Harm Reduction Coalition's Podcast

Reflections on the 3rd Annual Peer Delivered Syringe Exchange Conference from Liam, Brian, Davian and Karen and visioning ahead to the National Harm Reduction Conference in Baltimore http://harmreduction.org/conference/

The Baltimore Student Harm Reduction Coalition (BSHRC) http://baltimoreharmreduction.org/ is helping to shape the direction of harm reduction and drug policy in Baltimore. This week’s podcast is an interview with Jen Kirschner of BSHRC. Jen mentions the pending Good Samaritan law in the interview. Good Sam (House Bill 416). It passed unanimously and now moves to Governor O'Malley's desk for signature into law.

Audio from a side-event at United Nations headquarters in New York on “Women, drug policy and incarceration in the Americas”. The panel discussion was organized by the Permanent Mission of Uruguay, in collaboration with the Inter-American Commission of Women, the Organization of American States, the International Drug Policy Consortium, the Harm Reduction Coalition and the Washington Office on Latin America. Discussion is a mix of English and Spanish.

Portugal decriminalized possession of all drugs in 2001. This week’s podcast is a conversation with Nuno Capaz of the Dissuasion Commission of Lisbon. He talks about the history and the successes of the initiative.

An interview with Rebecca Tiger, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Middlebury College, about drug courts. Rebecca’s book “Judging Addicts: Drug Courts and Coercion in the Justice System” was published last year. http://bit.ly/1fKkzKR We mention the podcast that appeared on This American Life a few years ago. Here’ a link to it. http://bit.ly/1aaPBYo

This year’s meeting of the Commission on Narcotics Drugs is an expanded version of proceedings featuring a two day High Level Segment. Heather Haase of International Drug Policy Consortium http://bit.ly/1lRWKmR and Allan Clear get down to discuss the fracturing consensus among nation states and the control of poppy seeds and related bagel misuse.

The overdose risk of using alone is well established. We put the message out to the drug using community that people shouldn't use alone. However there are really normal reasons as to why people like to do it. Ro Giuliano and Allan Clear explore this in the podcast.

The actor Philip Seymour Hoffman died of an apparent drug overdose on February 1st, 2014. Harm Reduction Coalition's Allan Clear and Sharon Stancliff pick through the response and ask “what can be done to avoid more unnecessary deaths?”

Drug policy change is afoot in the Americas. This podcast is a conversation with Donald MacPherson of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition http://drugpolicy.ca/ It is a report back from the December meeting of the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) http://www.cicad.oas.org/main/default_eng.asp. It reflects upon regional developments and how governments are coping and responding.

This week’s podcast focuses on International Overdose Awareness Day, August 31st. It includes interviews with Eliza Wheeler who advertises the Overdose Awareness Day Memorial March and Celebration of Life in San Francisco, Sharon Stancliff talking about the newly released Samsha toolkit http://store.samhsa.gov/product/SMA13-4742, Narcotics Unit Commander Pat Glynn talks about the role police play in reducing overdose deaths using naloxone in Quincy, Massachusetts http://vimeo.com/47686862, Nigel Brundson of HIT and Injecting Advice http://injectingadvice.com/ fills us in on the UK scene, Heather Edney, Executive Director of La Ventana Treatment Program http://www.laventanaed.com/, talks about the newly created mural ‘The Memory Lives On’ http://tinyurl.com/nol5bos and also surviving multiple overdoses and Lisa Raville Executive Director of the Harm Reduction Action Center in Denver talks about syringe exchange developments and their overdose anti-stigma work http://www.harmreductionactioncenter.org/index.html

This week’s podcast focuses on the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion Program http://leadkingcounty.org/ which “is a pre-booking diversion pilot program … to address low-level drug and prostitution crimes in the Belltown neighborhood in Seattle and the Skyway area of unincorporated King County.” A presentation from Seattle Police Department’s (Deputy) Police Chief Pugel from the International AIDS Conference (courtesy of our friends at the HCLU http://drogriporter.hu/en/hclu_tv ) and an interview with Kris Nyrop of the Defender Association. He originally spoke on this in December 2010. http://harmreduction.org/publication-type/podcast/twelve/ )

Johnny Volume of the Outer Boroughs talks about injecting in bathrooms both public and at the exchange, risky injection practices, monitoring syringe exchange bathrooms and smoking crack in the bathroom.

Bathrooms at syringe exchange programs have always been a venue for injection. 3 different programs which have addressed the issue talk about their strategies for making their bathrooms safer. Part 1 of 2.

The 2013 United Nations' Commission on Narcotics Drugs meeting took place in March. Harm Reduction Coalition's Sharon Stancliff and Allan Clear along with Heather Haase from the International Drug Policy Consortium http://idpc.net/ report back on the warm winds of change happening in the global arena. Report from Donald MacPherson of the Canadian http://drugpolicy.ca/2013/03/reading-between-the-lines/ and police briefing paper from IDPC http://bit.ly/14hI9IS

The war on drugs is a mechanism by which people with a history of drug use have their civil and human rights taken from them. Voting disenfranchisement is an example of how drug users get pushed outside of society. Ron Crowder of Nashville's Street Works http://street-works.org/ and human rights advocate, Brian Thompson, talk about how disenfranchisement affects them.

A common story but one well worth documenting. A young drug user from upstate New York breaks down buprenorphine, pills, heroin, methamphetamine, crack and family.

Atlanta hosted the 2nd Southern Harm Reduction and Drug Policy Conference. Allan Clear and Hadiyah Charles talk to Robert Childs and Nab Dasgupta of the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition http://www.nchrc.org/, Mona Bennett of the Atlanta Harm Reduction Coalition, http://www.atlantaharmreduction.org/, Charles Stephens of AIDS United http://www.aidsunited.org/, Valencia Robinson of Mississippi in Action http://mississippiinaction.org/ and Mara Collins of the Kindred Healing Justice Collective http://kindredhealingjustice.org/ . Plus an awesome video featuring Mona Bennett and the Wire’s Michael K. Williams http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obqgiCl7-xg

In recognition of 2012 World Overdose Day bit.ly/QnHQoR, a conversation with its originator Sally Finn; Eliza Wheeler of the Dope Project bit.ly/QKwrKq and Haven Wheelock of Portland’s Outside In bit.ly/fsVzTG talk about preparations for the day; Philip Coffin MD, Director of Substance Use Research for the San Francisco Department of Public Health discusses why our bodies react the way they do to an excess of opiates, the cost effectiveness of narcan and where science needs to head next; and a conversation about the nature of experiencing and dealing with an overdose.

Stephen Lewis http://www.aidsfreeworld.org/ was the UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. He provided us with a blueprint for addressing HIV and global drug policy at an event “The Neglected Epidemic: Can We Get to Zero Without Drug Policy Reform?” hosted by the Harm Reduction Coalition, International Doctors for Healthy Drug Policy http://idhdp.com/ and the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy http://www.icsdp.org/ at AIDS 2012. Naina Khanna, PWN Coordinator, Director of Policy and Community Organizing, and Ije Ude, International AIDS Conference Organizer, of Positive Women’s Network http://www.pwn-usa.org/ talk about the impact of the conference on positive women in the US and the impact of positive women on the conference. And the value of having the conference in the US. This wraps up coverage from the conference. For more harm reduction highlights check out http://bit.ly/MN4EMo

Penetration to the interior of the fabulous harm reduction networking zone. Conversations with Anistla Rugama, Ron Daniels, Clare Hacksel, Eric Doris, Angela Wood and Mark Kinzly.

Eric Goosby is the US Global AIDS Coordinator. He spoke at the HIV and Drug Policy Forum reconfirming the US’ absolute commitment to something or other that may or may not exist for people who do things that other people don’t like to know about and that no-one should actually mention because if you do people who don’t like you will strangle the flow of money that doesn’t actually flow very well to people who do things that you can’t really mention.