September 2, 2024 • 24 mins
Can a balanced approach to harm reduction and recovery really save lives? Join us in a thought-provoking conversation with Tom Wolf, a member of the Recovery community from San Francisco, offering a raw and unfiltered critique of today's drug policies. We scrutinize Vancouver's harm reduction model and its alarming overdose death rates, while Tom passionately argues for recovery-focused solutions in the face of new proposals advocating "safe" drug-use spaces and other radical drug provisions. This episode sheds light on the crucial need to integrate more sensible harm reduction interventions with prevention, treatment, and recovery initiatives for a more humane and effective drug policy.
Dive deep into the broader debate on drug policy strategies as we question advocates' desire to legalize all drugs, scrutinize the opioid crisis, and expose the cultural influence of big corporations on advocacy. With Tom's powerful insights, we explore how recovery voices must lead the way in policymaking. Listen as we highlight real-life advocacy successes from San Francisco and discuss the vital role of individuals in recovery in shaping policies that truly address addiction. This episode is a comprehensive examination of the pressing issues in drug policy, offering a blueprint for a balanced and recovery-centric approach.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yes or no?
Do you believe nicotine is notaddictive?
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I believe nicotine is not addictive.
Yes, Congressman, cigarettesand nicotine clearly do not meet
the classic definitions ofaddiction.
I don't believe that nicotinefor our products are addictive.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
I believe nicotine is not addictive.
I believe that nicotine is notaddictive.
Hello everyone, this is LukeNeferatos.
I'm your host of the DrugReport podcast.
Thank you for joining us.
Before we get started here withour special guest, I want to
thank our two co-sponsoringorganizations SAM, smart
Approaches to Marijuana and theFoundation for Drug Policy
Solutions.
You can check outlearnaboutsamorg and
gooddrugpolicyorg, as well asour Drug Report website where
(00:37):
you can sign up for our twiceweekly newsletter,
thedrugreportorg.
So I've got Tom Wolfe back onthe show with me today.
For those of you who listened,about a month ago we had him on
and had a great conversation.
But I wanted to bring him inbecause there's been a lot of
stuff happening in the harmreduction the extreme harm
reduction space, and he's had alot of thoughts on Twitter and X
about this that are getting alot of play.
(00:58):
But I wanted to give him achance to kind of expound on the
podcast.
So, tom, he's from our paperaffiliate of the foundation and
he lives in the San Franciscoarea.
So, tom, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Well, thanks, luke, it's good to be back and yeah,
there's a lot of stuff that'sbeen happening in the last few
days in the harm reduction worldwhere they've kind of exposed
themselves to show us what theirtrue intent is, and we're
seeing some really disturbingtrends around that and around
things like the Denver CityCouncil kind of following suit
(01:32):
with some of the stuff, withoutactually talking to people in
recovery like myself, withouttalking to people like you that
offer a more nuanced andpragmatic perspective on drug
policy.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yeah, I agree, and I want to get to the Denver
Proclamation because that'sclose to home for me, but I
think, conceptually I'd like tostart actually with the news
that more recently came out ofthis concept paper that was
released on kind of theprinciples of harm reduction.
Tell us who did this and whatthis was about.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Well, I'm not 100%.
So first of all, it came out aspart of a report.
It was a conceptual set ofideas on how we can support drug
users.
It came out of Vancouver, outof their harm reduction lobby up
there, which is kind ofdictating a lot of drug policy
up and down the West Coast.
Believe it or not, we've hadnumerous people from San
(02:21):
Francisco, from politicians tononprofit CEOs to people that
run drug treatment programs goto Vancouver to learn their
model, to try to emulate theirmodel here in San Francisco,
which is pretty crazy given thatVancouver has the worst
overdose death rate in all ofNorth America.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
They're failing worse than everyone on overdoses.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
That's right.
Vancouver is unequivocally,unquestionably, the epicenter of
the opioid and overdose crisisin North America, period end of
story.
And yet they employ the mostpermissive harm reduction
measures and policies that youcould possibly do with,
everything from supervisedconsumption sites to safe supply
(03:05):
programs of hydromorphone orDilaudid for folks.
And look, british Columbia,whether you like it or not, just
broke all its records last year, all of its previous records
last year, for drug overdosedeaths, and they have 40
supervised consumption sites intheir province.
So you can't sit there and tellme that the policies that
they're implementing, whichcompletely turn away from
(03:26):
recovery as a solution, fromtreatment as a solution, you
can't tell me that theirpolicies are working because the
data just doesn't support it,or that anybody should be
emulating them?
No, no, not at all.
I mean, we've done a lot ofwork in San Francisco to change
the narrative here, to focusmore on recovery.
Here, to focus more on recovery.
We even got our current mayor,who's running for reelection,
(03:47):
talking more aboutabstinence-based treatment as a
solution and how, that we wantrecovery solutions to go
alongside some of the harmreduction measures that we're
taking, and you have tounderstand that.
Look, I'm not anti-harmreduction.
Harm reduction is a tool.
Yeah, it is a tool.
It is a tool to help peoplewith the and what used to be
part of the philosophy of harmreduction.
(04:07):
It would be a tool to helppeople stay alive in the hopes
that they find the miracle ofrecovery.
That last part has been takenout and now we're just stuck in
this vicious cycle of justsupporting quote unquote drug
users.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, and that being taken out, I think, is really
personified by this conceptpaper.
So here's a few things that arein this concept paper.
I'm just going to read some ofthe headings Right drugs in the
right dose for me.
Being able to access safe,positive and welcoming spaces,
ostensibly for drug use.
Yeah, it says there should bephysical spaces for smoking and
(04:43):
injecting.
Safe supply and other servicesare accessible to me.
I can easily access my safersupply.
That's pure drugs, crazy stuff.
Talk to us about what's goingon here, tom.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah.
So look, it's packed withhypocrisy, and I understand that
they're trying to help thissubset of people that are
struggling with addiction.
But look, hey, I'm a formerlyhomeless drug user.
I used to stick a needle in myneck, like everybody else, and
shoot heroin and smoke fentanyland all that.
And so if you left it up to mein that situation as to you get
(05:19):
to make the decision, tom, aboutwhat drugs are right for you,
I'm going to want the strongest,largest batch of fentanyl that
you can give me, because my goalin my addiction is to not only
maintain my addiction, but it'sto get as high as I can get.
The nasty trick about addictionis that you get to a certain
(05:40):
point when you're using drugsthat the high is much, much
harder to find, and it becomesmore about just staying well is
what they call it, not goinginto withdrawal or getting dope
sick, and so that's the nastykind of trick about addiction.
And so, basically, what they'rebasically saying here is that we
want the government to pay fordrugs to give to these drug
(06:02):
users just so they can stay well, and then, whenever they decide
that they're ready fortreatment, we'll be there and we
can guide them in thatdirection.
The problem is is that ifyou're struggling with fentanyl
addiction and I said this todayon X those moments, those aha
moments, those moments ofclarity where you're saying
you're ready to access treatment, are few and far between,
(06:24):
mostly because of the drugitself, because fentanyl
metabolizes faster in your body,so you have to use it more
often than you used to have touse heroin, so you have to use
fentanyl every two hours now.
So that window of opportunityto wake up one day and to say I
am ready to go to treatment,those moments are fleeting at
this point.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Well, and you know that's also glaringly absent
from this concept paper is theidea of them going to, ever
going to recovery, never gettinginto treatment.
Treatment is not mentioned here.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
This concept paper mentions the word treatment once
and never mentions the wordrecovery at all, which also is
very telling.
And this is what I mean about.
They're kind of likeoverplaying their hand now and
showing themselves of what theirtrue intent is, which is not
recovery.
Recovery is an afterthought.
It's a bonus if you even makeit there At this point.
(07:13):
What they're focusing on issupporting drug users and
destigmatizing their use andempowering drug users.
And look, anyone in recoveryfrom addiction will tell you
that recovery 101, it's thefirst step in multiple 12-step
programs is admitting that youhave a problem and that you are
powerless over your addiction.
And so they're trying to takepeople that are powerless and
(07:37):
empower them with more drugs.
How does that solve the problemof addiction?
It doesn't.
And then there's a few otheryou know little hypocrisies
within this concept paper whenthey talk about we need safe
places for smoking drugs.
Well, you know, in the UnitedStates we have something called
the Clean Air Act.
Right which we fought fordecades to get Right.
That's right.
Where you know you can't smoke,you know no more smoking
(07:58):
sections in restaurants.
You can't smoke in the smokingsection on an airplane anymore,
like you used to.
When I was a kid, I rememberedthe smoking section on airplanes
.
You can't have all that, butthey want to make an exception
for people to smoke their drugs,to be able to smoke inside in a
ventilated area.
Well, if they're doing that,how come I can't light up a
cigarette.
I can't even light up a of cityproperty, of like city hall.
(08:21):
I can't stand on the steps andlight up a cigarette, but they
want to make it so that it'sokay for you to smoke meth or
smoke fentanyl on a city fundedsite or a site that receives
some kind of city funding inorder for it to operate.
It's a complete and utterhypocrisy, and if they're going
to do that, then they've got tolet people smoke cigarettes
everywhere too.
You can't have it that way andother substances.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, that's right, and I see this as obviously
counterproductive.
And I think within our fieldthere are a number of us that
are somewhat educated on thesepolicy nuances and these policy
debates, but outside of ourfield, the average American out
there, these ideas sound likecomplete, they sound like satire
to probably, I would say, 90percent of the American public,
Like you're joking, right thatwe would do that.
So question for you is you knowwhere?
(09:08):
I think for the average personthat would listen to this
podcast, where, where is thisgoing?
What?
What are they trying toaccomplish?
Are they, are they saying that?
You know, and I I have someideas of the answer to this
question, but I'd like you toanswer this, just for kind of,
the average person listening,who's saying you know, what on
earth are we even talking about?
Why are they pushing theseforward?
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Yeah.
So just to put it as plainly aspossible for everyone out there
, they want to legalize alldrugs, which means they want you
to be able to walk intoWalgreens or your drugstore and
purchase fentanyl patches nextto the Tylenol and be able to
administer that yourself.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Under the idea of what?
Preventing overdose?
So basically someone can stayalive and that's basically the
only metric.
Is that?
Speaker 2 (09:49):
what it is.
That's what they're proposing.
But you have to look back intohistory.
You have to look at the opioidcrisis from the 1990s and the
2000s and how doctors and bigpharma lied to the American
public.
They lied to the Food and DrugAdministration and they
over-prescribed opioids to thepoint that over 20 million
(10:10):
people in the United States gotaddicted to those drugs and
thousands of people died of drugoverdose.
So to suggest that giving out alegalized, pristine, safe
supply is going to somehowreduce overdose deaths and
addiction, I got news for you Igot addicted to a legalized,
pristine, safe supply ofoxycodone through a prescription
from my doctor after surgery.
That's how I got addicted.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Because drugs are addictive and drugs are the
things causing harm, not thepolicies around the drugs.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Well, I think it's both.
I think you could say it's both.
So, like you know, addictiondoesn't discriminate, but our
response to it can bediscriminatory, but that cuts
both ways.
So you know, we talk about, oh,the war on drugs and we were
too draconian in our enforcementefforts.
Yeah, okay, that's fair.
But you can also argue thatthis permissive kind of
radicalized form of harmreduction, where we're just
(10:58):
basically throwing in the towel,giving up on recovery and
telling people that you canshoot all the dope that you want
and in fact the government'sgoing to pay for it and give it
to you, is also equally harmful,but in a different way.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Yeah Well, I think what's happened is it's been an
overemphasis on yes, there havebeen harms from policy, but it's
everyone's collectivelyforgotten in this, in this
cohort of people that think thisis a good idea, that the drugs
are harmful too.
There was a reason why thesepolicy responses were put in
place.
Now we need to fix them andeliminate the draconian laws,
but the drugs themselves arestill a problem.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Well, look back in the old West, in the 1870s,
1880s in the United States youcould buy laudanum from a
pharmacy and laudanum hadmorphine in it.
And guess what happened?
A bunch of people got addictedto it because it's addictive, so
they banned it, right?
You know?
There's a reason.
Like you have to like reallythink back through history and
(11:51):
look at the North America'shistory, really the United
States and Canada's history withdrugs.
You know we are a permissivedrug culture here.
It is in our culture tocelebrate drug use.
It's been in music since the1960s about a variety of
different drugs, and so our kidsare growing up hearing that you
know I'm smoking a blunt or I'mdoing cocaine.
(12:13):
You heard about it.
I remember in the 80s they weretalking about celebrating the
use of cocaine in a lot ofdifferent songs, you know.
But now we have somethingcalled illicit fentanyl that's
out there on the streets andit's killing 108,000 Americans
every single year.
And if you look at the dataagain, in 2000, there were
17,000 overdose deaths in theUnited States.
So we obviously have anepidemic in our country and we
(12:37):
need to work towards changingthe culture in our country
around drugs, not to want atotal prohibition, but to one
that understands the healthrisks about using these drugs,
not celebrating want a totalprohibition, but one that
understands the health risksabout using these drugs, not
celebrating the drug itself andtrying to promote it and make it
more easily accessible.
And when you see these groups,these harm reduction groups,
start to do that, like the DrugPolicy Alliance, is a great
example their ultimate goal isto legalize drugs, make no
(13:00):
mistake about it.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
But when you look it's stated in their vision.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
That's right.
And when you look deeper atthat organization and you look
at their funding sources, who'sfunding them?
Big Tobacco, Big Pharma isfunding them, the Soros
Foundation.
So you have to really look atwho and what is behind the
scenes.
That's pouring all the moneyinto organizations.
To push a narrative like that.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
I couldn't agree more and speaking of pushing a
narrative and the response tothe overdose crisis.
So we have overdose awarenessday coming up and there's a
whole week in honor of thesevictims, and we absolutely
recognize and want to spread theawareness of this horrible
tragedy, horrible crisisfamilies destroyed, lives ended,
(13:46):
people's potential gone.
It is heartbreaking, it'shorrible, it's something that
we're all thinking about, we'reall seeking solutions and so,
you know, in the spirit ofwanting to find real solutions,
that's something we've beenworking on with Tom and others
at the Foundation for DrugPolicy Solutions, working on a
blueprint for drug policy thatwe will be releasing, actually
in September, with ourcomprehensive approach to start
(14:08):
treating this crisis.
So we're hard at work on that.
And, to those of you who havelost a loved one, our prayers
are with you, our hearts arewith you.
Now, unfortunately, in thecontext of this conversation
we're having today, tom, thecity of Denver in their attempt
to recognize this day ofawareness, they declared a
proclamation formallyrecognizing Overdose Grief Day,
(14:34):
and that proclamation was,regrettably, unfortunately, a
reflection of everything thatyou just talked about, which is
this idea that we are just goingto focus all in on harm
reduction and enabling drug useprevention, no mention of
recovery.
In essence, it feels like thismovement has.
All you know, there's a race tohoist the white flag on
(15:07):
addiction and overdose, andthey're doing it on a day where
we should be talking aboutsolutions to the overdose crisis
, not talking about ways to giveup on the overdose crisis.
But that seems to be what washappening with this Denver City
Council proclamation.
I'd love to hear your thoughtson it.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Yeah, I was very surprised to see that
proclamation come out of theDenver City Council.
I understand, you knowpolitically where they sit and I
understand where the currentmayor of Denver politically sits
.
But at the same time, recoveryis not a partisan issue.
It's not a Republican thing ora Democrat thing, but permissive
harm reduction policies is andhas become a partisan issue.
(15:37):
And so to hear the Denver CityCouncil issue a proclamation
that basically supports safeinjection sites, safe supply
programs for people andcontinuing to support drug users
in perpetuity, withoutacknowledging the need for
recovery, for drug treatment, tobe funded at scale, or to
(16:00):
acknowledge the fact that manyof these decisions that they put
into that proclamation aroundoverdose prevention centers and
safe supply have not actuallyreduced drug overdoses.
And again, look to Vancouver foryour data.
You know people like to pointto other countries in the world
where they have safe injectionsites, like Australia et cetera,
and say, look, their overdosedeaths are really low.
(16:22):
Yeah, but guess what?
They don't have fentanyl.
Fentanyl has not arrived totheir shores.
And if you're in Europe rightnow and you hear this podcast,
you need to buckle up becauseit's coming to you and when it
does get there, everything thatyou thought you knew around.
Harm reduction is going to getthrown out the window, and
that's what we're seeinghappening in Canada right now,
and so much so that it's goingto affect the political outcome
(16:43):
of their elections later on thisyear in regards to who's going
to be the new prime minister andall that.
Harm reduction is one of thetop primary issues up there.
So to hear the Denver CityCouncil issue this proclamation
without doing any kind ofresearch from anyone else except
the harm reduction lobby, Imean it's clear who was in their
ear talking to them about it,because if they had taken five
minutes to talk to you or me,they might have inserted a
(17:05):
sentence or two even that talksabout the need for recovery and
treatment.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
And think about how much better that proclamation
would have been if they'd donethat.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
I mean think about it .
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yes, these are extreme policies that are failed
.
But if they at least said, look, we want a safer supply, we
want injection sites, etc.
But all in the spirit ofrecovery.
And they had another one to twosentences saying all of these
services should be geared towardgetting people in recovery,
helping them with their path totreatment, think about how much
more inspiring that documentcould have been.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Well, yeah, and it look it comes off as biased,
right, so it's biased.
That's not the only drug policythat's out there.
Harm reduction is not the onlydrug policy that's out there.
I mean, obviously,abstinence-based treatment is
evidence-based.
12-step programs areevidence-based.
Yet there was no mention oracknowledgement of the need for
any of those things as part ofthe overall solution to the drug
(17:54):
crisis.
So again, it really makes mequestion who they were talking
to and whether or not they'velost their objectivity on this
issue.
On the city council there inDenver and I have reached out to
the mayor, mayor Johnson, onnumerous occasions to come out
to Denver and try to sit downand speak with him Governor
(18:14):
Polis as well so that we cankind of try to move forward and
find kind of a pragmatic,middle-of-the-road approach to
the drug crisis that's reallyhaving an outsized effect in
Denver.
I mean, last year there wereover 500 drug overdose deaths
there and the number is notgoing to go down, no matter how
many people that you house,unless you do something about
the drugs and encourage peopleto access treatment.
That's the bottom line.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yeah, and I agree with you completely and I think
we just need a more optimisticand hopeful approach from
policymakers on this issue.
You know we can't just throw inthe towel on, like you said,
these evidence-based programsthat are working.
You know the 12-step programs.
You have treatment programs,you have other recovery programs
and there's a lot of paths torecovery.
Recovery looks different fromperson to person, but just
(18:58):
policies geared towards gettingpeople towards some sort of
recovery, however you define it,that at least is hopeful,
versus saying well, you know, weare only going to like this
proclamation says and like whatthe DPA and the Harm Reduction
Action Coalition want us to dois only focus on harm reduction.
That's all we're going to do.
We're going to reduce the harmof drug use.
(19:18):
That is such a disappointingand short-sighted narrative.
We just cannot give up onpeople.
We cannot give up on them.
We have to give people hope.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Yeah, not only that, it's not reducing the harm Like
again, look at the data.
It's not reducing the.
I can't stress that enough.
It is not reducing the harm.
People are still dying inrecord numbers from drug
overdose, despite the hundredsof millions of dollars that have
been spent on harm reductionprograms throughout the United
States.
I'm in San Francisco.
Last year alone we spent wellover $100 million on harm
(19:50):
reduction programs syringeaccess programs, harm
reduction-based evidence-basedtreatment.
They even had a linkage centerhere open a couple of years ago.
That was a supervisedconsumption site.
And did the overdose numbers godown?
No, the only time the overdosenumbers went down have been the
last two months here in SanFrancisco, and that's because we
ramped up our enforcement andbrought in the federal
(20:11):
government and the Department ofJustice to crack down on
organized drug dealing.
So that's the data.
Those are the facts, right.
And so, again, it's verydisappointing that the Denver
City Council obviously didn'tconsider all the facts before
they issued that proclamation.
I think they just did a nodmore politically to the groups
(20:32):
that were lobbying them.
But at the same time, that's awarning or a message to people
like you and me that you need tostart showing up to people like
you and me that you need tostart showing up to city council
meetings.
You need to start speaking outpublicly about your views on
drug addiction If you're inrecovery.
There's more and more of us inthe recovery community that have
decided to toss out ouranonymity and step forward and
(20:53):
say, yes, I'm in recovery fromaddiction and this is what I
think.
I love people like that because, while I respect people's
anonymity, it's also importantthat people that have made it to
the other side have anopportunity to speak out and
tell their story and have ourelected leaders making policy
listen, listen to our stories sothat they can have a more
balanced perspective.
Because right now, all thesepolicies, in that proclamation
(21:16):
that they made, are all drivenby academics.
They're all driven by activistsand many of them have had
themselves.
And doctors and many of themthemselves have never used drugs
to the point where it isdeveloped into an addiction.
So you know, I get a littlesharper on social media and I
suggest to these doctors andpolicymakers that you know what.
You go out to the street andlive on the street for a week,
(21:38):
stick a needle in your neckevery two hours to shoot
fentanyl and then come backafter a week and tell me what
you think at that point, and ofcourse they won't do that.
But I'm just trying to drivethe point home that lived
experience matters and livedexperience of people in recovery
is what really matters, becausewhen you ask a drug user what
they think, of course they'regoing to tell you give me more
(21:59):
drugs.
The brain is hijacked.
I mean it's nuts to me that theyactually use data that they
obtain from drug users.
And then we found at the YaleSchool of Medicine that one of
their researchers, dr McNeil,who got in big trouble a couple
of weeks ago, was actuallypaying drug users for their
interviews to get the data thathe actually wanted.
Giving money to a drug, tosomeone who's struggling with
(22:20):
addiction for them to tell youthat yeah, I need these drugs,
or yes, your policy is good, islike it's nuts to me, like it's
actually insane that you wouldactually give money to a drug
addict so they can go out andpurchase more drugs, just so you
can obtain the data that youwant to retrieve.
That's what we're up against,that's what we're dealing with
and that needs to change.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah, it's terrible.
And so, to kind of bring thisfull circle, I love the
optimistic, forward-lookingmessage you have of getting
people in recovery more involved.
And I would take that a stepfurther and say, for those in
recovery that are listening tothis podcast, you know now is
the time to go to your lawmakers, your city councils all across
the country and ask forproclamations for recovery, for
treatment, for prevention that'swhat these proclamations so you
(23:02):
know, two can play at this game.
It can't just be the extremeharm reductionists out there
going to every city council andgetting proclamations done.
We need to amplify ournarrative of recovery, of a
comprehensive approach, notthrowing the baby out with the
bathwater.
On harm reduction, there areharm reduction interventions
that need to be a part of thisabsolutely, but has to be a
comprehensive approach,comprehensive message that's out
(23:22):
there and you all can do that,and the people who are listening
to this can do that byapproaching their lawmakers and
their city councils all acrossthis country.
So I think that's a reallystrong takeaway.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Yep, I mean, look, I live in the belly of the beast
in San Francisco and we wereable to do that twice at our
board of supervisors, our citycouncil, and get proclamations
celebrating recovery.
We had a recovery summitearlier this year in San
Francisco that had over 400people attend, including the
mayor of San Francisco.
We do an annual recovery daynow in San Francisco where we're
(23:52):
celebrating recovery.
So again, it is possible.
We just need to get people thatare willing to come together
and stand up and say we're tired.
We're tired of the overdosedeaths, we're tired of the money
being wasted on the wrongthings and we're tired of these
finger wagging activists tellingthose of us that used to use
drugs what is best for peoplethat use drugs.
(24:14):
You don't know.
Because we use drugs, we knowwe should be the ones that
you're listening to.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
It's good stuff.
Tom, Thank you for joining uson the show.
I'm definitely gonna be havingyou back as we have more of
these interesting news items popup.
But have a wonderful rest ofyour day and to our listeners,
thank you for listening.
Please leave us a review offive stars would be much
appreciated.
Yes or no?
Do you believe nicotine is notaddictive?
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I believe nicotine is not addictive.
Yes, Congressman, cigarettesand nicotine clearly do not meet
the classic definitions ofaddiction.
I don't believe that nicotinefor our products are addictive.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
I believe nicotine is not addictive.
I believe that nicotine is notaddictive.
Hello everyone, this is LukeNeferatos.
I'm your host of the DrugReport podcast.
Thank you for joining us.
Before we get started here withour special guest, I want to
thank our two co-sponsoringorganizations SAM, smart
Approaches to Marijuana and theFoundation for Drug Policy
Solutions.
You can check outlearnaboutsamorg and
gooddrugpolicyorg, as well asour Drug Report website where
(00:37):
you can sign up for our twiceweekly newsletter,
thedrugreportorg.
So I've got Tom Wolfe back onthe show with me today.
For those of you who listened,about a month ago we had him on
and had a great conversation.
But I wanted to bring him inbecause there's been a lot of
stuff happening in the harmreduction the extreme harm
reduction space, and he's had alot of thoughts on Twitter and X
about this that are getting alot of play.
(00:58):
But I wanted to give him achance to kind of expound on the
podcast.
So, tom, he's from our paperaffiliate of the foundation and
he lives in the San Franciscoarea.
So, tom, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Well, thanks, luke, it's good to be back and yeah,
there's a lot of stuff that'sbeen happening in the last few
days in the harm reduction worldwhere they've kind of exposed
themselves to show us what theirtrue intent is, and we're
seeing some really disturbingtrends around that and around
things like the Denver CityCouncil kind of following suit
(01:32):
with some of the stuff, withoutactually talking to people in
recovery like myself, withouttalking to people like you that
offer a more nuanced andpragmatic perspective on drug
policy.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yeah, I agree, and I want to get to the Denver
Proclamation because that'sclose to home for me, but I
think, conceptually I'd like tostart actually with the news
that more recently came out ofthis concept paper that was
released on kind of theprinciples of harm reduction.
Tell us who did this and whatthis was about.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Well, I'm not 100%.
So first of all, it came out aspart of a report.
It was a conceptual set ofideas on how we can support drug
users.
It came out of Vancouver, outof their harm reduction lobby up
there, which is kind ofdictating a lot of drug policy
up and down the West Coast.
Believe it or not, we've hadnumerous people from San
(02:21):
Francisco, from politicians tononprofit CEOs to people that
run drug treatment programs goto Vancouver to learn their
model, to try to emulate theirmodel here in San Francisco,
which is pretty crazy given thatVancouver has the worst
overdose death rate in all ofNorth America.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
They're failing worse than everyone on overdoses.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
That's right.
Vancouver is unequivocally,unquestionably, the epicenter of
the opioid and overdose crisisin North America, period end of
story.
And yet they employ the mostpermissive harm reduction
measures and policies that youcould possibly do with,
everything from supervisedconsumption sites to safe supply
(03:05):
programs of hydromorphone orDilaudid for folks.
And look, british Columbia,whether you like it or not, just
broke all its records last year, all of its previous records
last year, for drug overdosedeaths, and they have 40
supervised consumption sites intheir province.
So you can't sit there and tellme that the policies that
they're implementing, whichcompletely turn away from
(03:26):
recovery as a solution, fromtreatment as a solution, you
can't tell me that theirpolicies are working because the
data just doesn't support it,or that anybody should be
emulating them?
No, no, not at all.
I mean, we've done a lot ofwork in San Francisco to change
the narrative here, to focusmore on recovery.
Here, to focus more on recovery.
We even got our current mayor,who's running for reelection,
(03:47):
talking more aboutabstinence-based treatment as a
solution and how, that we wantrecovery solutions to go
alongside some of the harmreduction measures that we're
taking, and you have tounderstand that.
Look, I'm not anti-harmreduction.
Harm reduction is a tool.
Yeah, it is a tool.
It is a tool to help peoplewith the and what used to be
part of the philosophy of harmreduction.
(04:07):
It would be a tool to helppeople stay alive in the hopes
that they find the miracle ofrecovery.
That last part has been takenout and now we're just stuck in
this vicious cycle of justsupporting quote unquote drug
users.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, and that being taken out, I think, is really
personified by this conceptpaper.
So here's a few things that arein this concept paper.
I'm just going to read some ofthe headings Right drugs in the
right dose for me.
Being able to access safe,positive and welcoming spaces,
ostensibly for drug use.
Yeah, it says there should bephysical spaces for smoking and
(04:43):
injecting.
Safe supply and other servicesare accessible to me.
I can easily access my safersupply.
That's pure drugs, crazy stuff.
Talk to us about what's goingon here, tom.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah.
So look, it's packed withhypocrisy, and I understand that
they're trying to help thissubset of people that are
struggling with addiction.
But look, hey, I'm a formerlyhomeless drug user.
I used to stick a needle in myneck, like everybody else, and
shoot heroin and smoke fentanyland all that.
And so if you left it up to mein that situation as to you get
(05:19):
to make the decision, tom, aboutwhat drugs are right for you,
I'm going to want the strongest,largest batch of fentanyl that
you can give me, because my goalin my addiction is to not only
maintain my addiction, but it'sto get as high as I can get.
The nasty trick about addictionis that you get to a certain
(05:40):
point when you're using drugsthat the high is much, much
harder to find, and it becomesmore about just staying well is
what they call it, not goinginto withdrawal or getting dope
sick, and so that's the nastykind of trick about addiction.
And so, basically, what they'rebasically saying here is that we
want the government to pay fordrugs to give to these drug
(06:02):
users just so they can stay well, and then, whenever they decide
that they're ready fortreatment, we'll be there and we
can guide them in thatdirection.
The problem is is that ifyou're struggling with fentanyl
addiction and I said this todayon X those moments, those aha
moments, those moments ofclarity where you're saying
you're ready to access treatment, are few and far between,
(06:24):
mostly because of the drugitself, because fentanyl
metabolizes faster in your body,so you have to use it more
often than you used to have touse heroin, so you have to use
fentanyl every two hours now.
So that window of opportunityto wake up one day and to say I
am ready to go to treatment,those moments are fleeting at
this point.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Well, and you know that's also glaringly absent
from this concept paper is theidea of them going to, ever
going to recovery, never gettinginto treatment.
Treatment is not mentioned here.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
This concept paper mentions the word treatment once
and never mentions the wordrecovery at all, which also is
very telling.
And this is what I mean about.
They're kind of likeoverplaying their hand now and
showing themselves of what theirtrue intent is, which is not
recovery.
Recovery is an afterthought.
It's a bonus if you even makeit there At this point.
(07:13):
What they're focusing on issupporting drug users and
destigmatizing their use andempowering drug users.
And look, anyone in recoveryfrom addiction will tell you
that recovery 101, it's thefirst step in multiple 12-step
programs is admitting that youhave a problem and that you are
powerless over your addiction.
And so they're trying to takepeople that are powerless and
(07:37):
empower them with more drugs.
How does that solve the problemof addiction?
It doesn't.
And then there's a few otheryou know little hypocrisies
within this concept paper whenthey talk about we need safe
places for smoking drugs.
Well, you know, in the UnitedStates we have something called
the Clean Air Act.
Right which we fought fordecades to get Right.
That's right.
Where you know you can't smoke,you know no more smoking
(07:58):
sections in restaurants.
You can't smoke in the smokingsection on an airplane anymore,
like you used to.
When I was a kid, I rememberedthe smoking section on airplanes
.
You can't have all that, butthey want to make an exception
for people to smoke their drugs,to be able to smoke inside in a
ventilated area.
Well, if they're doing that,how come I can't light up a
cigarette.
I can't even light up a of cityproperty, of like city hall.
(08:21):
I can't stand on the steps andlight up a cigarette, but they
want to make it so that it'sokay for you to smoke meth or
smoke fentanyl on a city fundedsite or a site that receives
some kind of city funding inorder for it to operate.
It's a complete and utterhypocrisy, and if they're going
to do that, then they've got tolet people smoke cigarettes
everywhere too.
You can't have it that way andother substances.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, that's right, and I see this as obviously
counterproductive.
And I think within our fieldthere are a number of us that
are somewhat educated on thesepolicy nuances and these policy
debates, but outside of ourfield, the average American out
there, these ideas sound likecomplete, they sound like satire
to probably, I would say, 90percent of the American public,
Like you're joking, right thatwe would do that.
So question for you is you knowwhere?
(09:08):
I think for the average personthat would listen to this
podcast, where, where is thisgoing?
What?
What are they trying toaccomplish?
Are they, are they saying that?
You know, and I I have someideas of the answer to this
question, but I'd like you toanswer this, just for kind of,
the average person listening,who's saying you know, what on
earth are we even talking about?
Why are they pushing theseforward?
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Yeah.
So just to put it as plainly aspossible for everyone out there
, they want to legalize alldrugs, which means they want you
to be able to walk intoWalgreens or your drugstore and
purchase fentanyl patches nextto the Tylenol and be able to
administer that yourself.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Under the idea of what?
Preventing overdose?
So basically someone can stayalive and that's basically the
only metric.
Is that?
Speaker 2 (09:49):
what it is.
That's what they're proposing.
But you have to look back intohistory.
You have to look at the opioidcrisis from the 1990s and the
2000s and how doctors and bigpharma lied to the American
public.
They lied to the Food and DrugAdministration and they
over-prescribed opioids to thepoint that over 20 million
(10:10):
people in the United States gotaddicted to those drugs and
thousands of people died of drugoverdose.
So to suggest that giving out alegalized, pristine, safe
supply is going to somehowreduce overdose deaths and
addiction, I got news for you Igot addicted to a legalized,
pristine, safe supply ofoxycodone through a prescription
from my doctor after surgery.
That's how I got addicted.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Because drugs are addictive and drugs are the
things causing harm, not thepolicies around the drugs.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Well, I think it's both.
I think you could say it's both.
So, like you know, addictiondoesn't discriminate, but our
response to it can bediscriminatory, but that cuts
both ways.
So you know, we talk about, oh,the war on drugs and we were
too draconian in our enforcementefforts.
Yeah, okay, that's fair.
But you can also argue thatthis permissive kind of
radicalized form of harmreduction, where we're just
(10:58):
basically throwing in the towel,giving up on recovery and
telling people that you canshoot all the dope that you want
and in fact the government'sgoing to pay for it and give it
to you, is also equally harmful,but in a different way.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Yeah Well, I think what's happened is it's been an
overemphasis on yes, there havebeen harms from policy, but it's
everyone's collectivelyforgotten in this, in this
cohort of people that think thisis a good idea, that the drugs
are harmful too.
There was a reason why thesepolicy responses were put in
place.
Now we need to fix them andeliminate the draconian laws,
but the drugs themselves arestill a problem.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Well, look back in the old West, in the 1870s,
1880s in the United States youcould buy laudanum from a
pharmacy and laudanum hadmorphine in it.
And guess what happened?
A bunch of people got addictedto it because it's addictive, so
they banned it, right?
You know?
There's a reason.
Like you have to like reallythink back through history and
(11:51):
look at the North America'shistory, really the United
States and Canada's history withdrugs.
You know we are a permissivedrug culture here.
It is in our culture tocelebrate drug use.
It's been in music since the1960s about a variety of
different drugs, and so our kidsare growing up hearing that you
know I'm smoking a blunt or I'mdoing cocaine.
(12:13):
You heard about it.
I remember in the 80s they weretalking about celebrating the
use of cocaine in a lot ofdifferent songs, you know.
But now we have somethingcalled illicit fentanyl that's
out there on the streets andit's killing 108,000 Americans
every single year.
And if you look at the dataagain, in 2000, there were
17,000 overdose deaths in theUnited States.
So we obviously have anepidemic in our country and we
(12:37):
need to work towards changingthe culture in our country
around drugs, not to want atotal prohibition, but to one
that understands the healthrisks about using these drugs,
not celebrating want a totalprohibition, but one that
understands the health risksabout using these drugs, not
celebrating the drug itself andtrying to promote it and make it
more easily accessible.
And when you see these groups,these harm reduction groups,
start to do that, like the DrugPolicy Alliance, is a great
example their ultimate goal isto legalize drugs, make no
(13:00):
mistake about it.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
But when you look it's stated in their vision.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
That's right.
And when you look deeper atthat organization and you look
at their funding sources, who'sfunding them?
Big Tobacco, Big Pharma isfunding them, the Soros
Foundation.
So you have to really look atwho and what is behind the
scenes.
That's pouring all the moneyinto organizations.
To push a narrative like that.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
I couldn't agree more and speaking of pushing a
narrative and the response tothe overdose crisis.
So we have overdose awarenessday coming up and there's a
whole week in honor of thesevictims, and we absolutely
recognize and want to spread theawareness of this horrible
tragedy, horrible crisisfamilies destroyed, lives ended,
(13:46):
people's potential gone.
It is heartbreaking, it'shorrible, it's something that
we're all thinking about, we'reall seeking solutions and so,
you know, in the spirit ofwanting to find real solutions,
that's something we've beenworking on with Tom and others
at the Foundation for DrugPolicy Solutions, working on a
blueprint for drug policy thatwe will be releasing, actually
in September, with ourcomprehensive approach to start
(14:08):
treating this crisis.
So we're hard at work on that.
And, to those of you who havelost a loved one, our prayers
are with you, our hearts arewith you.
Now, unfortunately, in thecontext of this conversation
we're having today, tom, thecity of Denver in their attempt
to recognize this day ofawareness, they declared a
proclamation formallyrecognizing Overdose Grief Day,
(14:34):
and that proclamation was,regrettably, unfortunately, a
reflection of everything thatyou just talked about, which is
this idea that we are just goingto focus all in on harm
reduction and enabling drug useprevention, no mention of
recovery.
In essence, it feels like thismovement has.
All you know, there's a race tohoist the white flag on
(15:07):
addiction and overdose, andthey're doing it on a day where
we should be talking aboutsolutions to the overdose crisis
, not talking about ways to giveup on the overdose crisis.
But that seems to be what washappening with this Denver City
Council proclamation.
I'd love to hear your thoughtson it.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Yeah, I was very surprised to see that
proclamation come out of theDenver City Council.
I understand, you knowpolitically where they sit and I
understand where the currentmayor of Denver politically sits
.
But at the same time, recoveryis not a partisan issue.
It's not a Republican thing ora Democrat thing, but permissive
harm reduction policies is andhas become a partisan issue.
(15:37):
And so to hear the Denver CityCouncil issue a proclamation
that basically supports safeinjection sites, safe supply
programs for people andcontinuing to support drug users
in perpetuity, withoutacknowledging the need for
recovery, for drug treatment, tobe funded at scale, or to
(16:00):
acknowledge the fact that manyof these decisions that they put
into that proclamation aroundoverdose prevention centers and
safe supply have not actuallyreduced drug overdoses.
And again, look to Vancouver foryour data.
You know people like to pointto other countries in the world
where they have safe injectionsites, like Australia et cetera,
and say, look, their overdosedeaths are really low.
(16:22):
Yeah, but guess what?
They don't have fentanyl.
Fentanyl has not arrived totheir shores.
And if you're in Europe rightnow and you hear this podcast,
you need to buckle up becauseit's coming to you and when it
does get there, everything thatyou thought you knew around.
Harm reduction is going to getthrown out the window, and
that's what we're seeinghappening in Canada right now,
and so much so that it's goingto affect the political outcome
(16:43):
of their elections later on thisyear in regards to who's going
to be the new prime minister andall that.
Harm reduction is one of thetop primary issues up there.
So to hear the Denver CityCouncil issue this proclamation
without doing any kind ofresearch from anyone else except
the harm reduction lobby, Imean it's clear who was in their
ear talking to them about it,because if they had taken five
minutes to talk to you or me,they might have inserted a
(17:05):
sentence or two even that talksabout the need for recovery and
treatment.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
And think about how much better that proclamation
would have been if they'd donethat.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
I mean think about it .
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yes, these are extreme policies that are failed
.
But if they at least said, look, we want a safer supply, we
want injection sites, etc.
But all in the spirit ofrecovery.
And they had another one to twosentences saying all of these
services should be geared towardgetting people in recovery,
helping them with their path totreatment, think about how much
more inspiring that documentcould have been.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Well, yeah, and it look it comes off as biased,
right, so it's biased.
That's not the only drug policythat's out there.
Harm reduction is not the onlydrug policy that's out there.
I mean, obviously,abstinence-based treatment is
evidence-based.
12-step programs areevidence-based.
Yet there was no mention oracknowledgement of the need for
any of those things as part ofthe overall solution to the drug
(17:54):
crisis.
So again, it really makes mequestion who they were talking
to and whether or not they'velost their objectivity on this
issue.
On the city council there inDenver and I have reached out to
the mayor, mayor Johnson, onnumerous occasions to come out
to Denver and try to sit downand speak with him Governor
(18:14):
Polis as well so that we cankind of try to move forward and
find kind of a pragmatic,middle-of-the-road approach to
the drug crisis that's reallyhaving an outsized effect in
Denver.
I mean, last year there wereover 500 drug overdose deaths
there and the number is notgoing to go down, no matter how
many people that you house,unless you do something about
the drugs and encourage peopleto access treatment.
That's the bottom line.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yeah, and I agree with you completely and I think
we just need a more optimisticand hopeful approach from
policymakers on this issue.
You know we can't just throw inthe towel on, like you said,
these evidence-based programsthat are working.
You know the 12-step programs.
You have treatment programs,you have other recovery programs
and there's a lot of paths torecovery.
Recovery looks different fromperson to person, but just
(18:58):
policies geared towards gettingpeople towards some sort of
recovery, however you define it,that at least is hopeful,
versus saying well, you know, weare only going to like this
proclamation says and like whatthe DPA and the Harm Reduction
Action Coalition want us to dois only focus on harm reduction.
That's all we're going to do.
We're going to reduce the harmof drug use.
(19:18):
That is such a disappointingand short-sighted narrative.
We just cannot give up onpeople.
We cannot give up on them.
We have to give people hope.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Yeah, not only that, it's not reducing the harm Like
again, look at the data.
It's not reducing the.
I can't stress that enough.
It is not reducing the harm.
People are still dying inrecord numbers from drug
overdose, despite the hundredsof millions of dollars that have
been spent on harm reductionprograms throughout the United
States.
I'm in San Francisco.
Last year alone we spent wellover $100 million on harm
(19:50):
reduction programs syringeaccess programs, harm
reduction-based evidence-basedtreatment.
They even had a linkage centerhere open a couple of years ago.
That was a supervisedconsumption site.
And did the overdose numbers godown?
No, the only time the overdosenumbers went down have been the
last two months here in SanFrancisco, and that's because we
ramped up our enforcement andbrought in the federal
(20:11):
government and the Department ofJustice to crack down on
organized drug dealing.
So that's the data.
Those are the facts, right.
And so, again, it's verydisappointing that the Denver
City Council obviously didn'tconsider all the facts before
they issued that proclamation.
I think they just did a nodmore politically to the groups
(20:32):
that were lobbying them.
But at the same time, that's awarning or a message to people
like you and me that you need tostart showing up to people like
you and me that you need tostart showing up to city council
meetings.
You need to start speaking outpublicly about your views on
drug addiction If you're inrecovery.
There's more and more of us inthe recovery community that have
decided to toss out ouranonymity and step forward and
(20:53):
say, yes, I'm in recovery fromaddiction and this is what I
think.
I love people like that because, while I respect people's
anonymity, it's also importantthat people that have made it to
the other side have anopportunity to speak out and
tell their story and have ourelected leaders making policy
listen, listen to our stories sothat they can have a more
balanced perspective.
Because right now, all thesepolicies, in that proclamation
(21:16):
that they made, are all drivenby academics.
They're all driven by activistsand many of them have had
themselves.
And doctors and many of themthemselves have never used drugs
to the point where it isdeveloped into an addiction.
So you know, I get a littlesharper on social media and I
suggest to these doctors andpolicymakers that you know what.
You go out to the street andlive on the street for a week,
(21:38):
stick a needle in your neckevery two hours to shoot
fentanyl and then come backafter a week and tell me what
you think at that point, and ofcourse they won't do that.
But I'm just trying to drivethe point home that lived
experience matters and livedexperience of people in recovery
is what really matters, becausewhen you ask a drug user what
they think, of course they'regoing to tell you give me more
(21:59):
drugs.
The brain is hijacked.
I mean it's nuts to me that theyactually use data that they
obtain from drug users.
And then we found at the YaleSchool of Medicine that one of
their researchers, dr McNeil,who got in big trouble a couple
of weeks ago, was actuallypaying drug users for their
interviews to get the data thathe actually wanted.
Giving money to a drug, tosomeone who's struggling with
(22:20):
addiction for them to tell youthat yeah, I need these drugs,
or yes, your policy is good, islike it's nuts to me, like it's
actually insane that you wouldactually give money to a drug
addict so they can go out andpurchase more drugs, just so you
can obtain the data that youwant to retrieve.
That's what we're up against,that's what we're dealing with
and that needs to change.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah, it's terrible.
And so, to kind of bring thisfull circle, I love the
optimistic, forward-lookingmessage you have of getting
people in recovery more involved.
And I would take that a stepfurther and say, for those in
recovery that are listening tothis podcast, you know now is
the time to go to your lawmakers, your city councils all across
the country and ask forproclamations for recovery, for
treatment, for prevention that'swhat these proclamations so you
(23:02):
know, two can play at this game.
It can't just be the extremeharm reductionists out there
going to every city council andgetting proclamations done.
We need to amplify ournarrative of recovery, of a
comprehensive approach, notthrowing the baby out with the
bathwater.
On harm reduction, there areharm reduction interventions
that need to be a part of thisabsolutely, but has to be a
comprehensive approach,comprehensive message that's out
(23:22):
there and you all can do that,and the people who are listening
to this can do that byapproaching their lawmakers and
their city councils all acrossthis country.
So I think that's a reallystrong takeaway.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Yep, I mean, look, I live in the belly of the beast
in San Francisco and we wereable to do that twice at our
board of supervisors, our citycouncil, and get proclamations
celebrating recovery.
We had a recovery summitearlier this year in San
Francisco that had over 400people attend, including the
mayor of San Francisco.
We do an annual recovery daynow in San Francisco where we're
(23:52):
celebrating recovery.
So again, it is possible.
We just need to get people thatare willing to come together
and stand up and say we're tired.
We're tired of the overdosedeaths, we're tired of the money
being wasted on the wrongthings and we're tired of these
finger wagging activists tellingthose of us that used to use
drugs what is best for peoplethat use drugs.
(24:14):
You don't know.
Because we use drugs, we knowwe should be the ones that
you're listening to.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
It's good stuff.
Tom, Thank you for joining uson the show.
I'm definitely gonna be havingyou back as we have more of
these interesting news items popup.
But have a wonderful rest ofyour day and to our listeners,
thank you for listening.
Please leave us a review offive stars would be much
appreciated.
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