WEBVTT - Biden Administration Pushing to Reform State Drug Laws and Cape Cod COVID Outbreak 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.960 It's Tuesday, August three. I'm Oscar Ramirez from the Daily 0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:08.560 Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is Reopening America. 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:11.560 The Biden administration wants to reform state drug laws and 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:14.720 focus on what's called harm reduction, which promotes safe drug 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:17.599 use instead of abstinence and threats of jail time. The 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:21.000 Office of National Drug Control Policy will be promoting draft 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:25.200 model laws that supports harm reduction programs, increased treatment options, 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:30.440 and reform criminal statutes. Dan Vergano, science reporter at BuzzFeed News, 0:00:30.800 --> 0:00:33.360 joins us for this and also how a cape cod 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:37.600 covid outbreak, mostly in unvaccinated people, prompted the CDC to 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:40.800 change its mask wearing guidance. Thanks for joining us Dandy 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:42.720 area to talk to you. I want to talk about 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:44.760 a couple of interesting things. First off, I wanted to 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:48.400 talk about the Biden administration and you know what they're 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:51.600 trying to do to reform state drug laws. They're looking 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:55.640 at something called harm reduction measures. This focuses on safe 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:58.720 drug use over abstinence and the threat of imprisonment, which 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:00.400 is kind of you know what we've been going through 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:02.320 with the War on drugs type of thing. This is 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:04.640 would be a shift away from that. So tell us 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:07.000 a little bit more about what harm reduction is and 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:10.120 then what the administration is doing about it. So harm 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:12.679 reduction has been around for you know, thirty years or more. 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:16.040 It's basically the idea that you try, instead of throwing 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:18.280 people who use a list of drugs in the jail, 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:21.080 that you sort of meet them what they're where they're 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:23.280 at it. They're going to use drugs, and you try 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:25.360 and help them do that as safely as can as 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:28.480 you might give them drugs that reverse overdoses, or you 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:32.160 might show them how to safely inject, you know, and 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:34.600 if it's the risk of an overdose from a drug, 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:36.720 or you might you know, give them clean needles to 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:39.800 use instead of old ones so that they don't spread 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:42.640 HIV or hepatitis. And you know, the hope is that 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:45.880 people you know, eventually at the time will go into recovery, 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:47.400 but you don't force it on them. You try and 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:49.360 sort of, just as they say, meet them where they are. 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:51.960 And so these approaches obviously, you know, I can I 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:54.360 can already see a lot of people not happy with 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:56.960 them because you're not eliminating that drug use, right, You're 0:01:56.960 --> 0:02:00.320 still people would say, you're still promoting that drugs, but 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:04.280 with some of these programs, is getting into recovery. Is 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:08.240 that part of these programs? Yes and no. If you 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:10.120 talk to someone in harm reduction, they say, no, we're 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:11.639 not going to force people to do that. You can. 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:14.040 It turns out, though, that if you're wise and you 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:16.600 just make friends with people essentially show them we're trying 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:18.560 to help them, that they're more likely to go into 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:20.520 it on their own. It's sort of a person's own 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:23.480 personal decision, like when they've decided to do this or not. 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:25.960 And it just turns out that human nature being what 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:27.560 it is, that it's better if the person makes a 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:29.520 decision for themselves rather than you're putting a gun into 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:30.920 their head and saying you've got to do this. That 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:33.600 it turns on it just doesn't work. So we've been 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:36.639 seeing a lot of numbers recently. More than people died 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:39.760 of drug overdoses last year. That's the highest number we've 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:41.720 ever seen. A lot of that has to do with pentomyl, 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:44.520 which you and I have talked a lot about forty 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:47.400 times more potent than harrow and and it's kind of 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:51.160 leaking into other drugs. It's being mixed into other stuff. 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:54.640 So what is the administration trying to do. What's the 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:57.399 latest action that they're trying to do with all this, Well, 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:00.520 what we reported today was that they are trying to 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:04.519 promote model laws for states that would enhance the idea 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:06.520 of harm reduction. And that is in response to this 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:10.000 increases overdoses. And where what's going on is Fentyl has 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:13.519 infiltrated the heroin supply, an illicit drug market west of 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:15.480 the Mississippi as well as east of it, so you're, 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:18.240 you know, basically doubling the area of which people are 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.240 exposed to this. And during the pandemic, it seems clear 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:24.680 that more fentyl started coming into the US versus heroin, 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:27.080 which you know is dangerous nuff as it is, and 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:28.680 so people are going to be using this, they're going 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:31.400 to be having more overdoses the and also with the 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:34.520 pandemic upsetting essentially the supply chain for this, you're going 0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:36.440 to have a more variable dose where that is what 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:39.600 might kill people. Instead of going to the same dealer 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:42.360 who is giving the same stuff they were using before this, 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:43.920 they have to go to a different person or it's 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:47.440 a different supply and that change in in potency you 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:49.320 know that they're getting from these ships. It might be 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:51.760 with leading this increase in overdoses, which is like at 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:56.160 increase over twenty nineteen, which was bad enough as it was. 0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:58.320 And so the idea is that we're going to enshrine 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:01.600 harm reduction ideas into state laws and there's a way 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:03.560 to try and knock this down, like, you know, if 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:05.240 people are going to use drugs, let's have used as 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:08.440 safely as possible, not have hid and appaditis breaks while 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:11.400 we're at it. So we're seeing this program is going 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:14.160 to be trying to promote model laws. But we're seeing 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:16.920 this come at a time where there's cities across the country, 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:19.200 as you noted in your article, that are shutting down 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:22.359 things that some of these modelized might do, like needle 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:26.000 exchange sites things like that. Right, Well, what we're seeing 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:28.320 in some places, and it's clear most clear, like in Charleston, 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:30.960 West Virginia and Atlantic City, is there's this effort post 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:36.040 pandemic to spur business, and the city council or their 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:38.000 equivalent they're looking around and saying, like why do we 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:40.159 want a needle exchange where we're trying to have a 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:42.200 shopping mall or a casino or that side of thing. 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:44.160 And so there's this and you also have this turnover 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:46.640 of sort of lawmakers who don't understand harm reduction. They 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:48.680 didn't go through the last cycle of it. They just 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:50.640 look at it, as you say, this sort of stigmatizing 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:52.279 view of it is like, oh, you're just helping people 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:54.880 do drugs instead of saying like, essentially we're asking about 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:57.000 a football helmet while they're doing it, you know, instead 0:04:57.040 --> 0:04:59.080 of letting them crash into each other on the field. 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:02.040 And so you get the kind of anti drug attitude 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:04.480 that you know, opposes all forms of trying to make 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:07.440 life better for these folks, and that conspires to shut 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:09.039 these things down. At the same time, in the federal level, 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:12.520 even the Trump administration and embrace needle exchanges, you see 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:15.080 the Body administration moving to sort of more normalize it 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:17.680 harm reduction, that is, so that you know, just try 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:20.000 and help these people out, you know, and don't want 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:21.960 to get sick, to want to die. One of the 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:24.440 other aspects of this is are the punitive damages. You know, 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:27.520 a lot of laws treat overdoses as criminal acts, which 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:29.640 is kind of interesting. I didn't really realize that too much. 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:31.560 I hadn't looked into it, you know, instead of a 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:34.840 health event, help this person, you know, get treatment all 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:36.960 that other stuff. It's a criminal act. You can face 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:39.840 jail time if you overdose on something. Right, well, some 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:42.560 states have had to institute good samarian laws where if 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:44.680 you report that somebody are with as an overdose, that 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:46.080 you're not going to be arrested. I mean, this is 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:48.920 a fear that people have in some states. In other places, 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:51.120 like just carrying syringes is enough to get you arrested. 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:53.200 You know, people complain about needle litter. It's beIN the 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:55.039 reason is in a lot of places because it's illegal 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:56.720 to have the needles, so people get rid of them 0:05:56.720 --> 0:05:58.400 as fast as they can. That's why they're all over 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:00.880 the place. And you know, more important as these very 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:03.400 fundamental changes that need to be made to laws, like 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:05.640 you get arrested, you lose your access to medicaid. Then 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:07.760 you can't go into recovery because there's nothing to pay 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:10.080 for it, and so you might be on like medication 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:12.360 assisted treatment, which is the you know, seems to be 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:14.880 the best way to help people who are addicted to opioids, 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:16.560 but then they get you know, picked up on a 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:18.919 bench warrant because they missed a meeting with the prole officer. 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:21.520 Because their lives are pretty messy, they lose their medicaid, 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:24.520 they lose the chance to get paid recovery. So there's 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:27.400 a whole vast array of like that machinery of the 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:30.599 law that needs to be uh fixed to help people, 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:32.520 you know, in this situation which is killing a lot 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:34.880 of people. It was a problem before the pandemic, it 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:37.720 was exacerbated by the pandemic. And you know, we'll have 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:40.560 to see what any of this action, uh if it 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:43.400 does help improve any of that. And speaking of the pandemic, 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:45.640 you know, I've been seeing a lot of this cape 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:48.600 cod COVID outbreak, just headlines about it. This is kind 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:50.520 of one of those things that caused the CDC to 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:54.960 reverse their guidance on mask wearing. Vaccinated individuals should also 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:58.400 we'd be wearing masks in certain high transmission areas. Tell 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:00.080 us about what we saw in that. This has to 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:01.839 do with a lot of parties and and things that 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:04.919 we're going on around July four, So you know, around 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:07.320 July four, the outbreak they're talking about, you know, as 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:10.320 in Provincetown and obviously that was a big party time, 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:12.000 and so there are a lot of people dancing very 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:14.000 close to each other then, which is suspected by some 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:17.720 observers have played a role in the outbreak. And what 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:20.960 essentially happened was on Tuesday, last week's CDC came out 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:24.080 said whoa, whoa, we're seeing signs that people who are 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:28.040 vaccinated are still having levels of virus in them that 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:30.680 are equivalent to what people who are unvaccinated are having, 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:33.360 and that's worrisome because that might mean they're transmissible. We've 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:36.680 told a bunch of people they can't transmit when they're vaccinated, 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:38.720 and where if we've given people bad advice, We're worried 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:40.240 about that. So we're going to try and reverse this 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:43.520 masking advice to say, like, if you're indoors in an 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:46.600 area where there's high transmission, and even if so, even 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:48.960 then if you've been vaccinated, you should wear a mask, 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:51.120 which was a switch. It turns out that six of 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:53.680 the counties in the country and then immediately everybody started 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:55.960 asking like, you know, where is this evidence that you're seeing. 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:58.160 You know, we can't talk about it. It's clusters. There 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:02.080 was political pushback look into Congress were suspicious of mask 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:05.000 mandates were saying it's a case in India that turns 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:06.920 out to not be true. They don't seem to be 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:10.680 willing to cop to that because the CDC set on Friday. Yes, 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:13.400 it was this case in Provincetown. They didn't even name 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:17.480 the town in their their mmwre the Mortality and Morbidity 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.240 Weekly report that described it, but that's where it was, 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:23.000 a province town. So what we now know is that 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:25.440 there was a pretty big outbreak. There was probably about 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:28.280 eight hundred people, and half of them were out of towners, 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:31.440 and the data they have is from the Massachusetts Residence 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:33.719 from the Massachusetts Department of Health, and what was really 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:38.160 striking was that there about sev of the people vaccinated 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:41.000 were the ones who had gotten infected. The thing is 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:43.880 that makes us all uncertain is that most people have vaccinations, 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:46.360 and we know the vaccines already aren't perfect, so it 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:48.600 might just be that, like, the vaccines aren't perfect, but 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:50.240 the hell of a lot of people are vaccinated, so 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:52.640 of course there's some back through infections, which is why 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:54.800 you know more of the people in the sick crowd 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:57.640 were turned out to be vaccinated. But what was alarming 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:00.720 to the CDC was the measures of their illness. There's 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:03.400 these genetic tests, you know, where you take a swab 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:05.079 from a person and run it through a machine and 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:08.480 you see how many cycles of amplification of the genes 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:11.680 it takes for them to get to prove positive for 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:13.520 the disease. And this is where the MMWR showed it 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:18.000 was that they were statistically equivalent in the vaccinated unvaccinated people, 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:21.440 which would suggest that they had equal amounts of virus 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:24.080 in them, but not necessarily. So like that's the reason 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:27.520 why everybody's cautious about this CDC is essentially staying here. 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:31.719 Maybe people have as much virus in them, maybe, but 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:34.720 we don't know for sure because it's only these PCR 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:36.960 tests and not a really fully functional lab test that's 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:39.160 shown this or you know, an infection change. And that's 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:40.880 one of the things that we've had a difficulty with 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:44.240 throughout the pandemic, right, everything is constantly changing so much, 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:46.480 the guidance change, you know, people getting frustrated with it, 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:49.400 but the science were going through it in real time, right, 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:51.720 so we still have to see what the delta variant 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:53.880 really does. The good thing is that in most of 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:57.800 those cases. All these people reported mild symptoms cough, headache, 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:00.840 that sore throat, muscle pain, fever, the normal. Uh. Senator 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:04.080 Lindsey Graham just came down with COVID. He said he 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:06.880 has mild symptoms, credits that to having the vaccine. So 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:10.400 that still seems to be the best way to avoid 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:14.160 just getting severely sick. So we'll continue to watch all 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:17.760 of this. Dan Vergano, science reporter at BuzzFeed News, thank 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:20.480 you very much for joining us. Thanks for putting up 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:22.240 with me. I do like talking about this with you. 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:26.600 Take care of man. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this has 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:30.480 been reopening America. Don't forget that. For today's big news stories. 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:32.400 You can check me out on the Daily Dive podcast 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:35.120 every money to Friday, So follow us on I Heart 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:37.319 Radio or wherever you get your podcast