Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ethan Nadelman, and this is Psychoactive, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the
Speaker 1: show where we talk about all things drugs. But any
Speaker 1: of view is expressed here do not represent those of
Speaker 1: I Heart Media, Protozoa Pictures, or their executives and employees. Indeed,
Speaker 1: heat as an inveterate contrarian, I can tell you they
Speaker 1: may not even represent my own and nothing contained in
Speaker 1: this show should be used as medical advice or encouragement
Speaker 1: to use any type of drug. One of the most
Speaker 1: popular episodes the Psychoactive to date has been the one
Speaker 1: where I invited my friend Julie Holland to service my
Speaker 1: co host and answer questions with me from you the audience.
Speaker 1: So we're going to record another one of those episodes,
Speaker 1: and we need your questions. Leave us a voicemail with
Speaker 1: a question as details as possible at one eight three,
Speaker 1: three seven seven nine sixty, or you can record a
Speaker 1: voice memo and send it to Cycleactive at protozoa dot com.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's going to be a great second go
Speaker 1: with this. Thanks for you. I'm Mizabelle Um. So there's
Speaker 1: actually really no time limit with the booths, people can
Speaker 1: take as long as they need. Obviously, they're hello psycoactive listeners.
Speaker 1: Today we're doing a different kind of episode. Do have
Speaker 1: a fifteen minute time limit, but right now they're serving
Speaker 1: as the smoking rooms and bathrooms. You know. I've recorded
Speaker 1: almost all the episodes up to this one from a
Speaker 1: makeshift studio in a closet in my apartment in New
Speaker 1: York City. But for this episode, I finally got to
Speaker 1: come out of the closet, jump on the subway, and
Speaker 1: right a few stops up to East Harlem, just three
Speaker 1: miles from where I live on the upper west side
Speaker 1: of the had it headed east toward Park Street, where
Speaker 1: one of the bigger harm reduction programs in New York City,
Speaker 1: now called on Point, is located. I was going there
Speaker 1: because they recently opened the first government approved overdose prevention
Speaker 1: center in the United States. These centers go by many names,
Speaker 1: safe injection sites, supervised injection facilities, drug consumption rooms, and
Speaker 1: now most commonly, overdose prevention centers because that's really what
Speaker 1: they're about. They're basically surge exchange programs with a back
Speaker 1: room where people can inject or smoke their drugs. In
Speaker 1: the presence of a health professional. That eliminates the risk
Speaker 1: of dying from an overdose, and it also cuts the
Speaker 1: health risks associated with injecting, like getting an infection or
Speaker 1: contracting HIV or hepatitis C. Yeah, yeah, you know, I've
Speaker 1: visited these things all around the world. This is a
Speaker 1: very similar set up. Yeah yeah, and that's outdoors is
Speaker 1: somewhat similar to you know, now over those prevention centers
Speaker 1: like this one have been operating around the world for decades.
Speaker 1: There's dozens of them, mostly in Europe, but also in Canada, Australia,
Speaker 1: and a few other places. You can even find a
Speaker 1: few in other cities in the US, but they're sort
Speaker 1: of underground, with local police and other city officials quietly
Speaker 1: looking the other way, but not allowing them to operate
Speaker 1: openly with official approval, mostly because the federal government regards
Speaker 1: them as violations of federal law. What makes this center
Speaker 1: special is that it's now operating openly with legal and
Speaker 1: political approval by city government. Our former mayor Built A.
Speaker 1: Blasio gave is okay just before leaving office at the
Speaker 1: end of last year. The current mayor, Eric Adams, is
Speaker 1: supportive and new York's Governor, Kathy Hokel, has said nothing
Speaker 1: but seems okay with it. When I turned the corner
Speaker 1: onto Under twenty six Street, I was a little surprised
Speaker 1: to see over a dozen people standing outside two doors,
Speaker 1: one for the harm Reduction program and a few feet
Speaker 1: away the door of the overdose Prevention Center. I walked
Speaker 1: in and was even more surprised, I guess because the
Speaker 1: streets had been so empty, to see about fifty people
Speaker 1: sitting around in a large room about half the size
Speaker 1: of a basketball court, on chairs and couches, chatting, reading, napping,
Speaker 1: working on computers. One of the first people I met
Speaker 1: was Bryant, the staff person who had previously worked as
Speaker 1: an e m T, an emergency medical technician. This is
Speaker 1: actually my first week before be doing this. I was
Speaker 1: an e m T. And the reason why I came
Speaker 1: over here because it's really hard, especially trying to harm
Speaker 1: reduction being in that area. It's really hard. You know,
Speaker 1: if you're a MT, you get a call at Central
Speaker 1: Park that you have a possible overdose. You know have
Speaker 1: big Central carkets, but one person, yeah, and then you
Speaker 1: know nobody knows who this person is. John doe Um
Speaker 1: could be a d O A and it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's here is more controlled. You know, it's uh I
Speaker 1: mean yeah ye. When someone arrives for the first time,
Speaker 1: the staff person greeting them at the door collects information
Speaker 1: about them, including about their drug gets. This is the
Speaker 1: first time they ever came, so this out. You know,
Speaker 1: if they whether they're going to be doing today, if
Speaker 1: they're not coming to our facility where they will be using,
Speaker 1: if they're going to be doing it alone, you know,
Speaker 1: if they were any troubles with cops and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: How many times have they use in the past, and
Speaker 1: you keep he explained to me. They also give out
Speaker 1: over those prevention kids containing the antidote and the lock zone,
Speaker 1: which many people call by its most popular brand name, Narcan.
Speaker 1: If they do want to take a Narcan kid, will
Speaker 1: give him a card it looks like this sublieve. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they're basically like cars, saying that they know how
Speaker 1: to use narcomunication, will train them on it and send
Speaker 1: them home if they do want to pick. After getting
Speaker 1: a brief tour of both the overdose Prevention center and
Speaker 1: the harm reduction center right next door, I chatted with
Speaker 1: the clinic manager my name is Susan Spratt. I'm a
Speaker 1: clinic manager. Mrs Gary the sound guy. Hi, you're not
Speaker 1: You're not trying to pull people in or or people
Speaker 1: from there saying maybe you should go over there. Um,
Speaker 1: we definitely make sure that everybody knows all the services
Speaker 1: that are being offered in the building. So everybody, all
Speaker 1: our staff, whether it's our harm reduction specialists who are
Speaker 1: really like on the front lines in the drop in
Speaker 1: center and and here, that everybody knows the entire array
Speaker 1: of services. So whenever somebody joins us, if there's a
Speaker 1: new intake, we absolutely will give them a rundown of
Speaker 1: everything and so they know what they can find here,
Speaker 1: which I think is like making the health insurance you
Speaker 1: help with things like that. Yeah, absolutely, And why don't
Speaker 1: you have relationships to the methan on programs in the area,
Speaker 1: and so we refer to method on programs. But also
Speaker 1: a big thing that we do here in our clinic
Speaker 1: as we prescribe our doctors prescribed to box Zone, Peop
Speaker 1: and Marphine and so obviously some people prefer to be
Speaker 1: on methodone and then but for some people methodone can
Speaker 1: be kind of restrictive. The nice thing about Buke we
Speaker 1: call it is that you know, it's something once you're
Speaker 1: stable on it, you can see the doctor WinCE a
Speaker 1: month as opposed to coming in daily or weekly to
Speaker 1: get a bottle, you know. And are some of the
Speaker 1: staff here are the current users or in the methanon
Speaker 1: programs or anything like that. So you got both both
Speaker 1: current users and people in methan on Boukmarpine working here
Speaker 1: as well as people in recovery. Yes, yeah, it okay,
Speaker 1: that's great, that's fantastic. This is we're hoping to put
Speaker 1: a pharmacy and that would obviously serve the community, but
Speaker 1: also it would be something we could swear, providers could
Speaker 1: prescribe and then the participant can come and get their
Speaker 1: medication right here. And you have things like at the
Speaker 1: puncture the second floor. It we have an amazing the
Speaker 1: holistics room. You're going to see that and and um
Speaker 1: and it's yeah, it's a it's a really quiet, calm space.
Speaker 1: It smells amazing. We have a lot of really amazing volunteers,
Speaker 1: people doing acupuncture and everything's free to use, right yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean these are coin operated, but we just keep quarters.
Speaker 1: Like when we finished this conversation, I headed up to
Speaker 1: the third floor to chat with the executive director of
Speaker 1: on Point, Sam Rivera, and his colleague Kalen c the
Speaker 1: senior director of Programs. They're in charge of the harm
Speaker 1: reduction programs and over those prevention centers both here in
Speaker 1: East tar On and also a few miles northwest up
Speaker 1: in Washington Heights. So Sam and Calin, thank you so much,
Speaker 1: so much for joining me. Thank you. He was a
Speaker 1: pleasure just to be and it's a pleasure to see
Speaker 1: you again. It's been a long time. I know, I know.
Speaker 1: So listen, this thing just got the official go ahead
Speaker 1: a few months ago for Mayor de Blasio, just before
Speaker 1: he was leaving office. And you know, his successor, Eric Adams,
Speaker 1: the new mayor, says he's in favor. But nine months ago,
Speaker 1: did you think you were going to be first in
Speaker 1: America to do this? So I'll say this is good,
Speaker 1: it's perfect. I'll say no, but you heard that, yes,
Speaker 1: that that's Klin right. Like so, I always always talking
Speaker 1: about this in that way where no matter what we
Speaker 1: talked about in our work, there was always Calin. That
Speaker 1: That's why I thought it was perfect going reception. One day,
Speaker 1: we're gonna open I'm like, she does not give this
Speaker 1: a break. And it's a blessing. It really is a
Speaker 1: blessing that that she that you kept bringing it up
Speaker 1: because whatever we did, it was like just remember when
Speaker 1: we opened, we need to have this. I'd be like okay,
Speaker 1: and then we all bought in. We were like okay
Speaker 1: when we open, and it was the way to do it.
Speaker 1: So when we expanded our dropping center, when we got
Speaker 1: the you know, we were able to acquire a larger
Speaker 1: drop in space. When we got the new space in
Speaker 1: Washington Heights, every conversation was when we opened our OPC,
Speaker 1: this is what we need, so make sure it looks
Speaker 1: like this. And I'm like, she just won't stop, like
Speaker 1: she won't stop. And so nine months ago, no for me, no,
Speaker 1: but it was there always in the conversation. Caitlin definitely
Speaker 1: believed it because I mean, you think about it. Rhode
Speaker 1: Island last year became the first state, the state, not
Speaker 1: just the city, to say let's do it. San Francisco
Speaker 1: has had a kind of quiet underground site going forever,
Speaker 1: and the mayor has been in favor. Other mayors. You
Speaker 1: had the mayor of Ithaca, New York, think Myrak who
Speaker 1: has been behind it. So you know a few years
Speaker 1: ago you start seeing not just the public health people,
Speaker 1: but the mayors around the country saying, let's do it.
Speaker 1: And then it seems like they talked to their chief
Speaker 1: legal council who says to them, you know, I mean
Speaker 1: the Trump administration, they can actually put you in jail,
Speaker 1: and the mayor saying, well, let's hold off. And then
Speaker 1: you on New York, You've got other organizations are looking
Speaker 1: at this, so, I mean, kill, what made you confident
Speaker 1: you're going to be number one? We we were just
Speaker 1: ready and this has been um a goal, uh for
Speaker 1: not only our organization but the entire harm reduction community
Speaker 1: in New York for for decades. It's a shame that
Speaker 1: it's still controversial to open these sites in America. I
Speaker 1: mean in some ways in terms of harm reduction and
Speaker 1: what we could be doing over those prevention sites or
Speaker 1: safe consumption rooms or old news right, because they've been
Speaker 1: up and running in all all kinds of you know,
Speaker 1: all over the world, as you mentioned earlier. But as
Speaker 1: as as an organization, with our Washington Heights site and
Speaker 1: our East Harlem site, we have been tiptoeing up to
Speaker 1: this and preparing for this in a variety of ways
Speaker 1: for years. I think it's fairly common knowledge that we
Speaker 1: were operating unsanctioned sites of both of our program arms
Speaker 1: for six years prior to opening, and that was that
Speaker 1: was strategic unctioned. These were basically kind of bathrooms that
Speaker 1: were set up so that people could use in a
Speaker 1: safe place. But so let was it that that kind
Speaker 1: of set up, Yes, But what I think is important
Speaker 1: to make really clear about about the unsanctioned program was
Speaker 1: that it acknowledged that people were using, in overdosing and
Speaker 1: dying in public bathrooms all over New York City alone,
Speaker 1: in their homes, subway stations, underpasses, overpasses, and they were
Speaker 1: using and overdosing in our bathrooms too. So I really
Speaker 1: want to applaud the New York State Department of Health,
Speaker 1: the Office of Drug User Health in particular for putting
Speaker 1: guidelines in place to allow for the safe operation of
Speaker 1: a bathroom program and a harm reduction setting. What we
Speaker 1: did is what we're very good at doing and we
Speaker 1: do all the time, which is pushed those guidelines to
Speaker 1: the max. This is our approach to harm reduction service
Speaker 1: is we have to remember that the War on drugs
Speaker 1: was born and raised in the United States. Everything about
Speaker 1: practicing harm reduction authentically is kind of illegal here, So
Speaker 1: you've got to find ways through. And that's what these
Speaker 1: two agencies have been so good at doing. And our
Speaker 1: unsanctioned program, built off of those guidelines that the New
Speaker 1: York State Department of Health put in place, was really
Speaker 1: the platform that enabled us operationally to do this when
Speaker 1: the moment came to be super ready to seize that
Speaker 1: moment when it presented itself, UM, which I reminded Sam
Speaker 1: every day since he started was going to come. And
Speaker 1: then also just for our staff, UM, it's a big
Speaker 1: lift to ask your staff to sit in that kind
Speaker 1: of witnessing with people consuming drugs every day. But we
Speaker 1: were ready because we've been doing it. We were ready philosophically,
Speaker 1: we were ready programmatically. Sam and I often say we
Speaker 1: we met at the at the right time. UM, that
Speaker 1: it was a combination of what I bring to the
Speaker 1: table and what he brings to the table. And I
Speaker 1: really I think he's right, Well, you're doing this in
Speaker 1: New York City. We were. It's a complicated place, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, we have there's city city regulations,
Speaker 1: there's state law, and there's federal law, and all of
Speaker 1: this is still illegal under federal law and in some
Speaker 1: ambiguous or illegal state under state law. So a lot
Speaker 1: of this is like kind of link linked not not
Speaker 1: then in New York right where New York City has
Speaker 1: actually made up of five boroughs, right, five independent cities
Speaker 1: that unified a hundred twenty five years ago. Right, So
Speaker 1: you know, it's been a process of getting the buy
Speaker 1: in where now you've got four of the five district
Speaker 1: attorneys in New York City saying we want to do this.
Speaker 1: But I want to ask you specifically about a few players.
Speaker 1: First of all, when it comes sam to the cops, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, this thing goes way back, and obviously you
Speaker 1: know local cops must have been aware. So what's the
Speaker 1: relationship like with the cops and how is that evolved?
Speaker 1: This is this is exciting and that's why I think
Speaker 1: we're both laughing. The police, and in specifically to the
Speaker 1: opening of and operating operations of our opr O PC
Speaker 1: safe consumption sites, have been our partners have been beyond amazing,
Speaker 1: have been extremely supportive. You know, New York City police,
Speaker 1: you just never know, just never know. So, um, we
Speaker 1: brought them in. We brought them into the fold. And
Speaker 1: then being the local people, the previou commanders, three cops
Speaker 1: or local commanders, conversations weekly at least it was daily
Speaker 1: for a while, but weekly with captains and lieutenants from
Speaker 1: local piecings often also sending me text I said, with
Speaker 1: the kleb, but who's this guy again? Texting asking if
Speaker 1: we need anything? The local police asking if we need anything.
Speaker 1: They asked us to did we need anything. We had
Speaker 1: to keep reminding them we've been doing this for six years.
Speaker 1: We haven't called you. We haven't had any issues for
Speaker 1: six years. They came in, We met with them, We
Speaker 1: invited them in. Uh, they came in and took a tour.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing we keep telling people, especially if
Speaker 1: you don't believe, if you don't understand what we're doing,
Speaker 1: come visit. You know, come visit. So they came in.
Speaker 1: We offered them a tour where they all came and
Speaker 1: we were getting calls like Kyle and the team would
Speaker 1: be like, there are four cops here. What are we doing.
Speaker 1: We're like, Oh, they came for a tour. We give
Speaker 1: them a tour. People don't know, they don't know what
Speaker 1: they don't know, right, and people fear what they don't understand.
Speaker 1: So we very much see it as our role to
Speaker 1: have an open door, particularly for people who are in
Speaker 1: opposition or don't don't understand or have misperceptions about the program.
Speaker 1: It's our job to nip those in the bud quick
Speaker 1: because that spreads faster than the positive message in some ways.
Speaker 1: So we went to roll call at both precincts, all
Speaker 1: of them, including the late night one, and everybody's there,
Speaker 1: you know, standing at attention, very stiff. I'm sweating because
Speaker 1: I'm just like, this is gonna be a hard sell.
Speaker 1: And then you explain how it works, and you explain
Speaker 1: how it's a benefit to the police, and you explain
Speaker 1: how you want them to work with you, right you
Speaker 1: you sort of you check all their boxes around anxiety
Speaker 1: and their misperceptions about the site, and you just can
Speaker 1: visibly see the shoulders relax. And at the end of
Speaker 1: this we always say open invitation to all of you
Speaker 1: to come fully expecting that none of them would none
Speaker 1: of them, and that's what Sam's talking about. They would
Speaker 1: just show up, you know, in groups of like four
Speaker 1: or six and come in and look at the site,
Speaker 1: and you can see you can see the deep breasts,
Speaker 1: and you can see the slow pans and the eyebrows
Speaker 1: go up. But they're thinking and they're trying to understand,
Speaker 1: and they're asking really thoughtful questions. And when they came in,
Speaker 1: what was really an unspect and really unexpected benefit was
Speaker 1: our participants of staff for the police are here and
Speaker 1: some you know, they were hesitant, and then they some
Speaker 1: come in they saw us talking with them. We showed
Speaker 1: them around. Part of that created a safe sort of
Speaker 1: interaction between our participants and the police because the police,
Speaker 1: they are talking to us, they know we're all doing.
Speaker 1: They felt more comfortable about walking in knowing that drugs
Speaker 1: on their possession, in their possession. Uh. Walking into one
Speaker 1: of our our sites knowing that the police know, they
Speaker 1: know now here we go. Everybody knows what we're doing here.
Speaker 1: It is loud and proud um. And then you know,
Speaker 1: we would have to talk to them often because they
Speaker 1: were so happy, interesting enough, happy to be here outside.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they were in front of the building, literally five
Speaker 1: six of them would be like can you go cross
Speaker 1: the street, and the other thing would happen um uh
Speaker 1: is like I would drive in and I see one
Speaker 1: of them parked at the corner with their lights on.
Speaker 1: A text the captain that's wild text to lieutenant. Can
Speaker 1: you tell you guys turn the lights off? It looks
Speaker 1: you know, the scaring people away. Oh sorry about that.
Speaker 1: They get right on. We'll be talking more after we
Speaker 1: hear this ad. It were the first you know, the
Speaker 1: safe and Jake's as I ever visited. It was one
Speaker 1: of a couple of sites in Zurich, Switzerland, back twenty
Speaker 1: five years ago. You know it was located. It was
Speaker 1: on the second floor of the building. The first flour
Speaker 1: was the police station and the second floor it was
Speaker 1: the safe injection site. And the cops were cool with
Speaker 1: it and any injectors. And this congresswoman, Rights Nicole Malio tiki,
Speaker 1: it's one of the few, I believe it is. And
Speaker 1: she's one of the few Republican members of Congress from
Speaker 1: New York State left. She represents stating on in South Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: and she's one of the knuckleheads, and she has no
Speaker 1: direct control, but she's pushing legislation in Congress to try
Speaker 1: to ban any federal funding not just for these programs,
Speaker 1: but for any programs related to these programs. Right now
Speaker 1: you've invited her in and she won't. She won't, So
Speaker 1: you're still dealing with that mentality. But there's another type
Speaker 1: of opposition you're dealing with, right, which is from the locals. Right.
Speaker 1: It's when the famous civil rights leader Al Sharpton, Reverend
Speaker 1: Al Sharpton gets up with locals and say, what are
Speaker 1: you putting this here for? How do you respond to that? No, No,
Speaker 1: it's a good point, because that's that's that's what's been
Speaker 1: out there right. Um, So I reached out to his
Speaker 1: staff directly, who have visited us, who we have walked
Speaker 1: the site and visited the site. I am asking out
Speaker 1: for for a comment. It's coming, It's coming. I believe
Speaker 1: it's coming. I always thinking he tends to layd up
Speaker 1: in the right place, but on the drug issue, he's
Speaker 1: always taking this time together. This issue. It was I
Speaker 1: think reflecting some of the black church resistance to drug stuff,
Speaker 1: but his other set of values brings them in the
Speaker 1: right area. You mentioned earlier misinformation. They were they're upset
Speaker 1: about their view of the over saturation of programs at
Speaker 1: hall and Trump programs at home. They are clearly not
Speaker 1: upset about what we're doing. Part of the misinformation that
Speaker 1: kind of moved them back and go, oh my god.
Speaker 1: Is for some of them. Some of them didn't know
Speaker 1: we've been doing this un sanctioned for six years. So
Speaker 1: when they heard it, they were like, we're bringing syrens
Speaker 1: to this neighborhood. And we're like, well, most of you
Speaker 1: we were talking to, we've been here longer than you,
Speaker 1: So it's not your neighborhood, it's our neighborhood. What we
Speaker 1: tell people as we improved what we were doing, we
Speaker 1: had an unsanctioned program where we would if someone overdose
Speaker 1: it was later any overdose it was. It was a
Speaker 1: very dangerous time for the for the individual, and what
Speaker 1: we did was improved that. The other thing I've been
Speaker 1: saying since the beginning is these programs are response to
Speaker 1: the community. Community doesn't want people using drugs of the street.
Speaker 1: We don't either. They don't want syringes and paraphernalia industreet
Speaker 1: we don't either. Like all of the things they're asking for,
Speaker 1: we were entering. The differences were courageous. I used to say, crazy,
Speaker 1: We're courageous enough to bring them into our side and
Speaker 1: manage them ourselves. So the other piece we'll see in
Speaker 1: time is this neighborhood seeing the difference they're going to see.
Speaker 1: They've already seen a difference in in in paraphernalia, surrageous
Speaker 1: and stuff. We already know that we that the programs
Speaker 1: are a great success. But one I'll tell you about,
Speaker 1: Highbridge Park up in Washington Heights is a very well
Speaker 1: known open their drug consumption in drug market public park
Speaker 1: that the public doesn't use because it's quote unquote overrun
Speaker 1: by drug use. So Highbridge has been a big problem
Speaker 1: for us, and we've lost a lot of people in Highbridge.
Speaker 1: You know, our our team attended nine bodies in Highbridge
Speaker 1: Park over the last couple of years of participants that
Speaker 1: we know and love. And then there's was syringe letter everywhere.
Speaker 1: It was absolutely an issue. Sam and I are making
Speaker 1: all of these pronouncements to the media about how this
Speaker 1: is going to have an impact on syringes, and we're
Speaker 1: secretly like it's going to have an impact on the syringes, right,
Speaker 1: and we get this email from the Parks Department just
Speaker 1: a couple of days ago saying, have you guys increased
Speaker 1: your outreach and public safety team? That's those are outward
Speaker 1: facing teams that do community engagement and syringe cleanup and
Speaker 1: work with people that are in the camps, are in
Speaker 1: the subway stations. Because in November our team collected thirteen
Speaker 1: thousand syringes from Highbridge Park and this month there's only
Speaker 1: been a thousand, Like what have you added more people?
Speaker 1: Like what's happened? Like how that's so stark. I was
Speaker 1: so excited for the opportunity to build. I don't know
Speaker 1: if this is dorky to say, but like the consumption
Speaker 1: side of my dreams, like they you know, this was
Speaker 1: a real cool opportunity, right. We had we had support,
Speaker 1: a big support, and they were they were going to
Speaker 1: allow us to build the site that we wanted to build.
Speaker 1: And I and I don't want to minimize what a
Speaker 1: great privilege and honor that was. So these are polymodality sites.
Speaker 1: They're not injection sites. You can snort, smoke, sniff, inject,
Speaker 1: swallow or otherwise ingest your junks of choice, and you
Speaker 1: can do it by dose as determined by the participant.
Speaker 1: So you can smoke, inject, smoke, sniff if you want to,
Speaker 1: all in one visit, because that's how you decide that
Speaker 1: your doses. But I want all of that to happen
Speaker 1: in front of us, because that's how I'm going to
Speaker 1: keep you safe if I only let you do one
Speaker 1: thing and then you got to go and sign back
Speaker 1: up again, et cetera. So our Washington Heights site is
Speaker 1: our peer or consumer lead model, So most of the
Speaker 1: folks working up there are active in their use currently
Speaker 1: we're former participants and are now on staff or have
Speaker 1: very recent UM drug use experience. And then the East
Speaker 1: Harlem site is the more traditional medical model with a
Speaker 1: higher threshold of staff, the more traditional stainless steel boost
Speaker 1: with the big mirrors that you would expect to see.
Speaker 1: So the Washington Heights site is meant to be cheaper,
Speaker 1: really really cost effective, UH, using para professional staff and
Speaker 1: active consumers UM. So that sort of gets that if
Speaker 1: you're in a jurisdiction where there's no way you're going
Speaker 1: to be able to get around the licensing for a
Speaker 1: nurse or a doctor, this is a model that might
Speaker 1: work for you. All the way up to the other end,
Speaker 1: which is the big fancy dancy design build UM supported
Speaker 1: by clinicians and care coordinators. And then UM, as I'm
Speaker 1: sure you've seen downstairs, are nine drug user Health Hub
Speaker 1: is right on the other side, I being the name
Speaker 1: of the Starlem site. You are karmaduction educators and HRV
Speaker 1: of the mirror. Then that's so that you can observe somebody.
Speaker 1: Why why the mirror is there? The mirrors are hotly
Speaker 1: contested item in a in a safe consumption space, but
Speaker 1: but we really believe in them. The mirrors are twofold one. Uh.
Speaker 1: It allows the participant agency and control over their setting.
Speaker 1: They can see what's happening around them. So often, Uh,
Speaker 1: drug consumption, particularly in the States, happens quickly and I'm
Speaker 1: checking over my shoulder. Am I gonna get robbed arrested?
Speaker 1: If I'm a woman, am I going to get raped?
Speaker 1: So no safe for use practices are employed because it's
Speaker 1: about getting the shot in as quickly as you can
Speaker 1: and then moving. The mirrors allow them to see what's
Speaker 1: going on around them. Really relaxed decreases anxiety, lets people
Speaker 1: take their time. They're also for our team UM to
Speaker 1: see the onset of a medical emergency the second it
Speaker 1: starts to happen without having to get up into people's business. Right,
Speaker 1: drug consumption is ritualized in private and intimate for people,
Speaker 1: and we want we want to reserve that space unless
Speaker 1: we have to go into that bubble and do something. UM.
Speaker 1: So it's it's a relationship right between the practice. Do
Speaker 1: you see differences like are they they using different drugs
Speaker 1: in Washington Heights compared to East Harlem is a younger
Speaker 1: versus older incting to be fascinating any drug policy nerve
Speaker 1: which is just going to like have a field day
Speaker 1: with our dad. It's so fascinating some of the early
Speaker 1: stuff that we've seen. Um, the Washington Heights population is
Speaker 1: significantly younger than the East Harlem population. UM. And all
Speaker 1: Speedball injectors, so they're touching down with us. Really. So
Speaker 1: Speedball just explained that's the heroin cocaine or fenyyl cocaine
Speaker 1: or stimulant opioid. Oh yeah, exactly. I love how drug
Speaker 1: literate you are, because the heroin and cocaine are by
Speaker 1: and large constructs in the poor neighborhoods, right, It's usually
Speaker 1: the synthetic analogs that are staying here. So it's fentanyl
Speaker 1: and meth usually, um, and you know the good drugs
Speaker 1: are in Tribeca, Bushwick. Harlem is an older population. UM.
Speaker 1: A lot of veterans in Harlem too, and lots of smoking.
Speaker 1: So where Harlem is getting a dedicated smoking room to
Speaker 1: accommodate the all of the smoking. What are they smoking?
Speaker 1: Is it still crack or is it K two cocaine,
Speaker 1: meth all even heroin K two being a kind of
Speaker 1: synthetic Canadas cannabinoid. Yeah yeah, um, and that they're smoking.
Speaker 1: You can smoke at both locations, but here we just
Speaker 1: really saw a need for the larger smoking room because
Speaker 1: of course, once you start to get big, long weights,
Speaker 1: you start to work against your objectives, right, We don't
Speaker 1: want people to bounce away from the service, So there's
Speaker 1: no time limits on people, but if they take too long,
Speaker 1: you encourage them to try to move into the waiting areas.
Speaker 1: Like here's the great thing. Um, no official time limits,
Speaker 1: but you're absolutely right. We start to do a little
Speaker 1: bit of sheep hurting if we've got a big lineup,
Speaker 1: But that just means transferring here to our drop in center,
Speaker 1: Like they don't have to leave the building, they don't.
Speaker 1: We We have co located everything here, food, nutrition, laundry, showers,
Speaker 1: medical care groups, holistic care, free acupuncture all at both sites,
Speaker 1: so we we really can engage and keep people for
Speaker 1: so we'll be through. Right. So somebody hears about this
Speaker 1: place and they show up for the first time because
Speaker 1: some friends told them. Whatever, how does it work? They
Speaker 1: walk in, they give their name, first name, last name,
Speaker 1: they tell off to talk about their drug preference. I mean, what,
Speaker 1: how does it just walk me through the thing you
Speaker 1: kind of did? Yeah? So are our services are confidential
Speaker 1: and anonymous um, which which means you know, we're not
Speaker 1: checking I D. But that doesn't mean that we're not
Speaker 1: making an effort to get to know people. So you
Speaker 1: come in, you do an enrollment where you're asked U
Speaker 1: like some very simple questions, um, but you are asked
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that you have presented at the site with
Speaker 1: the purpose of consuming drugs and that you are dependent
Speaker 1: on drugs, right, And that's sort of our little waiver
Speaker 1: and release. There's a couple other questions in there as well,
Speaker 1: and you're asked what you're going to be using, how
Speaker 1: you're going to be using if you weren't here using,
Speaker 1: where would you be have you had an overdose in
Speaker 1: the last twenty four hours or thirty days? What's your
Speaker 1: housing status? Where do you hang out the most in
Speaker 1: the city, buy zip code where do you buy most
Speaker 1: of your drugs in the city? Buy zip code? Have
Speaker 1: you had an interaction with the police in the last
Speaker 1: twenty four hours or since we last saw you, and
Speaker 1: in the last thirty days, and that's it. Key check
Speaker 1: for guns or weapons or anything like. No, there's no
Speaker 1: metal detector or nothing like that. Oh no, and no security,
Speaker 1: no metal detector, no padding people down. I want to
Speaker 1: go back quickly about the mirrors because there's another unintended
Speaker 1: benefit that I love watching people start to look at
Speaker 1: themselves in the mirror. People in pain and I've been
Speaker 1: in pain. People in pain and people who are struggling.
Speaker 1: You really don't want to look at mirrors, you know.
Speaker 1: I remember I should do this this support group and
Speaker 1: we talked about how many mirrors you have. I don't
Speaker 1: want any merrors in my house. I'm a man, you know.
Speaker 1: But watching people come in and one of my girlfriends,
Speaker 1: she she she came in the beginning and she would
Speaker 1: be like, oh, I don't look at me. And now
Speaker 1: she's like, actually one time two times instead of she
Speaker 1: actually said I'm not gonna use again, like she you know,
Speaker 1: because I want to look at myself. I came in
Speaker 1: the room and she's like, I want to look pretty
Speaker 1: for my boyfriend, and she's doing her makeup in the mirror.
Speaker 1: She didn't want to look at herself the first day.
Speaker 1: Then like she didn't want to look at herself. She
Speaker 1: was she the light came on because they there's there's
Speaker 1: also these really amazing lights. They control themselves, and when
Speaker 1: she put them on, she was like, oh, like she pulled,
Speaker 1: she had like a wolf. She put her hat down.
Speaker 1: She didn't want to look at herself. So she went
Speaker 1: from that to seeing how beautiful she is and and
Speaker 1: now joking around and flirting with you know, feeling confident
Speaker 1: about the woman in the mirror. Like that just touches.
Speaker 1: It touches for me because you know, I've seen her
Speaker 1: here for him since like hey, since I've gotten here,
Speaker 1: and just to see that in other people and starting
Speaker 1: to look at themselves when I know they wouldn't and
Speaker 1: talk about different thing things you know, uh, and identifying
Speaker 1: and building that relationship itself, and simply because we have
Speaker 1: a mirror there. Um as far as safety, this is
Speaker 1: the space right. We've created the safe space. So we
Speaker 1: engage our people in protecting the space right. So the
Speaker 1: blessing and sometimes we have to manage it is people
Speaker 1: start having a disagreement, which happens really not as much
Speaker 1: as you would think. Someone else usually steps in and says, hey,
Speaker 1: you know it says, do you know what you're doing here?
Speaker 1: Like this is creative for us, we cannot do this.
Speaker 1: Plus it's important and for me, you know, a personal
Speaker 1: lived experience who comes from the inner City, from the
Speaker 1: Lower east Side, you know, I want to talk to
Speaker 1: them about that, Like, this is your space. I know
Speaker 1: it's ours, but this is this is really your space.
Speaker 1: We built this for you. So what you do here
Speaker 1: it really matters, and how you show up really matters.
Speaker 1: This is sacred ground. This is sacred ground. This is
Speaker 1: the church. This is sacred ground. That's the that's the
Speaker 1: the Church of Safety. Sure, it's what we were calling in.
Speaker 1: We have a story about that. But this is a
Speaker 1: sacred ground. And for Native people. I'm a Native American.
Speaker 1: Indigenous people sacred grounds with things change and things are
Speaker 1: blast and people people are honored in a certain way.
Speaker 1: And we have two spaces in the city of Many,
Speaker 1: this in the Lenape land, but in the city, we
Speaker 1: have two spaces that are sacred ground for people who
Speaker 1: are who are oftentimes, you know, treated as disposable and
Speaker 1: mistreated and unloved. So the blessing here, and I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: is I go down to that room and I going
Speaker 1: to drop it center three or four or five times
Speaker 1: a day. And people tend to think I'm going down
Speaker 1: there to be the boss. I'm going down there for medicine,
Speaker 1: for good medicine, to watch people be loved in a
Speaker 1: way that they're not used to, and it really does
Speaker 1: something for me. We've had some people come up here
Speaker 1: and I talked to them and they go, I go,
Speaker 1: why are you here because I'm in trouble. You're here
Speaker 1: because I love you and I care about you, And
Speaker 1: they don't know what to do. They're like, what do
Speaker 1: you mean? That's what I mean? Another thing? And I
Speaker 1: don't remember everyone's name, but believe me, Ethan, I will
Speaker 1: turn around quickly said what's the first name was? Because
Speaker 1: if I called them by their name, it is a
Speaker 1: beautiful moment. Man. One of the places where the whole
Speaker 1: twelve step, you know, recovery movement intersect with harm reduction,
Speaker 1: is that both of them, deep down are about enabling
Speaker 1: people to uncover and recover their basic sense of dignity right,
Speaker 1: and that when people get called by their own name
Speaker 1: or when they get approached in a kind of non
Speaker 1: judgmental wave because we don't judge people because about what
Speaker 1: the drug they're putting their body. That's fundamental to people
Speaker 1: is coming home and think about our buddy. Howard Joseph
Speaker 1: fer taught me a lot. Just Howard Joseph's again. He's
Speaker 1: they who founded Exponents, which was really a pioneering program
Speaker 1: in New York that integrated harm reduction, drug treat and
Speaker 1: helping people coming out of jail to get their lives together.
Speaker 1: So many of the harm reduction leaders in the city
Speaker 1: are graduates at howard Us program. I graduated Howard did
Speaker 1: a thing once and many things, but I was in
Speaker 1: one of his trainings and he and he does this
Speaker 1: thing that I've been doing now for years, which is
Speaker 1: having a conversation with people who are using and identifying
Speaker 1: the read the root cause and telling people, do you
Speaker 1: understand why you used? You have Obama, I'm a junkie,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm a loser. You use because you're
Speaker 1: self medicating pain traumatic experience of mental health condition. And
Speaker 1: I would watch people go what because that's not what
Speaker 1: they've been taught, that's not what they believe. So you know,
Speaker 1: I've taken that piece Howard has given me many years
Speaker 1: ago and expanded on it and have conversations, individual conversations,
Speaker 1: even in the OPR while someone's there. It's not my
Speaker 1: thing like it was Howard's. Right, we just let's keep
Speaker 1: carrying it forward. It's really about the person receiving the
Speaker 1: message and watching their reaction a like goes off like
Speaker 1: not all these things people told me I am and
Speaker 1: a person who uses drugs is one part of who
Speaker 1: they are. Like I've been saying for years, I've committed crime,
Speaker 1: but other identified Let's take a break here and go
Speaker 1: to an ad because there's another thing about this is
Speaker 1: one of them. Remember the key selling points a needle
Speaker 1: exchange programs back years ago in the US I think
Speaker 1: was one of those early programs. Dave purchased Tacoma and
Speaker 1: what he showed that the needle exchange program was the
Speaker 1: number one point of referral into abstinence based drug treatment programs.
Speaker 1: And my understanding is here too, you have people right,
Speaker 1: you're referring people to methand on uperneour freen recovery. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll say something real quick about that. There's also this perception,
Speaker 1: this perception that none of them tried treatment before. And
Speaker 1: we know that my interactions, they've all tried it, They
Speaker 1: tried some some part of it. Right. How they there matter? Right?
Speaker 1: Because too many people who are just send under treatment.
Speaker 1: What you're doing is enabling. It's not true because we
Speaker 1: know they've tried, that means they won't try again. But
Speaker 1: you just want to be clear, We want to be
Speaker 1: really really clear that our folks have tried, sometimes numerous times.
Speaker 1: There's this perception that the absence based world and the
Speaker 1: harm reduction world are at odds, and I just think
Speaker 1: that they're they're in a slightly dysfunctional marriage, and but
Speaker 1: they're married. And there are a few things that both
Speaker 1: worlds really agree on. You know, the number one predictor
Speaker 1: of an overdose fitality is a previous overdose. And we
Speaker 1: also know that most people who are as entrenched in
Speaker 1: their addiction is the folks that we work with. Our
Speaker 1: there's a chance of a return to use after leaving
Speaker 1: an absinence based program, it might as well be so
Speaker 1: if if the likelihood of a return to us is
Speaker 1: that high. You better hope there's a harm reduction program
Speaker 1: nearby to catch that person when they returned to use,
Speaker 1: because you know they when you return to use after
Speaker 1: a period of accidence, you have no tolerance and you're
Speaker 1: in such a high risk of overdose fatality. But you
Speaker 1: know you're preaching to the choir. I gotta say, because
Speaker 1: what was right on top of Insight in Vancouver a
Speaker 1: detox and treatment program literally operated by Insight, one staircase
Speaker 1: above the consumption facility. And you know, I just know
Speaker 1: that Sam is so excited for that to be the
Speaker 1: next thing that we tackled together, because that's where we
Speaker 1: gotta go. But she let me ask you about this
Speaker 1: because you know, even when I was runing Drug Policy Alliance,
Speaker 1: always advocating for the safe injection size overcerenction centers. But
Speaker 1: this other thing that I would never let go of
Speaker 1: was moving forward on heroin prescribing, having a site where
Speaker 1: you can get legal heroin pharmaci And these things also
Speaker 1: start in Switzerland back in the nineties. You now have
Speaker 1: been Switzerland and Germany, the Netherlands and UK. You have
Speaker 1: in Canada. I think they're about to open up in Norway.
Speaker 1: You know, and but we can't seem to get it
Speaker 1: going in the US. And I've been in places in
Speaker 1: Geneva or other places where you have there's a safe
Speaker 1: injection program, there's a heroin prescribing program, you know, but
Speaker 1: the people complain about a safe injection program because people
Speaker 1: are still buying their drugs illegally. They're still using drugs
Speaker 1: that they don't exactly know what's in it. They don't
Speaker 1: know how much fentinel is in it, they don't know
Speaker 1: what it's cut, whether there's all those risks. And here's
Speaker 1: the heroin prescription program where you're getting a prescribed dose legal,
Speaker 1: you can't take it home with you, And so I mean,
Speaker 1: I I'm immensely frustrated that this is not moving forward
Speaker 1: as well. And in fact, that sometimes seemed to me
Speaker 1: that the cops would be more comfortable with her own
Speaker 1: prescription programs and safe injection because heroin prescription is all legal,
Speaker 1: like a method on program, we're safe injection still involves
Speaker 1: people buying their drugs on the streets, buying them illegally,
Speaker 1: and all this sort of stuff. So is there some
Speaker 1: movement of foot to try to get these things going,
Speaker 1: and whether it's with a university or something. I see
Speaker 1: Kel is nodding here, so say a little something about that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't I don't mean to be evasive,
Speaker 1: but we we are working with one of the hospitals
Speaker 1: in New York City and some of the doctors there
Speaker 1: on several different research applications around around heroin maintenance and
Speaker 1: safe supply. These are New York based doctors who have
Speaker 1: all visited some of the locations that you've mentioned, who
Speaker 1: came roaring back to the US saying, we got to
Speaker 1: do this. Um, so it is happening. It's just it's
Speaker 1: just you know what happens when we submit the proposals.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, I really I forgot to ask
Speaker 1: you a detail about the overdose stuff because here you
Speaker 1: are called an overdose prevention center, and I think it's
Speaker 1: important for our listeners understand that not not every overdose
Speaker 1: results in death, and not every overdose reversal is saving
Speaker 1: a life. So it just explain a little more about
Speaker 1: that detail, right, So explain about you know, like, what
Speaker 1: percent of overdose is actually my result in a fatality?
Speaker 1: And how do you intervene when you see something happening.
Speaker 1: It's it's hard to say to to your question of
Speaker 1: how many of the what are we at a hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty eight overdoses in two months that we've intervened in,
Speaker 1: and the vast majority are depression opiate involved overdoses, It's
Speaker 1: hard to say how many of those would have resulted
Speaker 1: in fatalities. What we can say is that, thank god,
Speaker 1: we don't know, right because because the staff is there
Speaker 1: at the second of on site of the overdose, um,
Speaker 1: we're preventing the loss of consciousness. It's a kind of
Speaker 1: overdose response very unique to this environment. If you can
Speaker 1: keep the brain firing, if you can keep oxygen to
Speaker 1: the brain and prevent the loss of consciousness, you essentially
Speaker 1: stop the progression of the overdose. If you overdose but
Speaker 1: you're not going to die, is there still some damage
Speaker 1: that happens to the brain, even absolutely so. So a
Speaker 1: couple of things about that, there's this real reliance on
Speaker 1: the lock zone, and we're very grateful to n lock zone.
Speaker 1: It absolutely is a miracle drug. It does. It does
Speaker 1: what it's supposed to do very beautifully, which is intervened
Speaker 1: in these really mostly fental involved overdoses. But long before
Speaker 1: in a lock zone existed people were intervening in overdoses
Speaker 1: with just oxygen, right, Like, overdose responses really really fundamentally
Speaker 1: about oxygenation. And as long as we can keep the
Speaker 1: brain healthy and keep the brain firing, the brain then
Speaker 1: doesn't shut down the rest of the body. UM. So
Speaker 1: we choose to approach our overdose response from that perspective
Speaker 1: oxygen first, and a lock zone only when necessary, and
Speaker 1: just enough to pull the opiate off the receptor so
Speaker 1: that respiration can resume. We don't want to be making
Speaker 1: people dope sick or putting them into withdrawal, because that's
Speaker 1: a negative experience. UM and who knows what they had
Speaker 1: to do. Zone is more likely to result in some
Speaker 1: dope sickness because they'll have them are rapid withdrawal from
Speaker 1: the opioid of failure. Yes, anyone who's dependent on opiates
Speaker 1: UM is put into some degree of withdrawal with n
Speaker 1: lock zone. The higher dose of naloxone, the more severe
Speaker 1: the withdrawal. And that's not a pleasant experience for anyone.
Speaker 1: And that's that's not the that's not what we want
Speaker 1: to be offering to our participants in these settings. But
Speaker 1: are absolutely right about this emerging landscape of people who
Speaker 1: are surviving their overdoses UM or years of being in
Speaker 1: a kind of a heavier opiate nod having long term
Speaker 1: cognition problems. Right, harm reduction works and drug users are
Speaker 1: living longer. Like used to be if you were forty
Speaker 1: and you were a drug user, you're a senior citizen.
Speaker 1: That's not true anymore. But when I was downstairs, look
Speaker 1: like your average age was probably around four. I mean,
Speaker 1: we got some gray hairs down there, and hallelujah for that. UM.
Speaker 1: But we are seeing this other you know, this new
Speaker 1: kind of landscape and our work which is um you know,
Speaker 1: long term brain damage from ongoing overdose occurrence in long
Speaker 1: periods of being in a knot. It's something that the
Speaker 1: harm reduction community is looking at. But oxygen, oxygen oxygen,
Speaker 1: and it's the best practice in safe consumption in other
Speaker 1: parts of the world, UM, to intervene with oxygen before
Speaker 1: you Before that, you have these drug test strips to
Speaker 1: write to check for sent and all other drugs, and
Speaker 1: you're think data and so what are you finding? Generally speaking?
Speaker 1: Is sentinel in almost everything from opioids to stimulants and
Speaker 1: also people. Is there meth amphetamine in New York Now,
Speaker 1: um you know, or is cocaine still around or are
Speaker 1: the synthetic K two cannebinois things where people don't really know.
Speaker 1: I mean, what are you finding and what's what do
Speaker 1: you see? Trend lines? Yeah, it's the party pack. Everything
Speaker 1: is here. The one thing that we don't have yet,
Speaker 1: thank god, knock knock knock, as we're not seeing car
Speaker 1: fentanyl or any of the other Um, really really potent
Speaker 1: and just explained car fentinels another analog of fentonel, even
Speaker 1: more potent of fentel, And it showed up in Ohio
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: the overdose fatality rate went up. Like so we are
Speaker 1: lucky in New York, very lucky to not see that.
Speaker 1: But just just as relates to fentanyl. Um, you know, us,
Speaker 1: like many of the other harm reduction providers in New
Speaker 1: York have been testing with the fentanel testing strips for
Speaker 1: years and years. We've been testing since we haven't had
Speaker 1: a negative bag of heroin since, so we don't even
Speaker 1: use our fentanyl test strips for opiates anymore. We operate
Speaker 1: from the basis the presumption of positive. So anyone who's
Speaker 1: using opiates. That's our campaign. Assume it's positive. Where the
Speaker 1: fentanyl test trips become really useful for us is for
Speaker 1: opiate naive people or people who aren't using opiates, who
Speaker 1: are just going to get blown over guy a fentanyl
Speaker 1: positive dose of a stimulant or a party pillar, research
Speaker 1: chemical or whatever else. And it takes me back to
Speaker 1: your previous question. And you know I said this, I
Speaker 1: don't know the other day of something. The last seven weeks,
Speaker 1: I haven't gotten the calls we would get every morning,
Speaker 1: and we felt like every morning, but we will get
Speaker 1: calls like who did we lose? Now, even if it
Speaker 1: was someone we didn't know, we would get a call
Speaker 1: that there was another person. That to me is a
Speaker 1: complete and clear connection to the services we're running and
Speaker 1: the fact that we're allowing folks to come in and
Speaker 1: you safely because we're not seeing it the way we were.
Speaker 1: The hardest part right now for me is be closed
Speaker 1: every night. And that hurts Ethan hurts man, Like when
Speaker 1: I drive off I see the gate going down, it
Speaker 1: hits you. You're you're aiminite aim all way way. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's going it's going to happen. It's going to happen.
Speaker 1: Just is not fast enough. I mean, do you foresee
Speaker 1: mobile units like mobile vans also going out You're reading
Speaker 1: out stuff? Man, you've been No, I'm just I'm just wondering, definitely,
Speaker 1: you know. Okay, okay, and elsewhere in the city Brooklyn
Speaker 1: coming up other organizations. I will say something very quickly.
Speaker 1: You asked, because you were starting to talk about earlier,
Speaker 1: why us, Why were we selected? Because I'm going to
Speaker 1: a call with Nevada to help them get there. So okay,
Speaker 1: thank you very much, Sam, the almost penultimate question here.
Speaker 1: I was very pleased when I walked in. I saw
Speaker 1: a little sign saying, if you smoke, join our nicotine
Speaker 1: vaping group here, which I'm a huge fan of. And
Speaker 1: I see Helen Redman, who has been a real champion
Speaker 1: in this stuff. So as real effort being made here
Speaker 1: to get people are smoking, to encourage them to switch
Speaker 1: to the from cigarettes to the yes for sure, especially
Speaker 1: through our holistic treatment program. You know. I I'm also
Speaker 1: a regular acupuncturists since nine and I've been treating people
Speaker 1: for years who want to stop smoking, you know, and
Speaker 1: it's worked. We have a really good approach to it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, overall, if we get people to stay alive, now,
Speaker 1: how do we keep them alive in other ways? Right?
Speaker 1: Because most of our folks also have other chronic conditions,
Speaker 1: so how do we manage those? So we're always looking
Speaker 1: at other ways to expand what we're doing. Um. We
Speaker 1: also know that a lot of organizations don't aren't too
Speaker 1: comfortable working with our people. Uh you know, we send
Speaker 1: them places and they go, oh man, you know the
Speaker 1: way they showed up. So the more we see that,
Speaker 1: the more we expand and want to be the organization
Speaker 1: that provides more services to them. Our next big one
Speaker 1: coming up is food and nutrition. We're very close to
Speaker 1: opening a very very robust food nutrition program. You know,
Speaker 1: just answering gaps you have to conduct think gaps analysis.
Speaker 1: It's a holistic health approcess everything. Damn okay, it's great here,
Speaker 1: you're doing. Great to see you here. Something. Listen to
Speaker 1: one of the guys. It's the way you've grown into
Speaker 1: this thing. Would you do? And you played a pioneering role,
Speaker 1: not just for the city of the country, So so
Speaker 1: thank you and you know, and also thank you to
Speaker 1: Callen as well. Right before I left, I wanted to
Speaker 1: chat with at least one of the clients who would
Speaker 1: come that day. The staff asked around and a young
Speaker 1: fellow named Kat agreed to talk with me. So your
Speaker 1: name is Kat Chasm. Yeah, where do you live the
Speaker 1: bronx time? And so you've come down? How often you
Speaker 1: come down here? One again? Yeah? Once or twice to leave? Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And were you coming here? Even before it became a
Speaker 1: legal open place, they had a mobile unit on the
Speaker 1: corner doing Hepatitis C and HIV testing and you know,
Speaker 1: they had two trunks and given up the plot stuff
Speaker 1: like that. So I had I wanted took a hepatitis
Speaker 1: the test and the HIV test, and you know they
Speaker 1: filled me in on the you know, the workings of
Speaker 1: the place. So you already started coming here back then, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's when I started coming. It was more like different,
Speaker 1: it was different bathrooms. Yeah, yeah, basically use um heroin
Speaker 1: heroin but to heroin. Heroin's got fitting on it now,
Speaker 1: I believe so. But you know, if you get without
Speaker 1: fitting on and it is, it's quite useless because everything,
Speaker 1: like you said, almost everything has it in there. So
Speaker 1: if something doesn't have it in there, being a just
Speaker 1: so accustomed to it already, it's like useless. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know it's amazing to change, you know, and basically
Speaker 1: injecting it injecting as well. I injected, but I used
Speaker 1: to just sniff. Then why did you transition from from
Speaker 1: steffing it's injecting. I have absolutely no idea. If you
Speaker 1: if you slip for whatever like that, you know you
Speaker 1: have to just you don't have to really worry about anything.
Speaker 1: Just sniffict. But you gotta make sure you don't get
Speaker 1: wet or any you know, and stuff like that. But
Speaker 1: if um, if you inject, you know, it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1: You can be putting it in water anyway. So I
Speaker 1: don't know, you like the sensation of the injecting more
Speaker 1: than the sniff the stuff. I actually did like the
Speaker 1: sniffing better because it lasted longer to me, the high
Speaker 1: end the stuff like about one bag and it probably
Speaker 1: lost back a day or two. I think that's the
Speaker 1: best thing you do. You still go in that program here,
Speaker 1: so you go to the net round the corner right here.
Speaker 1: So but you live in the Bronx, but you go
Speaker 1: to the best program at Harlem and uh and this place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you're going to mess. You're going there every day basically,
Speaker 1: you messing on day every other day to give you
Speaker 1: one day take home. Get with those messing on your
Speaker 1: So it's a low dope. So when you do the heroine,
Speaker 1: you can still get high supposed to. But I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know why,
Speaker 1: but I just don't you worry about overdose in at all.
Speaker 1: I mean the one time I overdose one time, and
Speaker 1: I think that was like when the jet got around
Speaker 1: because I wasn't familiar with a year. I was at
Speaker 1: my mother's house and somebody else was there, so she
Speaker 1: had hit me with the um the knock game twice
Speaker 1: and I didn't get back up. Then um my friend
Speaker 1: had told her put ice on my testical or whatever
Speaker 1: like that. I guess that that woke me up. Put
Speaker 1: the nar can innotually did not wake you up at
Speaker 1: the moment, That's yeah, that's what they said. Looks like
Speaker 1: you gave it to me twice and I didn't get up.
Speaker 1: That scare you when that happened, or not so much,
Speaker 1: because I mean, yeah, yeah did because you know, I
Speaker 1: was like dead, you know, but I didn't. I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize it. I didn't feel anything until after
Speaker 1: when the knock is the knock came pushes everything else.
Speaker 1: So you just like you feel like shit. I mean
Speaker 1: you feel like, oh my god, what do you think
Speaker 1: of the quick? What do you think about it? Someone
Speaker 1: to go? You know, it's like going to a program,
Speaker 1: but not going to a program, Like it's just a
Speaker 1: place where you know, it's like a break all the time.
Speaker 1: You know, if you go out, like if you have
Speaker 1: a class and you get a fifteen minute recess and
Speaker 1: everybody's like a smoke area, that's like this is hours.
Speaker 1: So when you come here, you hang and then you're
Speaker 1: able to go into the back room and inject there.
Speaker 1: And you've never had an over the situation here everything here?
Speaker 1: And do you ever use the testing trips to see
Speaker 1: what's in the drugs you're bringing here? Yeah? And is
Speaker 1: it always the same like heroin Sentinel convo basic very
Speaker 1: once in a while you'll see um without without without
Speaker 1: So for you a lot about this place, it's not
Speaker 1: even so much as having it's not so much having
Speaker 1: a safe place to inject. It's just a nice place
Speaker 1: to hang out in date, right, because you have other
Speaker 1: places you could inject myself. Yeah, you're a long but
Speaker 1: you'd like to be around people somewhere, and this is
Speaker 1: the place pretty much appreciate. Okay, good media. I felt
Speaker 1: exhilarated after spending my afternoon at on Point. What inspired
Speaker 1: me was that here, at last was an outpost of
Speaker 1: decency and pragmatism, and not just my own country but
Speaker 1: my own city. Drug consumption sites like these have saved
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of lives around the world, and tens,
Speaker 1: maybe hundreds of thousands of people living really difficult lives
Speaker 1: have found a place where they can chill out safely
Speaker 1: use the drugs they would otherwise be using alone or
Speaker 1: on the streets, find a little community, talk to a
Speaker 1: health professional or social worker, get some care, have a
Speaker 1: cup of coffee, wash their laundry, and just be treated
Speaker 1: like a human being. It matters. Of course, the programs
Speaker 1: like these don't just help the people they serve. They
Speaker 1: also reduced the public nuisance associated with drug users hanging
Speaker 1: on the streets, including you syringes lying around, and they
Speaker 1: save taxpayers money by reducing police and emergency medical costs. Moreover,
Speaker 1: those prevention centers will soon open other parts of New
Speaker 1: York City, and hopefully in other cities as well. I
Speaker 1: must admit that I don't fully understand what the Biden
Speaker 1: administration is waiting for. All they need to do is
Speaker 1: give a qualified green light, just like the Obama administration
Speaker 1: did ten years ago when Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana,
Speaker 1: even though it was and still is illegal under federal law.
Speaker 1: I know the politics of this issue can be tough,
Speaker 1: not least because even as more and more Republicans have
Speaker 1: come around to joining Democrats and supporting harm reduction and
Speaker 1: marijuana legalization and reducing prison populations, the issue of over
Speaker 1: those prevention centers is one on which Republicans can't resist
Speaker 1: reverting to old drug war rhetoric. But the bottom line
Speaker 1: is that these sites save lives and money, and are
Speaker 1: all the more crucial when more people than ever are
Speaker 1: dying from using illegal and unregulated drugs of unknown potency
Speaker 1: and purity. We need hundreds of programs like this around
Speaker 1: the country. They won't solve the overdose epidemic, but they
Speaker 1: will save the lives of thousands and improve the lives
Speaker 1: of many more. If you're enjoying Psychoactive, please tell your
Speaker 1: friends about it, or you can write us a review
Speaker 1: at Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. We
Speaker 1: love to hear from our listeners. If you'd like to
Speaker 1: share your own stories, comments and ideas, then leave us
Speaker 1: a message at one eight three three seven seven nine
Speaker 1: sixty that's eight three three psycho zero, or you can
Speaker 1: email us at Psychoactive at protozoa dot com or find
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at Ethan Natalman. You can also find
Speaker 1: contact information in our show notes. Psychoactive is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. It's hosted by
Speaker 1: me Ethan Naedelman. It's produced by Noam Osband and Josh Stain.
Speaker 1: The executive producers are Dylan Golden, Ari Handel, Elizabeth Geesus
Speaker 1: and Darren Aronofsky from Protozoa Pictures, Alex Williams and Matt
Speaker 1: Frederick from my Heart Radio and me Ethan Edelman. Our
Speaker 1: music is by Ari Blucien and a special thanks to
Speaker 1: A Brios f, Bianca Grimshaw and Robert bb. Next week
Speaker 1: we'll be talking about Mexico's century long experience with drug
Speaker 1: prohibition with two of Mexico's leading drug specialists, Alejandro Madrasso
Speaker 1: and Catalina Paris m Subscribe to Cycoactive. Now see it,
Speaker 1: don't miss it.