government, 266 00:16:14,440 --> 00:16:17,120 Speaker 1: that Supreme Court case you mentioned, the webcase, was banning 267 00:16:17,440 --> 00:16:20,000 Speaker 1: that behavior by doctors. The British were saying, let's do that. 268 00:16:20,360 --> 00:16:23,760 Speaker 1: So for decades in fact, you had people who you know, 269 00:16:23,800 --> 00:16:26,120 Speaker 1: they got their script and their doctor, they did their heroin, 270 00:16:26,160 --> 00:16:29,000 Speaker 1: they did their cocaine, maybe a combo, a legal speedball, 271 00:16:29,240 --> 00:16:32,080 Speaker 1: and they had full time jobs right and families, and 272 00:16:32,120 --> 00:16:35,560 Speaker 1: they were oftentimes middle class people, indistinguishable. They could drive, 273 00:16:35,640 --> 00:16:39,720 Speaker 1: they could do everything. Then along come to late sixties seventies, 274 00:16:40,080 --> 00:16:43,200 Speaker 1: and the UK, like other countries, starts to get flooded 275 00:16:43,200 --> 00:16:47,160 Speaker 1: with heroin coming from Turkey, Southwest Asia what ever, and 276 00:16:47,320 --> 00:16:49,960 Speaker 1: basically the government cracks down and so you have a 277 00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:53,440 Speaker 1: contraction of doctors doing this stuff. And so by the 278 00:16:53,480 --> 00:16:56,800 Speaker 1: time you get to the eighties, you're really down to 279 00:16:56,880 --> 00:16:59,880 Speaker 1: only a small number of doctors who are actually doing this, 280 00:17:00,040 --> 00:17:04,000 Speaker 1: prescribing heroina cocaine sometimes to older patients. But would distinguish 281 00:17:04,080 --> 00:17:07,520 Speaker 1: this John marks Um is that he's out there, he 282 00:17:07,600 --> 00:17:11,000 Speaker 1: wants to let people know about this, and he's connected 283 00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:14,400 Speaker 1: with the other harm reduction folks that you also describe 284 00:17:14,440 --> 00:17:16,720 Speaker 1: in this book. So just talk a little more about 285 00:17:16,720 --> 00:17:20,720 Speaker 1: Alan Parry and the other characters. Sure. So, Alan Parry 286 00:17:20,880 --> 00:17:27,000 Speaker 1: almost everybody describes him as an incredibly charismatic and persuasive fellow. 287 00:17:27,760 --> 00:17:32,360 Speaker 1: He was a former injector at the time and he 288 00:17:33,200 --> 00:17:37,439 Speaker 1: began to do the needle exchange in Liverpool. And what 289 00:17:37,560 --> 00:17:40,320 Speaker 1: he also did he was very clever about the media 290 00:17:40,960 --> 00:17:44,200 Speaker 1: because typically harm reduction is met by oh my god, 291 00:17:44,240 --> 00:17:47,600 Speaker 1: you're giving needles to junkies, and the media just freaks 292 00:17:47,600 --> 00:17:51,359 Speaker 1: out and it's a sensational tabloid nightmare. But so what 293 00:17:51,480 --> 00:17:53,760 Speaker 1: he did is say, look, we're starting this, we don't 294 00:17:53,760 --> 00:17:56,000 Speaker 1: know if it's gonna work, but give us a couple 295 00:17:56,000 --> 00:17:58,639 Speaker 1: of weeks and we'll give you the exclusive. So he 296 00:17:58,720 --> 00:18:00,560 Speaker 1: got them on board and he told them what to 297 00:18:00,600 --> 00:18:04,400 Speaker 1: look at. Before there was a big bit of hysteria 298 00:18:04,480 --> 00:18:06,919 Speaker 1: around this, and this was helped along, of course by 299 00:18:06,960 --> 00:18:09,560 Speaker 1: the fact that Edinburgh had been such a disaster doing 300 00:18:09,560 --> 00:18:13,040 Speaker 1: the opposite of what Liverpool was doing. And I guess, 301 00:18:13,200 --> 00:18:16,600 Speaker 1: um there was a few others, right. There was Peter McDermott, 302 00:18:16,720 --> 00:18:19,720 Speaker 1: who in your little full disclosure you describe as your 303 00:18:19,920 --> 00:18:23,640 Speaker 1: your transatlantic romantic partner in years past, um, but who 304 00:18:23,680 --> 00:18:26,720 Speaker 1: really helped provide some of the language of harm reduction 305 00:18:26,960 --> 00:18:30,000 Speaker 1: and the intellectual basis for what's going on there. Absolutely, 306 00:18:30,040 --> 00:18:31,800 Speaker 1: and I mean he's one of the most brilliant people 307 00:18:31,840 --> 00:18:33,960 Speaker 1: I've ever met. You know, we will not go into 308 00:18:34,000 --> 00:18:36,600 Speaker 1: more details of my romantic life, but I did have 309 00:18:36,680 --> 00:18:39,320 Speaker 1: to disclose that because I do say nice things about him, 310 00:18:39,359 --> 00:18:42,640 Speaker 1: and I mean them, but um, the you know that 311 00:18:42,800 --> 00:18:47,800 Speaker 1: relationship did occur, um. But anyway, just absolutely brilliant guy. 312 00:18:48,440 --> 00:18:54,840 Speaker 1: And he was a current active out drug user, which 313 00:18:55,040 --> 00:18:59,160 Speaker 1: was rare at that point. A lot of people were 314 00:18:59,359 --> 00:19:05,359 Speaker 1: covert using drugs um in that scene. But he was 315 00:19:05,480 --> 00:19:09,159 Speaker 1: out about it, and he was furious about the fact 316 00:19:09,240 --> 00:19:12,119 Speaker 1: that when he tried to get a job in the field, 317 00:19:12,680 --> 00:19:16,520 Speaker 1: he was kicked out on his first day because he 318 00:19:16,600 --> 00:19:20,119 Speaker 1: was on methodon and they told him that basically he 319 00:19:20,119 --> 00:19:22,879 Speaker 1: couldn't be trusted. You know. Here was this guy who 320 00:19:22,920 --> 00:19:25,919 Speaker 1: had basically dropped out of high school. But he was 321 00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:28,800 Speaker 1: like studying drugs in the library when he dropped out, 322 00:19:29,400 --> 00:19:33,200 Speaker 1: and he decided that, well, I get a bigger welfare 323 00:19:33,200 --> 00:19:35,840 Speaker 1: payment if I would go back to school. So he 324 00:19:35,920 --> 00:19:40,320 Speaker 1: goes back to school, and he succeeds brilliantly, and then 325 00:19:40,480 --> 00:19:43,119 Speaker 1: you know, goes to graduate school and gets a first 326 00:19:43,119 --> 00:19:46,600 Speaker 1: class degree and he thinks, Wow, maybe I actually could 327 00:19:46,600 --> 00:19:49,199 Speaker 1: get a job. Because that was not his original He 328 00:19:49,280 --> 00:19:51,359 Speaker 1: just thought that he was doomed because he was a 329 00:19:51,359 --> 00:19:54,920 Speaker 1: working class guy and he had this addiction, and nobody 330 00:19:54,960 --> 00:19:57,040 Speaker 1: was going to ever pay attention to the fact that 331 00:19:57,080 --> 00:20:00,240 Speaker 1: he actually had a lot to contribute. And he also 332 00:20:00,240 --> 00:20:02,920 Speaker 1: a ladies man. So anyway, we're not going to go there. 333 00:20:03,680 --> 00:20:06,080 Speaker 1: I'm not asking Maya. But he did. Was he the 334 00:20:06,080 --> 00:20:09,120 Speaker 1: one who sort of coins and popularizes the term harm reduction? 335 00:20:09,560 --> 00:20:12,760 Speaker 1: Actually that's Russell Nucomb. But what Peter did was to 336 00:20:13,440 --> 00:20:16,200 Speaker 1: really theorize it. I mean, he read all these people 337 00:20:16,359 --> 00:20:20,240 Speaker 1: like uh Fuco and La Khan and all of this stuff. 338 00:20:20,280 --> 00:20:23,760 Speaker 1: He was just very intellectual and he really thought very 339 00:20:23,880 --> 00:20:27,760 Speaker 1: very deeply about addiction and what it was. And and 340 00:20:27,800 --> 00:20:30,320 Speaker 1: we actually spent a lot of time arguing about the 341 00:20:30,440 --> 00:20:34,040 Speaker 1: nature of addiction. And so you know, some of us. 342 00:20:34,720 --> 00:20:38,159 Speaker 1: Sometimes I convinced him, sometimes he convinced me. Um. But 343 00:20:38,640 --> 00:20:42,000 Speaker 1: the you know, he really knew his stuff. And so 344 00:20:42,160 --> 00:20:46,840 Speaker 1: along with Russell and along with Pat O'Hare um, they 345 00:20:46,880 --> 00:20:50,240 Speaker 1: founded what was first known as the Mercy Drugs Journal 346 00:20:50,680 --> 00:20:53,680 Speaker 1: and then became known as the International Journal and Harm Reduction. 347 00:20:54,040 --> 00:20:57,800 Speaker 1: And they also started holding international conferences to sell people 348 00:20:57,800 --> 00:21:01,199 Speaker 1: on the idea. And so Russell Knucombe writes the article 349 00:21:01,320 --> 00:21:06,239 Speaker 1: that names Harm Reduction in and it gets published in 350 00:21:06,400 --> 00:21:09,080 Speaker 1: drug Link, which is kind of like a newsletter for 351 00:21:09,160 --> 00:21:13,600 Speaker 1: the drug addiction treatment field. And it's such an obscure 352 00:21:13,640 --> 00:21:16,720 Speaker 1: newsletter that it has like a typo in the headline 353 00:21:16,800 --> 00:21:20,439 Speaker 1: it's high time for hame Reduction. Um. They fixed that 354 00:21:20,560 --> 00:21:24,639 Speaker 1: later online, but um, that is the article that gives 355 00:21:24,680 --> 00:21:27,920 Speaker 1: the movement its name. And they were really thinking, like, 356 00:21:28,080 --> 00:21:33,000 Speaker 1: what does you know prescribing and giving out clean needles 357 00:21:33,080 --> 00:21:36,200 Speaker 1: and teaching people wound care, what is what does that 358 00:21:36,440 --> 00:21:39,359 Speaker 1: have in common? And what they came to was that like, 359 00:21:39,480 --> 00:21:42,679 Speaker 1: these are measures to reduce harm, and that indeed the 360 00:21:42,720 --> 00:21:46,960 Speaker 1: goal of any policy or drug policy in particular should 361 00:21:47,040 --> 00:21:51,560 Speaker 1: be to reduce harm, not stop people from getting high, 362 00:21:51,760 --> 00:21:55,840 Speaker 1: and so that is it seems kind of obvious, but 363 00:21:55,960 --> 00:21:59,320 Speaker 1: it's actually a brilliant insight and it really really threatens 364 00:21:59,680 --> 00:22:02,640 Speaker 1: the basis of the drug war, because the drug war 365 00:22:02,840 --> 00:22:05,320 Speaker 1: is all about, let's get rid of these drugs, and 366 00:22:05,320 --> 00:22:07,120 Speaker 1: we don't care what the cost is. We don't care 367 00:22:07,119 --> 00:22:08,800 Speaker 1: how many people we have to lock up, we don't 368 00:22:08,800 --> 00:22:10,879 Speaker 1: care how many people die of overdose. We're going to 369 00:22:10,960 --> 00:22:13,520 Speaker 1: crack down on these drugs and we're the good guys 370 00:22:13,520 --> 00:22:16,760 Speaker 1: because these drugs are bad, and harm reduction comes along 371 00:22:16,880 --> 00:22:20,320 Speaker 1: and says, wait a minute, what's bad is people getting 372 00:22:20,359 --> 00:22:24,160 Speaker 1: injured and people dying. And so what they discovered as 373 00:22:24,160 --> 00:22:27,280 Speaker 1: they went along doing this was that if you're kind 374 00:22:27,320 --> 00:22:30,080 Speaker 1: and nice to people and you meet them where they are, 375 00:22:31,240 --> 00:22:34,879 Speaker 1: that actually helps people move towards abstinence or other forms 376 00:22:34,880 --> 00:22:39,119 Speaker 1: of recovery. It doesn't enable them or encourage them to 377 00:22:39,160 --> 00:22:41,920 Speaker 1: go on worse binges. When you look at the data 378 00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:46,040 Speaker 1: on prescribing heroin, people don't stay addicted longer than if 379 00:22:46,040 --> 00:22:47,840 Speaker 1: you just leave them on the street to get very 380 00:22:47,880 --> 00:22:51,320 Speaker 1: sick and die. Even they actually are just as likely 381 00:22:51,359 --> 00:22:54,840 Speaker 1: to get into recovery as people um who are not 382 00:22:54,960 --> 00:23:00,439 Speaker 1: in heroin prescribing. So the whole foundation of our ideology 383 00:23:00,480 --> 00:23:04,480 Speaker 1: about drugs gets completely destroyed by harm reduction and by 384 00:23:04,480 --> 00:23:07,320 Speaker 1: the data that comes from harm reduction. Because they knew 385 00:23:07,359 --> 00:23:10,919 Speaker 1: they were doing something really controversial, so they insisted on 386 00:23:11,080 --> 00:23:14,399 Speaker 1: studying what they were doing at the same time. You know, 387 00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:16,840 Speaker 1: so just for our listeners, you know, Maya just started 388 00:23:16,880 --> 00:23:20,560 Speaker 1: these early things coming out of Liverpool and the journal 389 00:23:20,680 --> 00:23:23,359 Speaker 1: she mentioned in the Mercyside Harm Reduction Journal, which then 390 00:23:23,400 --> 00:23:25,480 Speaker 1: became I think with the International Journal and Drug Policy 391 00:23:25,520 --> 00:23:28,120 Speaker 1: i j d P, still exists and it is still 392 00:23:28,119 --> 00:23:31,199 Speaker 1: a fantastic resource for people interest in this area. The 393 00:23:31,320 --> 00:23:35,960 Speaker 1: organization that paddle Hair and others created was initially called 394 00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:40,040 Speaker 1: the International Harm Reduction Association, and they had their first 395 00:23:40,119 --> 00:23:44,199 Speaker 1: conference in Liverpool. They deliberately piggybacked it on a governmental 396 00:23:44,240 --> 00:23:46,800 Speaker 1: conference in order to kind of get more media coverage 397 00:23:46,840 --> 00:23:49,080 Speaker 1: for it. But then they decided to take it outside 398 00:23:49,080 --> 00:23:52,560 Speaker 1: Liverpool and in ninety one they went to uh to Barcelona, 399 00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:54,840 Speaker 1: and in ninety two they went to Melbourne and in 400 00:23:54,960 --> 00:23:58,040 Speaker 1: ninety three to rotter Damn. So really they were thinking, 401 00:23:58,080 --> 00:24:00,440 Speaker 1: and I think especially paddle Hair, we're thinking, I had 402 00:24:00,440 --> 00:24:02,520 Speaker 1: to take this thing into a much more global way 403 00:24:02,560 --> 00:24:06,359 Speaker 1: that brought together the harm reductionists, the public health researchers, 404 00:24:06,400 --> 00:24:09,399 Speaker 1: the other academics, trying to bring in some government people, 405 00:24:09,920 --> 00:24:12,159 Speaker 1: and just to throw in maya one other little anecdote 406 00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:13,800 Speaker 1: I think you'll get a kick out of. I had 407 00:24:13,800 --> 00:24:16,760 Speaker 1: already known John Marks and the other guys by the 408 00:24:16,920 --> 00:24:20,439 Speaker 1: by the late eighties, but there was a moment in 409 00:24:20,720 --> 00:24:23,760 Speaker 1: June of nine two and I remember going to a 410 00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:27,080 Speaker 1: conference in Prague, right when they were officially splitting up 411 00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:30,919 Speaker 1: Czechoslovakia into Czech and Slovak republics, and it was the 412 00:24:30,960 --> 00:24:35,280 Speaker 1: International trans Personal Association conference. It was the first time 413 00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:37,440 Speaker 1: I ever saw rahmda speak, the first time I heard 414 00:24:37,520 --> 00:24:40,879 Speaker 1: Terrence McKenna, the famous psychedelics writers speak. You know, my 415 00:24:40,960 --> 00:24:43,720 Speaker 1: friend Sasha's Shulgin, the great psycholo innovator, was there. So 416 00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:45,720 Speaker 1: there were some of the psychedelics folks were there, but 417 00:24:45,880 --> 00:24:49,160 Speaker 1: also there were John Marks and I think Alan Parry. 418 00:24:49,359 --> 00:24:52,399 Speaker 1: And one evening, John and Allen and I and another 419 00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:55,800 Speaker 1: friend we go over to the home in the suburbs 420 00:24:55,800 --> 00:24:59,920 Speaker 1: of Prague um for a dinner. And when I remember 421 00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:02,480 Speaker 1: about that evening were two things that John Marx is 422 00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:04,159 Speaker 1: this guy I think he had a red beard. He 423 00:25:04,200 --> 00:25:06,720 Speaker 1: was then in his forties and very you know, big 424 00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:11,320 Speaker 1: rambunctious personality, kind of a classically minded brit And I 425 00:25:11,400 --> 00:25:16,280 Speaker 1: remember that on our host put on this operatic music 426 00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:20,359 Speaker 1: and John Marks got high on marijuana, which he had 427 00:25:20,400 --> 00:25:23,200 Speaker 1: never done until he hit his forties. And he then 428 00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:27,040 Speaker 1: proceeded marching back and forth in the backyard as he 429 00:25:27,080 --> 00:25:31,600 Speaker 1: was smoking this joint, singing along in German to this opera. Meanwhile, 430 00:25:31,720 --> 00:25:34,719 Speaker 1: back inside, I think it was Alan who at that 431 00:25:34,760 --> 00:25:37,080 Speaker 1: point may have been using heroin again and had a 432 00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:41,199 Speaker 1: script from John and um, he wanted needed to go inject, 433 00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:44,680 Speaker 1: and I said, well, can I watch? And the truth was, 434 00:25:44,720 --> 00:25:46,920 Speaker 1: at that point, even though I'd been involved in drug 435 00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:49,640 Speaker 1: policy reform in the bigger political and policy issues, I've 436 00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:52,879 Speaker 1: actually never seen somebody in jack heroin. And so we 437 00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:56,800 Speaker 1: just sat there while he injected, and we just kept 438 00:25:56,880 --> 00:26:00,400 Speaker 1: up a conversation and he didn't change. And I said, 439 00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:02,720 Speaker 1: you know, al inside, how do you feel, And he goes, 440 00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:05,960 Speaker 1: I just feel calmer now. But I mean his conversation, 441 00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:09,159 Speaker 1: his thinking, nothing else changed, and the experience of just 442 00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:12,520 Speaker 1: sitting with him as he calmly injected himself. Um, the way, 443 00:26:12,520 --> 00:26:15,399 Speaker 1: maybe a diabeque might put in insulin and nothing happened 444 00:26:15,400 --> 00:26:18,639 Speaker 1: except he seemed a little bit more relaxed. Was really 445 00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:22,439 Speaker 1: an important moment for me. And understanding that for many people, 446 00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:26,040 Speaker 1: using heroin wasn't about dropping out, nodding out, or anything 447 00:26:26,080 --> 00:26:28,840 Speaker 1: like that. For many people who have been using for 448 00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:31,600 Speaker 1: a while, it had basically become essentially a sort of 449 00:26:31,840 --> 00:26:34,240 Speaker 1: medicine that kept him from feeling sick in the same 450 00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:37,280 Speaker 1: way methodon could or bupren orphan could, but also might 451 00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:40,199 Speaker 1: make him feel a little better. Um, So you know, 452 00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:42,040 Speaker 1: I mean, I have to say that was a huge 453 00:26:42,119 --> 00:26:44,679 Speaker 1: learning experience for me. Now let me take you to 454 00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:46,480 Speaker 1: the U s now. So you bring the book to 455 00:26:46,520 --> 00:26:48,520 Speaker 1: the U S and there's a couple of things. One 456 00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:53,280 Speaker 1: is on you know, HIV is spreading like wildfire among 457 00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:57,800 Speaker 1: injecting drug users and act up. The HIV advocacy group 458 00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:01,280 Speaker 1: dominated by you know, gay men based sically is trying 459 00:27:01,280 --> 00:27:03,560 Speaker 1: to figure out how it's going to relate to this issue. 460 00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:06,239 Speaker 1: And there are others involved and people starting to go 461 00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:08,880 Speaker 1: with you know, underground needle exchanges and trying to get 462 00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:11,520 Speaker 1: those things going. But you made an interesting point there 463 00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:14,200 Speaker 1: that I've not seen somebody make before, which is that 464 00:27:14,359 --> 00:27:19,159 Speaker 1: if the scientists and researchers had paid closer attention to 465 00:27:19,560 --> 00:27:23,920 Speaker 1: injecting drug users earlier in the late seventies or early eighties, 466 00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:27,840 Speaker 1: they might have figured out faster about what was going 467 00:27:27,840 --> 00:27:31,680 Speaker 1: on about HIV AIDS, and that focusing solely on gay men, 468 00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:35,120 Speaker 1: you know, while understandable in some respects, may have been 469 00:27:35,359 --> 00:27:39,760 Speaker 1: a tactical strategic mistake in terms of advancing um understanding 470 00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:42,720 Speaker 1: of this disease. Well, basically, nobody cared about the IVY 471 00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:45,600 Speaker 1: drug users. Everybody's just thought, oh, they're going to die anyway, 472 00:27:45,680 --> 00:27:47,840 Speaker 1: so who cares if there's another disease? But there was 473 00:27:48,359 --> 00:27:53,280 Speaker 1: in Rikers Island in the seventies. The local doctors who 474 00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:56,760 Speaker 1: were training there um had this thing called Riker's a 475 00:27:56,840 --> 00:28:01,600 Speaker 1: dentopathy which was basically AIDS. But it was before the 476 00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:06,160 Speaker 1: virus was discovered and before it was known among gay people. 477 00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:10,520 Speaker 1: And so there's lots of clues that we have from 478 00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:14,520 Speaker 1: these accounts from the early doctors who eventually specialized in 479 00:28:14,560 --> 00:28:18,600 Speaker 1: what eventually became known as AIDS, um that they could 480 00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:21,360 Speaker 1: have picked this up a lot sooner if we hadn't 481 00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:24,520 Speaker 1: seen people who use drugs as people who deserve to 482 00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:28,040 Speaker 1: die and be thrown away. M hm. You know you 483 00:28:28,080 --> 00:28:31,480 Speaker 1: have a wonderful quote at the end of your book, 484 00:28:31,920 --> 00:28:35,440 Speaker 1: and it's a fairly recent one and it's with Anthony 485 00:28:35,480 --> 00:28:39,440 Speaker 1: Fauci and he's reflecting on his years going back when 486 00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:41,960 Speaker 1: he was the leader in dealing with HIV. And the 487 00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:45,120 Speaker 1: quote you had is, I'm flashing in my mind how 488 00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:48,800 Speaker 1: difficult it is for society to accept harm reduction, and 489 00:28:48,840 --> 00:28:52,240 Speaker 1: then when you accept it, you realize, why didn't I 490 00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:56,560 Speaker 1: do this before? Now, one of the pioneers. I love 491 00:28:56,640 --> 00:28:59,600 Speaker 1: your story and we've talked about her and other episodes already, 492 00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:01,480 Speaker 1: but know you really get into and I think you 493 00:29:01,560 --> 00:29:05,840 Speaker 1: tracked your down in recent years, is Edith Springer. Right. 494 00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:08,920 Speaker 1: I once introduced Edith Springer as the godmother of harm reduction, 495 00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:11,000 Speaker 1: and she quickly corrected me. She goes, Honey, I'm the 496 00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:13,920 Speaker 1: goddess of harmora duction, is right, And in fact, that's 497 00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:16,320 Speaker 1: how you refer to her there, And so say a 498 00:29:16,360 --> 00:29:19,720 Speaker 1: little more about Edith and about why she turned out 499 00:29:19,760 --> 00:29:23,360 Speaker 1: to be such an influential figure in this world of 500 00:29:23,360 --> 00:29:27,760 Speaker 1: harm reduction. So Edith is an amazing person and she 501 00:29:28,080 --> 00:29:33,000 Speaker 1: was working in the field of addiction treatment, and she 502 00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:39,600 Speaker 1: knew something wasn't right. She herself was abstinent because she 503 00:29:39,680 --> 00:29:43,320 Speaker 1: had previously had a heroin addiction and she was told 504 00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:45,080 Speaker 1: that she couldn't stay on methodone because that was not 505 00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:48,640 Speaker 1: real recovery, and so she was abstinent. And she was 506 00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:51,960 Speaker 1: just watching all this abstinent space treatment fail over and 507 00:29:52,040 --> 00:29:55,239 Speaker 1: over and how terrible it made both the counselors and 508 00:29:55,320 --> 00:29:59,440 Speaker 1: of course the people who kept failing feel about themselves. 509 00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:02,240 Speaker 1: So she was kind of in a ripe state when 510 00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:06,160 Speaker 1: she met Alan Parry, who happened to be visiting from Liverpool, 511 00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:10,760 Speaker 1: and Alan Parry basically demolishes her worldview, and she was 512 00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:13,680 Speaker 1: so excited to hear that people were actually doing needle 513 00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:17,040 Speaker 1: exchange and that they were prescribing heroin and that they 514 00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:19,640 Speaker 1: were doing the things they were doing in Liverpool, because 515 00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:23,160 Speaker 1: she had been losing people to AIDS and she was 516 00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:26,880 Speaker 1: already trying to go out in the streets and go 517 00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:29,400 Speaker 1: to the shooting galleries and teach people how to use 518 00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:31,880 Speaker 1: bleach to clean their needles. And she would have loved 519 00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:34,880 Speaker 1: to give them needles, but they were illegal in New 520 00:30:34,960 --> 00:30:38,480 Speaker 1: York and it was just easier in the face of 521 00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:41,960 Speaker 1: a deadly contagious disease to do something to sterilize the 522 00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:45,320 Speaker 1: needle than to get through the legal and political hassle 523 00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:48,640 Speaker 1: that you had to do in order to get syringe 524 00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:53,160 Speaker 1: exchange to be legal. But anyway, she um eventually act up, 525 00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:56,440 Speaker 1: picked up that struggle and did it well. Um But 526 00:30:56,680 --> 00:31:00,880 Speaker 1: she and Yolande Serrano had this organis station called Adapt 527 00:31:01,040 --> 00:31:04,320 Speaker 1: and they would just go out and you know, try 528 00:31:04,360 --> 00:31:08,600 Speaker 1: to get the message about bleach out there. And when 529 00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:12,000 Speaker 1: she met Alan Parry, he basically told her the theory 530 00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:16,360 Speaker 1: behind what she was already doing. And she basically said 531 00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:19,479 Speaker 1: to herself, my life goal is now to get this 532 00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:24,280 Speaker 1: idea into as many heads as possible, and she just started. 533 00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:27,240 Speaker 1: She had she was already I believe she was already 534 00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:30,960 Speaker 1: trained as a person to train people about HIV, and 535 00:31:31,040 --> 00:31:35,040 Speaker 1: so she instead became a trainer on harm reduction and 536 00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:39,360 Speaker 1: literally thousands of people were introduced to harm reduction by 537 00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:43,360 Speaker 1: Edith herself, and among them were most of the founders 538 00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:46,320 Speaker 1: of the harm reduction movement in the United States. So 539 00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:48,600 Speaker 1: she was really a critical figure. And one of the 540 00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:51,800 Speaker 1: reasons that she was so influential was that she did 541 00:31:51,840 --> 00:31:54,600 Speaker 1: not do the I'm going to demolish your ideas sort 542 00:31:54,640 --> 00:31:58,600 Speaker 1: of tactic. She met people where they are. So she said, yep, 543 00:31:58,800 --> 00:32:01,160 Speaker 1: I know that. You know, as a counselor you just 544 00:32:01,280 --> 00:32:05,040 Speaker 1: keep seeing people not getting better. This is a way 545 00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:08,960 Speaker 1: that we can actually help. And so she is just 546 00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:14,719 Speaker 1: incredibly empathetic and incredibly able to meet people where they 547 00:32:14,720 --> 00:32:17,400 Speaker 1: are in a way that so many other people who 548 00:32:17,840 --> 00:32:20,520 Speaker 1: now know that we're right have a hard time doing 549 00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:23,360 Speaker 1: sometimes because we just want to say no, you're wrong. Yeah, well, 550 00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:25,800 Speaker 1: you know, I remember watching her one time. She was 551 00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:28,480 Speaker 1: talking to people in the audience who were coming from 552 00:32:28,560 --> 00:32:32,000 Speaker 1: some sort of traditional treatment perspective therapeutic respective and she 553 00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:34,560 Speaker 1: was asking them about how they did what they did. 554 00:32:34,960 --> 00:32:37,080 Speaker 1: And what she then did was she picked up on 555 00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:39,600 Speaker 1: a few of the things that she approved of what 556 00:32:39,640 --> 00:32:43,440 Speaker 1: they were doing, and she said, but honey, you're already 557 00:32:43,520 --> 00:32:46,680 Speaker 1: doing harm reduction, and she got them to open up 558 00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:49,600 Speaker 1: in that way. At some point, you say that she 559 00:32:49,760 --> 00:32:53,719 Speaker 1: cites the work of the famous sociologist Irving Goffman, right, 560 00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:56,440 Speaker 1: who is a remarkable sociologist who really focused on the 561 00:32:56,520 --> 00:32:59,239 Speaker 1: on the sort of minute of how people interact with 562 00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:02,880 Speaker 1: one another, whether it's in the workplace or in public bathrooms, 563 00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:05,040 Speaker 1: you know, and I think it's a quote I just 564 00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:09,280 Speaker 1: want to read here. You say, stigma is spoiled identity. 565 00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:13,160 Speaker 1: And if there's anybody whose identity is spoiled in this country, 566 00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:16,560 Speaker 1: it's drug users through like the bottom of the barrel, 567 00:33:16,600 --> 00:33:19,680 Speaker 1: as far as everybody is concerned, even their own families, 568 00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:24,200 Speaker 1: even they treat themselves that way. They've internalized it. Yeah, 569 00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:28,160 Speaker 1: Whereas so many traditional treatment programs I think felt they 570 00:33:28,240 --> 00:33:31,560 Speaker 1: needed to and still feel they need to shatter people's 571 00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:35,240 Speaker 1: identities and reconstruct a whole new one. Edith approached it 572 00:33:35,280 --> 00:33:38,440 Speaker 1: from a very different perspective. The whole point of the 573 00:33:38,520 --> 00:33:42,800 Speaker 1: drug war and the whole point of criminalization is creating stigma. 574 00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:46,520 Speaker 1: You can't if you don't create stigma and you criminalize something, 575 00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:49,840 Speaker 1: nobody will not do the behavior that you're trying to 576 00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:53,479 Speaker 1: criminalize because it's not bad. They don't see it as bad, 577 00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:56,040 Speaker 1: and they don't think they should be locked up for it. 578 00:33:56,440 --> 00:33:58,800 Speaker 1: So you just won't be able to enforce the law 579 00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:01,680 Speaker 1: unless you get people to realize that this is bad 580 00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:03,400 Speaker 1: and these people are bad, and they're going to go 581 00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:06,480 Speaker 1: to jail and they're going to suffer terribly because we 582 00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:10,839 Speaker 1: think this thing is bad. So, you know, one of 583 00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:14,439 Speaker 1: the things that struck me when I first got into 584 00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:18,800 Speaker 1: this field was, as a person who injected drugs, nobody 585 00:34:18,920 --> 00:34:22,200 Speaker 1: cared enough to teach me about bleach. I heard about 586 00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:24,760 Speaker 1: it randomly from a woman I ended up tracking down 587 00:34:25,120 --> 00:34:27,480 Speaker 1: when I was writing the book, and that saved my 588 00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:30,520 Speaker 1: life because I was about to inject with somebody who 589 00:34:30,600 --> 00:34:35,080 Speaker 1: was probably already HIV positive. So I was just infuriated 590 00:34:35,120 --> 00:34:37,799 Speaker 1: by the idea that, like, not only would they not 591 00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:40,520 Speaker 1: teach me about bleach, they would try to tell other 592 00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:42,719 Speaker 1: people not to teach me because I was supposed to 593 00:34:42,760 --> 00:34:46,600 Speaker 1: die to send the right message about drugs. Two kids. 594 00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:49,920 Speaker 1: Now they probably never see me dying, but that was 595 00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:53,080 Speaker 1: going to send the message anyway somehow. So I was 596 00:34:53,120 --> 00:34:55,479 Speaker 1: just that whole idea just seemed awful to me because 597 00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:59,160 Speaker 1: it was just treating people's objects. You know. At that time, 598 00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:01,760 Speaker 1: being an active drug user, I was kind of filled 599 00:35:01,760 --> 00:35:04,360 Speaker 1: with self hatred, but I didn't think anybody should be 600 00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:07,960 Speaker 1: treated that way, like just no, that's wrong, you know. 601 00:35:07,960 --> 00:35:10,520 Speaker 1: And I'm a child of a Holocaust survivor. So that 602 00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:14,000 Speaker 1: also the dehumanization that was there just really struck me 603 00:35:14,040 --> 00:35:17,279 Speaker 1: and really struck me as being evil and wrong. So 604 00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:21,320 Speaker 1: the whole sending the right message thing is the essence 605 00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:25,680 Speaker 1: of criminalization and of the drug war. And once you're 606 00:35:25,719 --> 00:35:28,720 Speaker 1: not trying to do that anymore. If it's not sending 607 00:35:28,719 --> 00:35:32,319 Speaker 1: a message, what is it doing. It's increasing overdose death, 608 00:35:32,680 --> 00:35:37,120 Speaker 1: it is not helping HIV, it is not helping poor people. 609 00:35:37,239 --> 00:35:40,560 Speaker 1: It is in fact destroying communities. What are we incarcerating 610 00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:44,239 Speaker 1: people for. Let's take a break here and go to 611 00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:58,000 Speaker 1: an ad tell us about Dan Williams and his story 612 00:35:58,120 --> 00:36:02,759 Speaker 1: and his struggles. Sure, so, Dan Williams was a gay 613 00:36:02,760 --> 00:36:07,840 Speaker 1: black man from South Carolina and he joined Act Up because, 614 00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:10,920 Speaker 1: I believe, because he had lost a lover two AIDS, 615 00:36:11,480 --> 00:36:15,040 Speaker 1: and he heard about Needle Exchange, which they were then 616 00:36:15,120 --> 00:36:20,400 Speaker 1: doing illegally, and it just hit him that we're providing 617 00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:22,880 Speaker 1: healthcare and people actually don't want us to do that. 618 00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:25,560 Speaker 1: It's illegal for us to provide healthcare to these people, Like, 619 00:36:25,640 --> 00:36:28,319 Speaker 1: what's wrong. So he was really struck by it, even 620 00:36:28,360 --> 00:36:30,799 Speaker 1: though he was not a drug user himself, and he 621 00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:33,400 Speaker 1: became involved with the Needle Exchange and he became one 622 00:36:33,440 --> 00:36:37,319 Speaker 1: of the Needle eight defendants who deliberately got arrested in 623 00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:41,160 Speaker 1: order to challenge the law that made needle exchange criminal 624 00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:43,680 Speaker 1: in New York State, and that trial was amazing. I 625 00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:47,239 Speaker 1: was there for that trial, and it was you could 626 00:36:47,239 --> 00:36:50,880 Speaker 1: just tell that it was historic because people were making 627 00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:54,480 Speaker 1: all the best arguments in favor of needle exchange as 628 00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:56,880 Speaker 1: public health. And so for me as a writer, it 629 00:36:56,920 --> 00:36:58,600 Speaker 1: was a great way to tell the story and get 630 00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:02,200 Speaker 1: some of those arguments in in a nice little courtroom drama. Um. 631 00:37:02,239 --> 00:37:05,440 Speaker 1: But Dan Williams was um one of the defendants, and 632 00:37:05,600 --> 00:37:09,319 Speaker 1: as a black man, he was really really alone, and 633 00:37:09,400 --> 00:37:14,759 Speaker 1: he talked about how, you know, he felt isolated in 634 00:37:14,800 --> 00:37:17,400 Speaker 1: the black community because he was gay, and in the 635 00:37:17,440 --> 00:37:20,880 Speaker 1: gay community because he was black. And when he was 636 00:37:20,880 --> 00:37:25,160 Speaker 1: speaking in favor of needle exchange, almost the entire black 637 00:37:25,239 --> 00:37:28,600 Speaker 1: leadership of New York was seriously opposed to needle exchange. 638 00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:31,680 Speaker 1: They thought it was genocide. They said it was an 639 00:37:31,680 --> 00:37:35,040 Speaker 1: experiment being done on people, and that like if they 640 00:37:35,040 --> 00:37:37,800 Speaker 1: were white people, they would give them treatment. They didn't 641 00:37:37,840 --> 00:37:39,680 Speaker 1: want to listen to the fact that even if we 642 00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:43,640 Speaker 1: poured all the money we could into treatment, people relapse. 643 00:37:44,040 --> 00:37:46,879 Speaker 1: So you still need to keep people who were using 644 00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:49,400 Speaker 1: safe um. You know, as we used to say in 645 00:37:49,400 --> 00:37:53,480 Speaker 1: the day dead addicts don't recover, So he was incredibly 646 00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:56,560 Speaker 1: brave to stand up and do this. And he would 647 00:37:56,560 --> 00:37:59,800 Speaker 1: go and try to talk to the Black AIDS organizations 648 00:38:00,360 --> 00:38:03,200 Speaker 1: and say, you really can't oppose this because this is 649 00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:08,000 Speaker 1: essential to stopping the epidemic, and he got told, oh, 650 00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:10,440 Speaker 1: you've been sent by the white boys. So you know, 651 00:38:10,520 --> 00:38:13,120 Speaker 1: he was an incredible figure in terms of that, and 652 00:38:13,160 --> 00:38:15,960 Speaker 1: there were, you know, in the black community, there was 653 00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:20,799 Speaker 1: this whole debate about respectability because white people for so 654 00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:26,160 Speaker 1: long had used drugs to stigmatize in stereotype and incarceory 655 00:38:26,200 --> 00:38:28,960 Speaker 1: black people, so they didn't want to be seen as 656 00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:32,120 Speaker 1: pro drug quite rightly, but they didn't see anything else 657 00:38:32,160 --> 00:38:34,640 Speaker 1: to do. And part of the story that I tell 658 00:38:34,719 --> 00:38:37,200 Speaker 1: in the book is how Michelle Alexander's book The New 659 00:38:37,280 --> 00:38:42,240 Speaker 1: Gym Crow helped undo that kind of ideology by showing 660 00:38:42,320 --> 00:38:44,359 Speaker 1: that actually the drug war just locks up a lot 661 00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:48,840 Speaker 1: of Black people and does not successfully fight addiction or drugs. Yeah, 662 00:38:48,880 --> 00:38:51,960 Speaker 1: you know, I think it's almost almost a double edged 663 00:38:52,120 --> 00:38:56,279 Speaker 1: consequences of the Tuskege Syphlis experiment, right, which is such 664 00:38:56,360 --> 00:39:01,520 Speaker 1: an extraordinary historical sort of point that's constantly referenced Tuskegee 665 00:39:01,560 --> 00:39:05,000 Speaker 1: was an experiment about, you know, black people with syphilis 666 00:39:05,040 --> 00:39:07,000 Speaker 1: not being treated, just to see what happened to them, 667 00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:09,600 Speaker 1: about black people being treated in research study, the ways 668 00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:12,680 Speaker 1: that white people would never be treated. On the one hand, 669 00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:16,799 Speaker 1: it speaks to the kind of underlying systemic, conscious and 670 00:39:16,920 --> 00:39:21,040 Speaker 1: unconscious racism which colors American health policy to this day. 671 00:39:21,160 --> 00:39:23,839 Speaker 1: All the ways in which you know, people black people 672 00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:26,560 Speaker 1: are treated differently in hospitals, different than different, access to 673 00:39:26,560 --> 00:39:29,040 Speaker 1: pain medication, different and a whole range of other areas. 674 00:39:29,440 --> 00:39:32,960 Speaker 1: Yet on the other hand, the ways in which but 675 00:39:33,120 --> 00:39:38,279 Speaker 1: what about Tuskegee has been used to block public health 676 00:39:38,360 --> 00:39:42,879 Speaker 1: interventions that are the exact opposite of the Tuskegee situation 677 00:39:43,160 --> 00:39:46,120 Speaker 1: has also been an extraordinary tragedy. When you talked about 678 00:39:46,280 --> 00:39:48,799 Speaker 1: method on you know, where people black people would say 679 00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:51,960 Speaker 1: that Tuskegee, talk about needle exchange, Tuskege. You're even bringing 680 00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:55,720 Speaker 1: up to today with with you know, the vaccine Tuskegee, Tuskegee, 681 00:39:55,840 --> 00:39:59,200 Speaker 1: and these are all cases of innovations, health innovations that 682 00:39:59,280 --> 00:40:02,399 Speaker 1: in fact are first done on white people, right, white 683 00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:06,040 Speaker 1: people in Europe, white people in America. Standard But still 684 00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:10,200 Speaker 1: that Tuskegee reference point lands up being used incorrectly in 685 00:40:10,239 --> 00:40:14,080 Speaker 1: a historically inaccurate way to block the sorts of interventions 686 00:40:14,120 --> 00:40:16,799 Speaker 1: that actually would be saving tens of thousands, if not 687 00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:20,120 Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of black lives over time. So it's 688 00:40:20,160 --> 00:40:23,040 Speaker 1: a it's a particularly painful piece of all of this, 689 00:40:23,239 --> 00:40:25,640 Speaker 1: and you know, it's at the same time reassuring to 690 00:40:25,680 --> 00:40:29,240 Speaker 1: see that oftentimes it was black leaders who are able 691 00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:32,400 Speaker 1: to flip fairly quickly, whether it was Calvin Butts, the 692 00:40:32,440 --> 00:40:35,920 Speaker 1: famous minister at Abyssinian Church in Harlem, whether it was 693 00:40:36,400 --> 00:40:40,480 Speaker 1: young legislators in the Congressional Black Caucus which initially opposes 694 00:40:40,520 --> 00:40:42,919 Speaker 1: needle exchange and then comes out more quickly than white 695 00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:45,759 Speaker 1: legislators to support it. So it is I mean, we've 696 00:40:45,760 --> 00:40:47,960 Speaker 1: been we've already gott into this before in some episodes, 697 00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:49,960 Speaker 1: and we'll get into it much more in future episodes. 698 00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:51,560 Speaker 1: But okay, wait, I just want to say one more 699 00:40:51,640 --> 00:40:56,160 Speaker 1: thing on race here, because Velmonette Montgomery, who is still 700 00:40:56,360 --> 00:41:00,480 Speaker 1: in the New York State Legislature, stood up for needle 701 00:41:00,520 --> 00:41:04,799 Speaker 1: exchange when no other politician would. So I think she 702 00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:08,040 Speaker 1: deserves her props here. That's true, as does say something 703 00:41:08,080 --> 00:41:10,799 Speaker 1: like her smoke the brave mayor of Baltimore who called 704 00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:14,319 Speaker 1: out the drug war back in and pushed very hard 705 00:41:14,360 --> 00:41:16,720 Speaker 1: to try to get needle exchanged going into city against 706 00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:19,200 Speaker 1: the resistance of most of the black and a good 707 00:41:19,200 --> 00:41:21,839 Speaker 1: part of the white political establishment. So there were some 708 00:41:21,920 --> 00:41:24,560 Speaker 1: brave voices, but the power in the community and the 709 00:41:24,600 --> 00:41:28,800 Speaker 1: black establishment and the Black church were so vociferously opposed 710 00:41:28,840 --> 00:41:31,440 Speaker 1: to this that it really hobbled some of the efforts 711 00:41:31,480 --> 00:41:33,520 Speaker 1: that could have saved huge numbers of lives in the 712 00:41:33,520 --> 00:41:36,760 Speaker 1: early years. But wait, let me add one more thing. Um, 713 00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:40,960 Speaker 1: That's also why Michelle Alexander's work is so important, because 714 00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:45,120 Speaker 1: she her book became a bestseller, because she caught on 715 00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:48,480 Speaker 1: in black churches, and because of her speaking in black churches, 716 00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:51,600 Speaker 1: and because of the way the Black church picked up 717 00:41:51,640 --> 00:41:54,400 Speaker 1: her work and said, whoa, we have been doing something 718 00:41:54,400 --> 00:41:58,040 Speaker 1: wrong here. We need to fix this. We have been 719 00:41:58,440 --> 00:42:03,640 Speaker 1: stigmatizing the incarcetory people amongst us instead of realizing that 720 00:42:03,719 --> 00:42:08,160 Speaker 1: they are victims of a racist system. Often. So it's 721 00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:10,680 Speaker 1: a complicated issue, but I just think it's it's very 722 00:42:10,719 --> 00:42:13,880 Speaker 1: important to give credit to the people who did stand 723 00:42:13,920 --> 00:42:16,319 Speaker 1: up there. Yeah, it's true, But I remember Michelle's book, 724 00:42:16,360 --> 00:42:19,239 Speaker 1: which is a historically important and path breaking book and 725 00:42:19,320 --> 00:42:21,799 Speaker 1: changing the nature of the whole discussion around the drug war, 726 00:42:22,200 --> 00:42:24,480 Speaker 1: and and and putting it and driving home the notion 727 00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:26,520 Speaker 1: of the new gym. Crow. Even when she first puts 728 00:42:26,560 --> 00:42:29,319 Speaker 1: that book out right, she gets resistant from other black leaders. 729 00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:31,799 Speaker 1: How can you dare associate the drug war with Jim 730 00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:34,839 Speaker 1: Crow history? Right? Um? But that book comes out around 731 00:42:34,840 --> 00:42:37,440 Speaker 1: two thousand six or seven, I think, and we're here, 732 00:42:37,440 --> 00:42:39,320 Speaker 1: we're still talking about the nineties, and so there's a 733 00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:43,680 Speaker 1: whole decade where this resistance continues in a very powerful way, 734 00:42:44,040 --> 00:42:46,000 Speaker 1: and where people trying to make that case still are 735 00:42:46,040 --> 00:42:49,080 Speaker 1: having a hard time finding traction when it talks to 736 00:42:49,120 --> 00:42:51,799 Speaker 1: the issue about needle exchange. Moving out of just a 737 00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:55,320 Speaker 1: few cities, a couple of names stand out. Once John 738 00:42:55,320 --> 00:42:58,880 Speaker 1: Parker coming out of New Haven. Sure so um. John 739 00:42:58,920 --> 00:43:03,040 Speaker 1: Parker was a bit of how shall I say this, Uh, 740 00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:06,719 Speaker 1: He was a maverick and he just did his own thing. 741 00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:10,600 Speaker 1: He was not a person who is very much organized 742 00:43:10,600 --> 00:43:13,440 Speaker 1: with the movement, but he did really important work because 743 00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:16,279 Speaker 1: what he did was he went around two cities up 744 00:43:16,280 --> 00:43:19,200 Speaker 1: and down the East coast and even um some in 745 00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:23,680 Speaker 1: the Midwest, getting himself arrested to bring these legal cases 746 00:43:23,960 --> 00:43:27,360 Speaker 1: to change the law in order to allow needle exchange 747 00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:29,879 Speaker 1: to be legalized. And so the New York Times called 748 00:43:29,960 --> 00:43:33,360 Speaker 1: him the Johnny apple Seed of needles. And he was 749 00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:36,120 Speaker 1: one of the defendants in the Needle eight trial in 750 00:43:36,160 --> 00:43:38,319 Speaker 1: New York because he joined with Act UP in this 751 00:43:38,440 --> 00:43:43,240 Speaker 1: instance to um uh, you know, get this arrest happening 752 00:43:43,239 --> 00:43:46,080 Speaker 1: and and get the law changed. So although there are 753 00:43:46,080 --> 00:43:49,080 Speaker 1: definitely some activists who are not fans of his, um 754 00:43:49,200 --> 00:43:52,360 Speaker 1: he did do important work in terms of helping challenge 755 00:43:52,400 --> 00:43:54,799 Speaker 1: these laws. Let me get you old story about John 756 00:43:54,800 --> 00:43:56,480 Speaker 1: because you know, in the early years, I think when 757 00:43:56,480 --> 00:43:59,399 Speaker 1: the Drug Policy Foundation first started giving out awards, they 758 00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:01,359 Speaker 1: give a big word to John Parker and I think 759 00:44:01,440 --> 00:44:04,200 Speaker 1: Dave Purchase in order to support needle exchange. So John 760 00:44:04,280 --> 00:44:06,480 Speaker 1: was a real hero going up and down, especially the 761 00:44:06,480 --> 00:44:09,279 Speaker 1: Northeast coast, you know, doing this sort of thing. But 762 00:44:09,560 --> 00:44:11,560 Speaker 1: um so I knew him from back in those days. 763 00:44:11,600 --> 00:44:14,920 Speaker 1: But in ninety four I start the Lindis Smith Center, 764 00:44:14,960 --> 00:44:18,880 Speaker 1: you know, the Drug Policy Institute within Sorrows Foundation. And 765 00:44:19,040 --> 00:44:22,399 Speaker 1: about a year later, I'm sitting in my office and 766 00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:25,440 Speaker 1: it's at eight seventh Avenue across the Street from Carnegie 767 00:44:25,440 --> 00:44:29,279 Speaker 1: Hall right here. At that point my office was in 768 00:44:29,320 --> 00:44:31,200 Speaker 1: this still in the same building, the foundation of the 769 00:44:31,200 --> 00:44:34,360 Speaker 1: same building where Sorrows' office was, with his uh financial 770 00:44:34,400 --> 00:44:38,240 Speaker 1: management side, and I get a phone call. Uh, Ethan, 771 00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:42,560 Speaker 1: we got a problem here. What was the problem? Well, 772 00:44:42,680 --> 00:44:46,719 Speaker 1: John Parker had shown up at George Soros's office and 773 00:44:46,800 --> 00:44:50,600 Speaker 1: dumped a half dozen vials of heroin on the receptionist desk, 774 00:44:50,800 --> 00:44:53,680 Speaker 1: asking to be arrested. So John, by that point I 775 00:44:53,680 --> 00:44:55,920 Speaker 1: think was spinning out a bit. And uh, you know, 776 00:44:56,040 --> 00:44:58,560 Speaker 1: that was one of those things where Sorrows at that 777 00:44:58,680 --> 00:45:00,919 Speaker 1: point I think I had just persuaded and to become 778 00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:03,560 Speaker 1: the biggest funder in the world of needle exchange programs, 779 00:45:03,560 --> 00:45:05,719 Speaker 1: both in the US and and and the former Civiet 780 00:45:05,800 --> 00:45:08,000 Speaker 1: Union Eastern Europe. And it was a moment we had 781 00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:11,040 Speaker 1: to workaways through. Now. On the other hand, Dave Purchase 782 00:45:11,400 --> 00:45:15,560 Speaker 1: out of Tacoma was quite a different character. Yes, well, 783 00:45:15,600 --> 00:45:19,480 Speaker 1: he was all about working with people and spreading the 784 00:45:19,520 --> 00:45:23,600 Speaker 1: word in ways that would be sustainable, and so he 785 00:45:23,680 --> 00:45:27,959 Speaker 1: founded the North American Syringe Exchange Network, which was kind 786 00:45:28,000 --> 00:45:31,080 Speaker 1: of the seed bed for the rest of harm reduction 787 00:45:31,560 --> 00:45:36,360 Speaker 1: activism in the US and so he started the first 788 00:45:36,400 --> 00:45:40,360 Speaker 1: needle exchange in Tacoma by simply setting up a table 789 00:45:40,600 --> 00:45:42,520 Speaker 1: in a neighborhood where there was a lot of ivy 790 00:45:42,600 --> 00:45:46,319 Speaker 1: drug use and putting out syringes. And he was sort 791 00:45:46,360 --> 00:45:49,200 Speaker 1: of such an affable character that he got the Health 792 00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:54,120 Speaker 1: Department to buy in right away. So they became the 793 00:45:54,160 --> 00:45:58,520 Speaker 1: first legally funded syringe exchange in the United States because 794 00:45:58,560 --> 00:46:01,120 Speaker 1: of sort of his ability to get along with everybody 795 00:46:01,160 --> 00:46:05,040 Speaker 1: from like the Hell's Angels to the Health Commission. Now, 796 00:46:05,239 --> 00:46:08,520 Speaker 1: Dan big at a Chicago is one of the historical 797 00:46:08,600 --> 00:46:12,120 Speaker 1: figures as well. He plays a pivotal role in getting 798 00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:15,560 Speaker 1: needle exchanged going. He is essentially the godfather of the 799 00:46:15,600 --> 00:46:18,839 Speaker 1: locks own you know, the antidote for overdose, and uh, 800 00:46:18,960 --> 00:46:21,279 Speaker 1: you know, I mean really is an historical figure in 801 00:46:21,320 --> 00:46:23,320 Speaker 1: that way. And we've talked about him, I think already 802 00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:27,320 Speaker 1: on on other episodes. But he does something else interesting 803 00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:30,000 Speaker 1: and there's a sort of overlap with Edith here. He 804 00:46:30,200 --> 00:46:34,560 Speaker 1: names his organization in Chicago as harm Reduction Organization the 805 00:46:34,719 --> 00:46:40,840 Speaker 1: Chicago Recovery Alliance, using the word recovery, which is typically 806 00:46:40,920 --> 00:46:43,440 Speaker 1: a word that's been used in the twelve step movement 807 00:46:43,520 --> 00:46:48,239 Speaker 1: to refer to achieving abstinence. Say something about Dan and 808 00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:52,920 Speaker 1: he's thinking about all that. So harm reduction not only 809 00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:56,600 Speaker 1: had to redefine addiction, but it also had to redefine 810 00:46:56,640 --> 00:47:00,560 Speaker 1: recovery because of the way it challenged all the conventional 811 00:47:00,600 --> 00:47:04,160 Speaker 1: ideas around it. And Dan Big was essential to this, 812 00:47:04,360 --> 00:47:07,520 Speaker 1: as well as his friend John Zisler, who actually came 813 00:47:07,640 --> 00:47:11,279 Speaker 1: up with the idea that recovery should be defined not 814 00:47:11,440 --> 00:47:15,960 Speaker 1: as abstinence but as any positive change. They named themselves 815 00:47:15,960 --> 00:47:20,520 Speaker 1: the Chicago Recovery Alliance because they wanted to show that 816 00:47:20,600 --> 00:47:24,200 Speaker 1: recovery can be many different pathways. That you can start 817 00:47:24,280 --> 00:47:27,879 Speaker 1: recovering by using clean needles. You can start recovering by 818 00:47:27,920 --> 00:47:32,400 Speaker 1: injecting less, you can start recovering by smoking pot instead 819 00:47:32,440 --> 00:47:35,080 Speaker 1: of injecting. Just as there's a zillion different ways of 820 00:47:35,120 --> 00:47:39,279 Speaker 1: becoming addicted, there's a zillion different ways of recovering. And 821 00:47:39,400 --> 00:47:43,000 Speaker 1: so Dan Big emphasized that, and it was really helpful 822 00:47:43,040 --> 00:47:47,600 Speaker 1: because you can't describe a phenomenon that affects so many 823 00:47:47,600 --> 00:47:50,040 Speaker 1: different people in so many different ways and say there's 824 00:47:50,080 --> 00:47:53,520 Speaker 1: only one way to recover. And you know, I bought 825 00:47:53,520 --> 00:47:55,879 Speaker 1: into that early on because I was taught it by 826 00:47:55,920 --> 00:48:00,719 Speaker 1: the place that helped me get off of heroin and cocaine. Um, 827 00:48:00,760 --> 00:48:04,240 Speaker 1: but that is not the only pathway, And by saying 828 00:48:04,280 --> 00:48:07,120 Speaker 1: it's the only pathway, we doom a lot of people 829 00:48:07,200 --> 00:48:10,480 Speaker 1: because a lot of times people are told in rehab 830 00:48:10,520 --> 00:48:14,279 Speaker 1: and in twelve step programs that the only alternative is jails, institutions, 831 00:48:14,400 --> 00:48:19,760 Speaker 1: or death, and that's not true. There are different pastor recovery, 832 00:48:19,880 --> 00:48:23,319 Speaker 1: and all of them are valuable. The other critical thing 833 00:48:23,400 --> 00:48:26,719 Speaker 1: in terms of recovery is that it really should be 834 00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:31,520 Speaker 1: defined by are you getting healthier? Are you getting happier? 835 00:48:31,680 --> 00:48:34,640 Speaker 1: Are you getting more productive? It really shouldn't have to 836 00:48:34,680 --> 00:48:38,239 Speaker 1: do with what substances are in your bloodstream. And this 837 00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:42,560 Speaker 1: is how methodone can be recovery, and bubnorphine can be recovery, 838 00:48:42,640 --> 00:48:45,920 Speaker 1: and marijuana can be recovery. For some people, it is 839 00:48:46,040 --> 00:48:49,800 Speaker 1: about are you doing well? Not are you getting high? 840 00:48:50,040 --> 00:48:52,799 Speaker 1: So it's basically about sitting with people who are struggling 841 00:48:53,200 --> 00:48:56,959 Speaker 1: with drugs and with life, and rather than focusing on 842 00:48:57,480 --> 00:48:59,960 Speaker 1: getting abstin and cutting back drugs, whatever it might be, 843 00:49:00,600 --> 00:49:04,000 Speaker 1: asking the fundamental questions, um, what do you want to 844 00:49:04,000 --> 00:49:06,440 Speaker 1: be accomplishing your life? What are you trying to do? 845 00:49:06,719 --> 00:49:09,920 Speaker 1: And let's figure out from there, in what ways are 846 00:49:09,960 --> 00:49:12,960 Speaker 1: the drugs either helping or getting in the way, And 847 00:49:12,960 --> 00:49:15,319 Speaker 1: in what ways maybe can your drug use and other 848 00:49:15,360 --> 00:49:18,160 Speaker 1: elements of your life be managed to help you better 849 00:49:18,239 --> 00:49:21,080 Speaker 1: attain what it is and acknowledging that even the tiniest 850 00:49:21,080 --> 00:49:23,960 Speaker 1: little steps can make a difference. It's not at all 851 00:49:24,040 --> 00:49:27,560 Speaker 1: or nothing, saying absolutely and looking back at it now, 852 00:49:27,880 --> 00:49:30,840 Speaker 1: My recovery probably started the day someone told me to 853 00:49:30,920 --> 00:49:34,880 Speaker 1: use bleach, you know, because that was when I started 854 00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:38,800 Speaker 1: to become kind of politically awakened around the issue, and 855 00:49:39,080 --> 00:49:43,480 Speaker 1: it was part of my pathway to getting to absentance 856 00:49:43,560 --> 00:49:48,319 Speaker 1: recovery and to not being HIV positive when I did. Yeah, 857 00:49:48,400 --> 00:49:50,880 Speaker 1: you have a great little story about Les PAPIs in 858 00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:54,040 Speaker 1: San Francisco who becomes bleach man. Right, And and just 859 00:49:54,040 --> 00:49:55,919 Speaker 1: so our listen to understand this is a point where 860 00:49:55,920 --> 00:49:59,800 Speaker 1: oftentimes needle exchange or access to sterile syringes was banned 861 00:50:00,040 --> 00:50:02,719 Speaker 1: in most states in one way or another, and the 862 00:50:02,800 --> 00:50:05,919 Speaker 1: safest option, the fallback strategy was just to make sure 863 00:50:05,960 --> 00:50:09,160 Speaker 1: you were cleaning your syringes with bleach before you use them. 864 00:50:09,320 --> 00:50:11,560 Speaker 1: And so you know, it was a campaign to make 865 00:50:11,960 --> 00:50:16,200 Speaker 1: most make little bleach kits available and to show people 866 00:50:16,200 --> 00:50:18,160 Speaker 1: how to use it and to get them to do it. 867 00:50:18,760 --> 00:50:22,640 Speaker 1: And my Les Pappas, who's still a harm reduction advocates, 868 00:50:22,680 --> 00:50:25,400 Speaker 1: still doing good work in the field. Um, you know, 869 00:50:25,480 --> 00:50:27,239 Speaker 1: I set up a whole PR firm to do work 870 00:50:27,239 --> 00:50:29,560 Speaker 1: around harm reduction, I think. But back then it was 871 00:50:29,680 --> 00:50:32,680 Speaker 1: dressing up in a costume like a Superman costume and 872 00:50:32,680 --> 00:50:34,680 Speaker 1: and handing out bleach kits, right, and some of the 873 00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:37,719 Speaker 1: hardest neighborhoods in San Francisco. Not only did he like 874 00:50:38,040 --> 00:50:41,440 Speaker 1: have this giant jug head of a bleach bottle and 875 00:50:41,560 --> 00:50:45,480 Speaker 1: a cape. Um, he would go around with a giant 876 00:50:45,560 --> 00:50:49,200 Speaker 1: syringe like you know, three ft long or something and 877 00:50:49,400 --> 00:50:53,400 Speaker 1: demonstrate how you do it. And there's actually a commercial 878 00:50:53,440 --> 00:50:57,520 Speaker 1: that aired on late night TV with bleach Man's origin story. 879 00:50:57,680 --> 00:51:01,680 Speaker 1: He cannot cure AIDS, but he can bleach. So, I mean, 880 00:51:01,680 --> 00:51:03,520 Speaker 1: it was kind of incredible to me as someone in 881 00:51:03,520 --> 00:51:05,640 Speaker 1: New York, where you weren't even allowed to talk about it, 882 00:51:05,719 --> 00:51:09,360 Speaker 1: that in San Francisco they were having these commercials on 883 00:51:09,440 --> 00:51:11,960 Speaker 1: late night TV and really trying to help people, right. 884 00:51:12,080 --> 00:51:14,719 Speaker 1: I think it was those stories. There's probably nobody who 885 00:51:14,760 --> 00:51:19,160 Speaker 1: has had his picture taken by so many people living 886 00:51:19,160 --> 00:51:22,120 Speaker 1: on the streets, homeless, doing drugs, but who just felt 887 00:51:22,200 --> 00:51:25,720 Speaker 1: honored that here was this superhero who actually cared about 888 00:51:25,760 --> 00:51:28,200 Speaker 1: their well being and their well wellies. Well, the last 889 00:51:28,200 --> 00:51:30,480 Speaker 1: person I want to bring up you only bring up 890 00:51:30,480 --> 00:51:33,160 Speaker 1: interesting In the book. Of all the people your profile, 891 00:51:33,400 --> 00:51:37,360 Speaker 1: I think there's only one academic, one professor in the 892 00:51:37,520 --> 00:51:41,000 Speaker 1: entire book, and that's Alan Marlatt, who was a Canadian 893 00:51:41,600 --> 00:51:44,680 Speaker 1: born and raised but you know, taught the University of Washington, 894 00:51:45,239 --> 00:51:47,160 Speaker 1: somebody who actually you know, wanted to have on the 895 00:51:47,160 --> 00:51:49,680 Speaker 1: board of Drug Policy Alliance. And then he unfortunately died 896 00:51:49,719 --> 00:51:52,120 Speaker 1: at a young age. Um, but just say something about 897 00:51:52,160 --> 00:51:55,839 Speaker 1: Alan's special contribution in this field. So Alan was an 898 00:51:55,840 --> 00:52:01,719 Speaker 1: amazing person. And what he did was recognized that alcohol 899 00:52:01,840 --> 00:52:05,279 Speaker 1: is part of the conversation and that to bring harm 900 00:52:05,280 --> 00:52:08,520 Speaker 1: reduction to America and to bring harm reduction into the 901 00:52:08,520 --> 00:52:12,520 Speaker 1: world of addiction treatment, that he had to work with 902 00:52:12,560 --> 00:52:16,360 Speaker 1: it in alcohol, not just other drugs. And so he 903 00:52:16,960 --> 00:52:21,240 Speaker 1: began teaching people things like how to reduce your drinking 904 00:52:21,640 --> 00:52:25,080 Speaker 1: rather than you must be totally abstinate. And he also 905 00:52:25,160 --> 00:52:29,080 Speaker 1: did experiments that showed that, for example, this idea that 906 00:52:29,120 --> 00:52:32,440 Speaker 1: the first drink gets you drunk, and that once you start, 907 00:52:32,680 --> 00:52:35,440 Speaker 1: you completely lose control. If you've ever had an addiction, 908 00:52:36,200 --> 00:52:38,799 Speaker 1: like what he did was they did this experiment in 909 00:52:38,840 --> 00:52:41,480 Speaker 1: what he called the bar lab, and it was basically 910 00:52:41,520 --> 00:52:46,000 Speaker 1: a bar, and sometimes they got served tonic and sometimes 911 00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:49,040 Speaker 1: they got vodka tonic, I believe, but sometimes they were 912 00:52:49,080 --> 00:52:52,600 Speaker 1: told the opposite of what the drink actually was, and 913 00:52:52,640 --> 00:52:56,000 Speaker 1: their drinking escalated in relation to what they were told 914 00:52:56,040 --> 00:52:58,320 Speaker 1: was in the drink, not in relation to the actual 915 00:52:58,360 --> 00:53:00,840 Speaker 1: alcohol content of the drinks. In other words, it was 916 00:53:00,880 --> 00:53:03,480 Speaker 1: the belief that the first drink gets you drunk, not 917 00:53:03,760 --> 00:53:08,400 Speaker 1: the alcohol, that caused this escalation of loss of control. 918 00:53:08,520 --> 00:53:11,160 Speaker 1: And so if we didn't inculcate that belief in people, 919 00:53:11,360 --> 00:53:14,279 Speaker 1: obviously we prefer if you're being abstinent to not re leaf. 920 00:53:14,680 --> 00:53:17,319 Speaker 1: But if you do, you don't want to get into 921 00:53:17,360 --> 00:53:20,480 Speaker 1: what he labeled the abstinence violation effect, and what that 922 00:53:20,640 --> 00:53:23,120 Speaker 1: is you could also call it the Funcket effect, because 923 00:53:23,320 --> 00:53:25,960 Speaker 1: you count your sobriety by the number of days you 924 00:53:25,960 --> 00:53:29,919 Speaker 1: have been away from alcohol or other drugs, and if 925 00:53:30,040 --> 00:53:34,080 Speaker 1: you have anything, you go back to square one. So 926 00:53:34,719 --> 00:53:36,960 Speaker 1: this leads to people who just have one sip and 927 00:53:36,960 --> 00:53:39,200 Speaker 1: then they like, well, I've already blown it, so I 928 00:53:39,200 --> 00:53:41,360 Speaker 1: may as well have a binge, and this can be 929 00:53:41,400 --> 00:53:45,719 Speaker 1: deadly in some cases. So he sort of elaborated the 930 00:53:45,760 --> 00:53:50,400 Speaker 1: psychology of how addiction works, and he brought that into 931 00:53:50,440 --> 00:53:53,879 Speaker 1: the addictions field and into psychology in a way that 932 00:53:54,080 --> 00:53:58,239 Speaker 1: hadn't been done previously. And so I admit in this 933 00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:00,200 Speaker 1: book I tried to focus on the activists and on 934 00:54:00,280 --> 00:54:02,960 Speaker 1: the people who were themselves people h use drugs, and 935 00:54:03,000 --> 00:54:04,880 Speaker 1: I feel bad for not being able to have featured 936 00:54:05,000 --> 00:54:08,319 Speaker 1: people like Ethan Moore. And I hope that somebody will 937 00:54:08,600 --> 00:54:12,320 Speaker 1: do the story of drug policy reform in the United States, 938 00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:15,880 Speaker 1: which has lots of interesting people in features. Oh, in time, 939 00:54:15,920 --> 00:54:17,719 Speaker 1: Maya in time. But you know, I should tell our 940 00:54:17,760 --> 00:54:22,319 Speaker 1: listeners that yesterday UM reading Maya's chapter where she talks 941 00:54:22,360 --> 00:54:25,560 Speaker 1: about Alan and the experiment where you know, people are 942 00:54:25,560 --> 00:54:28,239 Speaker 1: getting multiple drinks of alcohol, but if they think there's 943 00:54:28,239 --> 00:54:30,920 Speaker 1: no alcohol, they don't seem to be getting drunk, and 944 00:54:30,920 --> 00:54:32,960 Speaker 1: and and those drinks that don't have alcohol in it, 945 00:54:32,960 --> 00:54:34,840 Speaker 1: but they think do they are getting drunk in the 946 00:54:34,840 --> 00:54:37,480 Speaker 1: whole placebo effect on And I remember I first read 947 00:54:37,480 --> 00:54:43,120 Speaker 1: about that back in six I was reading a wonderful 948 00:54:43,160 --> 00:54:46,439 Speaker 1: book by Stanton Peel called The Meaning of Addiction, which 949 00:54:46,480 --> 00:54:48,720 Speaker 1: had a big impact on me, and he talked about 950 00:54:48,719 --> 00:54:52,680 Speaker 1: Alan study and other ones like it back in the day. Anyway, 951 00:54:52,680 --> 00:54:55,520 Speaker 1: this is yesterday, and I'm reading Maya's account of this 952 00:54:55,600 --> 00:54:58,640 Speaker 1: thing and remembering reading it in Stanton's book many years ago. 953 00:54:59,160 --> 00:55:01,440 Speaker 1: And then an hour it are, I'm making myself some dinner. 954 00:55:01,680 --> 00:55:04,560 Speaker 1: I pull out the latest copy of New Yorker magazine 955 00:55:04,840 --> 00:55:07,560 Speaker 1: and there's a piece by a journalist John Seabrook, who 956 00:55:07,600 --> 00:55:10,800 Speaker 1: describes himself as currently being in recovery, and he's talking 957 00:55:10,840 --> 00:55:14,880 Speaker 1: about this explosion now in craft beers that have no alcohol, 958 00:55:14,920 --> 00:55:17,919 Speaker 1: alcohol free craft beers which are actually being to taste good. 959 00:55:18,120 --> 00:55:20,600 Speaker 1: And he's talking about his own journey about is it 960 00:55:20,640 --> 00:55:23,200 Speaker 1: okay for him with somebody who has now been abstinent 961 00:55:23,280 --> 00:55:25,440 Speaker 1: for five years, and is it okay for him to 962 00:55:25,480 --> 00:55:28,360 Speaker 1: do this? And pops right back up the story of 963 00:55:28,360 --> 00:55:31,440 Speaker 1: Alan Marlatt and those bar experiments. So it's one of 964 00:55:31,480 --> 00:55:34,600 Speaker 1: the most powerful experiments in terms of getting people to 965 00:55:34,680 --> 00:55:38,200 Speaker 1: understand the nature of addiction. I think that's ever been performed. 966 00:55:38,400 --> 00:55:41,040 Speaker 1: Going to add something about that John Seabrook article, because 967 00:55:41,040 --> 00:55:43,560 Speaker 1: he doesn't use it to make the point that we 968 00:55:43,719 --> 00:55:46,320 Speaker 1: have been making. I mean, it's it's just very odd. 969 00:55:47,080 --> 00:55:50,439 Speaker 1: It's still maintains the abstinence and the first drink gets 970 00:55:50,440 --> 00:55:53,360 Speaker 1: you drunk view, which is completely undercut by the experiment. 971 00:55:53,760 --> 00:55:56,080 Speaker 1: So he didn't really explain it well as I guess 972 00:55:56,120 --> 00:55:58,279 Speaker 1: what I'm trying to say. And I found it a 973 00:55:58,280 --> 00:56:00,400 Speaker 1: little sad the way he mentioned it, because it was 974 00:56:00,480 --> 00:56:02,799 Speaker 1: much more powerful than the way he described it. Yeah, 975 00:56:02,880 --> 00:56:05,239 Speaker 1: my is funny because I actually saw this guy going 976 00:56:05,280 --> 00:56:09,080 Speaker 1: through this incredibly ambivalent experience. Like here, he's for the 977 00:56:09,160 --> 00:56:12,560 Speaker 1: first time trying something that all the cues of drinking, 978 00:56:12,600 --> 00:56:14,920 Speaker 1: the bar and all these sorts of things in doing it, 979 00:56:15,040 --> 00:56:16,560 Speaker 1: and then he takes it and he doesn't go and 980 00:56:16,600 --> 00:56:19,759 Speaker 1: start binging on alcohol, but meanwhile he's worried he might, 981 00:56:19,840 --> 00:56:21,480 Speaker 1: I mean, while his wife's worried he might and all 982 00:56:21,480 --> 00:56:23,840 Speaker 1: that sort of thing. I just felt this tremendous sense 983 00:56:23,960 --> 00:56:27,320 Speaker 1: of ambivalence coming out of a very intelligent man who's 984 00:56:27,560 --> 00:56:31,480 Speaker 1: wanting to retain his abstinence and recovery. But meanwhile, you know, 985 00:56:31,520 --> 00:56:34,120 Speaker 1: because I mean, you know, life's complicated in that way, 986 00:56:34,160 --> 00:56:35,840 Speaker 1: I guess, And so I guess I gave Seabrook a 987 00:56:35,920 --> 00:56:37,200 Speaker 1: little bit of benefit of doubt, and he had a 988 00:56:37,239 --> 00:56:39,719 Speaker 1: little tongue in cheek about his own experience through this 989 00:56:39,760 --> 00:56:42,080 Speaker 1: whole thing, you know, And I have to say that, 990 00:56:42,160 --> 00:56:44,920 Speaker 1: like you know, I'm I'm looking for people to be 991 00:56:45,239 --> 00:56:49,279 Speaker 1: sending the message of more complexity in this area, and 992 00:56:49,440 --> 00:56:53,239 Speaker 1: I am probably overly harsh. Well, people will need to 993 00:56:53,280 --> 00:56:56,160 Speaker 1: read It's John Seabrooks article in New Yorker magazine in 994 00:56:56,239 --> 00:56:58,400 Speaker 1: late September if you want to read it, so my, 995 00:56:58,800 --> 00:57:00,760 Speaker 1: you know, one of the things, as you talk about 996 00:57:00,760 --> 00:57:04,600 Speaker 1: in the book is how effectively brilliant the phrase harm 997 00:57:04,600 --> 00:57:07,280 Speaker 1: reduction is. Who can be against it? And of course 998 00:57:07,360 --> 00:57:10,040 Speaker 1: everybody wants to reduce harm in it, and it equates 999 00:57:10,040 --> 00:57:12,200 Speaker 1: with a whole notion in medicine at first, do no 1000 00:57:12,360 --> 00:57:15,120 Speaker 1: harm um. Yet, on the other hand, I have to 1001 00:57:15,160 --> 00:57:18,400 Speaker 1: tell you that as an advocate for harm reduction and 1002 00:57:18,440 --> 00:57:21,680 Speaker 1: trying to get that into the broader public discourse and politically, 1003 00:57:22,200 --> 00:57:25,480 Speaker 1: I found it both incredibly advantageous for the reasons that 1004 00:57:25,520 --> 00:57:29,720 Speaker 1: you described, but also very frustrating. And it was frustrating 1005 00:57:29,800 --> 00:57:33,880 Speaker 1: in this sense that it wasn't really catchy, it wasn't 1006 00:57:33,960 --> 00:57:37,560 Speaker 1: something to get excited about. And the contrast right was 1007 00:57:37,600 --> 00:57:41,320 Speaker 1: with the phrase in marijuana legalize it legalize. It was 1008 00:57:41,400 --> 00:57:46,720 Speaker 1: a highly motivating and you know, exciting and it sounded right, 1009 00:57:46,960 --> 00:57:49,040 Speaker 1: but it also had the downside that it kind of 1010 00:57:49,120 --> 00:57:52,439 Speaker 1: scared people a bit, right, And so it's that trade off. 1011 00:57:52,480 --> 00:57:54,280 Speaker 1: But I mean, you think about harm reduction, and I 1012 00:57:54,320 --> 00:57:56,480 Speaker 1: don't think the New York Times starts to really use 1013 00:57:56,560 --> 00:57:59,800 Speaker 1: the phrase outside of quotation marks for twenty or thirty 1014 00:58:00,120 --> 00:58:02,720 Speaker 1: rs after it emerges, and people there's a kind of 1015 00:58:02,800 --> 00:58:04,880 Speaker 1: hum hole. And I would mention how harm reduction to 1016 00:58:05,000 --> 00:58:08,439 Speaker 1: journalists like a thousand times, but the numbers of times 1017 00:58:08,440 --> 00:58:10,440 Speaker 1: which they actually put in the article was a tiny 1018 00:58:10,520 --> 00:58:14,200 Speaker 1: fraction as opposed to a more catchy phrase. Well, part 1019 00:58:14,240 --> 00:58:16,960 Speaker 1: of it is that people don't realize how powerful it is. 1020 00:58:17,320 --> 00:58:21,600 Speaker 1: Who does realize how powerful it is. Our prohibitionists and they, 1021 00:58:21,680 --> 00:58:25,320 Speaker 1: the serious drug warriors in this country, made a real 1022 00:58:25,440 --> 00:58:29,280 Speaker 1: effort to stamp out the phrase harm reduction. They didn't 1023 00:58:29,320 --> 00:58:31,960 Speaker 1: allow it to be used when people were seeking grants. 1024 00:58:31,960 --> 00:58:33,920 Speaker 1: If they wanted to actually get a grant from N 1025 00:58:33,920 --> 00:58:36,440 Speaker 1: I H or C D c UM, they went to 1026 00:58:36,520 --> 00:58:39,040 Speaker 1: the U N. And when other countries were trying to 1027 00:58:39,080 --> 00:58:42,880 Speaker 1: suggest this as drug policy, they just took it out 1028 00:58:42,880 --> 00:58:45,760 Speaker 1: of all the documents, so they knew it was powerful, 1029 00:58:46,360 --> 00:58:49,600 Speaker 1: and so it's it's a little bit complicated. Um. But 1030 00:58:49,680 --> 00:58:51,720 Speaker 1: I think, you know, some people have said, like, oh, 1031 00:58:51,760 --> 00:58:54,240 Speaker 1: we should focus more on pleasure from drugs, or on 1032 00:58:54,800 --> 00:58:58,760 Speaker 1: the upside or things like this. But the reason I 1033 00:58:58,840 --> 00:59:02,080 Speaker 1: believe harm reduction is important phrase and should be the 1034 00:59:02,120 --> 00:59:06,040 Speaker 1: center of the movement is that policy should be concerned 1035 00:59:06,080 --> 00:59:08,720 Speaker 1: with reducing harm. Policy should not be focused on pleasure. 1036 00:59:09,160 --> 00:59:11,840 Speaker 1: I don't want the government trying to like either take 1037 00:59:11,880 --> 00:59:13,960 Speaker 1: away my pleasure or give me pleasure. That would be 1038 00:59:14,040 --> 00:59:16,400 Speaker 1: kind of weird. M Yeah, No, I mean, I I mean, 1039 00:59:16,440 --> 00:59:18,960 Speaker 1: I remember this history vividly because I was so much 1040 00:59:19,000 --> 00:59:23,040 Speaker 1: engaged in those battles. I remember the opposition trying to 1041 00:59:23,080 --> 00:59:25,360 Speaker 1: demonize it. I also remember a brief pier where they 1042 00:59:25,360 --> 00:59:27,520 Speaker 1: tried to co opt it, and they claimed that even 1043 00:59:27,560 --> 00:59:30,400 Speaker 1: coercive approaches were reducing harm and that therefore that was 1044 00:59:30,440 --> 00:59:34,240 Speaker 1: harm reduction. I remember discussions within the harm reduction movement 1045 00:59:34,240 --> 00:59:37,160 Speaker 1: about whether to jettison the term because it had developed 1046 00:59:37,160 --> 00:59:40,480 Speaker 1: so much negative baggage from our opponents. Uh. In my 1047 00:59:40,520 --> 00:59:44,120 Speaker 1: discussion with Nora Vocal on one of the episodes of psychoactive. 1048 00:59:44,120 --> 00:59:46,480 Speaker 1: Not long ago, I asked her why was it that 1049 00:59:46,520 --> 00:59:49,080 Speaker 1: all sorts of researchers were told to not use the 1050 00:59:49,120 --> 00:59:51,960 Speaker 1: phrase harm reduction and their grant applications, And she was 1051 00:59:52,320 --> 00:59:55,440 Speaker 1: fairly frank about, sort of suggesting it was the politics, 1052 00:59:55,440 --> 00:59:58,640 Speaker 1: and if you could fund harm reduction research without calling it, 1053 00:59:58,720 --> 01:00:01,439 Speaker 1: maybe that was the thing you need to do. Um 1054 01:00:01,560 --> 01:00:04,000 Speaker 1: And I sometimes felt that I may have played something 1055 01:00:04,000 --> 01:00:06,360 Speaker 1: of a personal role in all this, because you know, 1056 01:00:06,400 --> 01:00:10,680 Speaker 1: in the late nineties, George Sorrows and his foundation was 1057 01:00:10,880 --> 01:00:14,920 Speaker 1: funding of both harm reduction and drug policy reform around 1058 01:00:14,960 --> 01:00:17,840 Speaker 1: the world, not just in the US, and I was 1059 01:00:17,960 --> 01:00:20,439 Speaker 1: the principal advisor and gate keeper of all of that, 1060 01:00:20,640 --> 01:00:24,120 Speaker 1: And so we were simultaneously funding harm reduction programs all 1061 01:00:24,160 --> 01:00:28,320 Speaker 1: around while at the same time challenging the whole prohibitionist approach. 1062 01:00:29,040 --> 01:00:31,240 Speaker 1: Um And I think our opponents saw that if you 1063 01:00:31,240 --> 01:00:34,919 Speaker 1: could smear everything with the label of legalization and even 1064 01:00:34,920 --> 01:00:37,760 Speaker 1: suggest it was all about a free market, libertarian legalization 1065 01:00:37,800 --> 01:00:39,920 Speaker 1: that didn't care about kids, I think they saw that 1066 01:00:39,960 --> 01:00:43,320 Speaker 1: as a useful tactic. So my last question to you 1067 01:00:43,680 --> 01:00:47,800 Speaker 1: is you repeatedly point out in the book on how 1068 01:00:48,280 --> 01:00:52,360 Speaker 1: much harm reduction is now spreading the very notion, the 1069 01:00:52,480 --> 01:00:55,080 Speaker 1: idea of the language. I mean, in fact, I think 1070 01:00:55,120 --> 01:00:57,400 Speaker 1: if you google on it now you almost see it 1071 01:00:57,480 --> 01:01:00,400 Speaker 1: referring more to tobacco harm reduction, which is now become 1072 01:01:00,400 --> 01:01:04,240 Speaker 1: its own controversial field and which I become quite personally involved. 1073 01:01:04,440 --> 01:01:06,760 Speaker 1: But you point out the ways in which harm reduction 1074 01:01:06,880 --> 01:01:10,360 Speaker 1: is now being embraced, both the language and the thinking 1075 01:01:10,680 --> 01:01:13,120 Speaker 1: in a host of other areas, and including around COVID. 1076 01:01:13,200 --> 01:01:15,080 Speaker 1: So why don't we finish up by just talking about 1077 01:01:15,120 --> 01:01:19,440 Speaker 1: how you see it's it's broader acceptance in American society. 1078 01:01:19,720 --> 01:01:23,320 Speaker 1: So the beauty of harm reduction is that it allows 1079 01:01:23,360 --> 01:01:25,440 Speaker 1: you to look at risk and context, and if you 1080 01:01:25,480 --> 01:01:27,720 Speaker 1: want to make good choices, you have to do that. 1081 01:01:28,360 --> 01:01:31,400 Speaker 1: It also shows you that there are behaviors that people 1082 01:01:31,400 --> 01:01:34,120 Speaker 1: are just not going to abstain from. People are going 1083 01:01:34,160 --> 01:01:38,360 Speaker 1: to take risks, and for the example of COVID, people 1084 01:01:38,400 --> 01:01:41,960 Speaker 1: are going to socialize because it is fundamental to human biology. 1085 01:01:42,040 --> 01:01:44,040 Speaker 1: So you're not going to really be able to expect 1086 01:01:44,120 --> 01:01:48,360 Speaker 1: abstinence to last very long. So how do you manage that? Obviously, 1087 01:01:48,440 --> 01:01:51,120 Speaker 1: masks are one thing, and now we have vaccines, But 1088 01:01:51,680 --> 01:01:54,600 Speaker 1: the real thing is when you want people to change 1089 01:01:54,680 --> 01:01:58,320 Speaker 1: behavior in a consistent fashion. You need to have them 1090 01:01:58,360 --> 01:02:01,200 Speaker 1: focus where it matters the most. And so, for example, 1091 01:02:01,440 --> 01:02:04,280 Speaker 1: wearing a mask outside is a little bit silly. Wearing 1092 01:02:04,280 --> 01:02:07,480 Speaker 1: a mask inside where you're in a crowd definitely important. 1093 01:02:07,760 --> 01:02:10,600 Speaker 1: So if you're going to so called mess up and 1094 01:02:10,680 --> 01:02:13,400 Speaker 1: not use the mask, outside is way better than inside. 1095 01:02:13,640 --> 01:02:16,960 Speaker 1: And so that's harm reduction in practice. And one of 1096 01:02:17,000 --> 01:02:18,920 Speaker 1: the reasons I like to look at all the different 1097 01:02:18,920 --> 01:02:21,200 Speaker 1: places that harm reduction is now showing up, whether it 1098 01:02:21,240 --> 01:02:25,200 Speaker 1: be in terms of environmentalism, or eating disorders or many 1099 01:02:25,280 --> 01:02:28,120 Speaker 1: many other things, is that this is a gift from 1100 01:02:28,120 --> 01:02:31,240 Speaker 1: people who use drugs. People who use drugs invented this 1101 01:02:31,280 --> 01:02:35,160 Speaker 1: whole idea, along with academics, along with public health folks, 1102 01:02:35,200 --> 01:02:38,680 Speaker 1: along with drug policy reformers. But this comes from people 1103 01:02:38,720 --> 01:02:41,880 Speaker 1: who everybody tends to hate and see as useless. And 1104 01:02:42,000 --> 01:02:45,360 Speaker 1: yet now it is being used for the biggest two 1105 01:02:45,360 --> 01:02:48,400 Speaker 1: of the biggest problems we have, including global climate change 1106 01:02:48,480 --> 01:02:52,000 Speaker 1: and um the pandemic. Because in terms of climate change, 1107 01:02:52,000 --> 01:02:55,320 Speaker 1: for example, if you eat meat one less day a week, 1108 01:02:55,680 --> 01:02:58,760 Speaker 1: that would make a huge difference to the environment, and 1109 01:02:58,760 --> 01:03:02,520 Speaker 1: that's harm reduction right there. Well, on those words, maya 1110 01:03:02,680 --> 01:03:04,920 Speaker 1: let's wrap this up. So as I said it to 1111 01:03:04,960 --> 01:03:07,680 Speaker 1: be getting, I truly think that you are one of 1112 01:03:07,680 --> 01:03:10,840 Speaker 1: the most brilliant people writing and thinking about drug use 1113 01:03:10,920 --> 01:03:13,680 Speaker 1: and drug users and addiction. You know, not just in 1114 01:03:13,720 --> 01:03:16,000 Speaker 1: the country, but around the world. I know my opinion 1115 01:03:16,080 --> 01:03:19,000 Speaker 1: is broadly shared. Thank you ever so much. I'm counting 1116 01:03:19,080 --> 01:03:21,919 Speaker 1: you to continue writing and all sorts of creative ways 1117 01:03:21,960 --> 01:03:24,560 Speaker 1: in this field for many decades to come. So thanks 1118 01:03:24,600 --> 01:03:27,560 Speaker 1: so much for being my guest on Psychoactive. Thank You. 1119 01:03:29,520 --> 01:03:33,480 Speaker 1: Psychoactive is a production of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. 1120 01:03:33,880 --> 01:03:37,320 Speaker 1: It's hosted by me Ethan Nadelman. It's produced by Kacha 1121 01:03:37,360 --> 01:03:41,560 Speaker 1: Kumkova and Ben Kibrick. The executive producers are Dylan Golden, 1122 01:03:41,760 --> 01:03:45,960 Speaker 1: Ari Handel, Elizabeth Geesus and Darren Aronovski for Protozoa Pictures, 1123 01:03:46,440 --> 01:03:49,720 Speaker 1: Alice Williams and Matt Frederick for I Heart Radio and 1124 01:03:49,800 --> 01:03:53,760 Speaker 1: me Ethan Nadelman. Our music is by Ari Belusian and 1125 01:03:53,920 --> 01:03:57,720 Speaker 1: especial thanks to a Vivit Brio, Seph Bianca Grimshaw and 1126 01:03:57,840 --> 01:04:01,800 Speaker 1: Robert Beatty. If you'd like to share your own stories, comments, 1127 01:04:01,880 --> 01:04:05,040 Speaker 1: or ideas, please leave us a message at eight three 1128 01:04:05,120 --> 01:04:11,240 Speaker 1: three seven seven nine four sixty. That's one eight three 1129 01:04:11,320 --> 01:04:17,040 Speaker 1: three psycho zero. You can also email us as psychoactive 1130 01:04:17,080 --> 01:04:20,000 Speaker 1: at protozoa dot com or find me on Twitter at 1131 01:04:20,040 --> 01:04:22,440 Speaker 1: Ethan natal Main. And if you couldn't keep track of 1132 01:04:22,480 --> 01:04:28,479 Speaker 1: all this, find the information in the show notes. Next 1133 01:04:28,480 --> 01:04:32,040 Speaker 1: week we'll be talking about iby gaine, the powerful psychedelic 1134 01:04:32,360 --> 01:04:35,360 Speaker 1: that comes from the Aboga Route in West Africa. Our 1135 01:04:35,480 --> 01:04:39,320 Speaker 1: guest will be Dmitri Mucgainis, who has helped hundreds, indeed 1136 01:04:39,360 --> 01:04:42,240 Speaker 1: thousands of people to deal with their addictions through the 1137 01:04:42,360 --> 01:04:45,600 Speaker 1: use of iber gaine and other powerful psychedelic substances. It 1138 01:04:45,720 --> 01:04:49,160 Speaker 1: might take three to four to five days for someone 1139 01:04:49,200 --> 01:04:52,720 Speaker 1: to come out of the experience completely. Holding that space 1140 01:04:52,920 --> 01:04:56,280 Speaker 1: is the most intense experience that I've ever experienced, and 1141 01:04:56,280 --> 01:04:58,520 Speaker 1: I did it hundreds and hundreds of time. You have 1142 01:04:58,600 --> 01:05:01,200 Speaker 1: to be in there, why people are suffering, why people 1143 01:05:01,200 --> 01:05:04,400 Speaker 1: are processing, why people are vomiting, why people might want 1144 01:05:04,440 --> 01:05:07,280 Speaker 1: to start to use again or questioning why they use again, 1145 01:05:07,280 --> 01:05:11,400 Speaker 1: and it's an incredibly sacred space. Subscribe to Cycleactive now, 1146 01:05:11,480 --> 01:05:12,280 Speaker 1: see it, don't miss it.