Thanks to the needle exchange my wife is still alive. We were heroin addicts, iv heroin addicts. They didn't just give needles at the exchange they gave naloxone and taught us how to use it. She ODed 2 times really bad and I had to give her nalxone the second time she was out for 30 mins before I found her. She lived. We got clean shortly after qnd have over 5 years clean now. Because of harm reduction She got out of heroin addiction with her life, and our body's didn't get fucked up thanks to clean needles and being taught how to proply filter and Inject heroin.....
I know it probably means very little from an internet stranger, but I am very proud of both of you! It must have been incredibly hard to make that step and I think you should be proud of having pulled it off :)
As a therapist who has worked with clients recovering from drug addiction, I believe one reason why harm reduction works is because it reduces the stigma and shame drug users experience. Shame will only amplify the use. They're human beings who are hurting. I really wish our government could get that through their thick skulls.
Out government doesn’t even care about us citizens who aren’t drug addicts. Why do you think they would care about drug addicts? And the day they do start caring about their citizens, drug addicts will be on the bottom of the priority list unfortunately. The only way we can all help each other is not with the government but to help each other out in our local communities. F the government. It’s about us locally helping one another out.
I agree. It's so easy to be judgemental about drug users and write them off as stupid, weak, dangerous, worthless. I always think when it was your own child who was addicted you'd know to help them instead of putting them in prison.
Portugal decreased the amount of overdoses and addicted people by getting rid of the stigma, stopping their war on drugs and decriminalizing the use of all drugs. Yes these people are hurting and need proper help. Portugal made the change in policy and are so so far better of now, the stats are crazy. All because they stopped their war on drugs, harm reduction etc.
Dr. Gabor Maté has a really good documentary about that: the wisdom of trauma. It's about the shame behind the use, and the stigma that hold up this shame..
My mom died of an accidental opiate overdose back in the early 2000's. She was a good person, she was in pain 💔. She took care of everyone around her, but she had nobody to take care of her. Addicts are anyone and everyone, chances are you love someone who is, was, or will struggle with addiction. They need help not ridicule.
These comments are making me cry but this one sent me over the edge. I'm so sorry, I miss my momma so much. It wasn't an OD but I still know how it feels to lose someone who's the most special in your life.
thats the thing people dont realize is that its not just some homeless person its your neighbor its your boss its your kids its the guy who went to war for your country
@@thetruecrinkleyjoe4383 yeah I started down the benzo path but it was either I couldn't get enough or I'd black out and not get that true euphoric experience. I liked getting as high as I could while still being able to function. All I can say is keep trying to quit no matter how many times you relapse and councilling will keep you accountable without being insanely ashamed.
Well, he did forget to mention that Naloxone isn't all that effective against Fentanyl. I've seen people who needed 4 single use nasal spray narcans for fentanyl OD. So it'd be good to tell people that it's not always super effective. Also, when the narcan wears off the OD can start again so you need to get people ODing to a doctor ASAP because once narcan wears off the opiates can come back and cause another OD.
The Netherlands was one of the first countries to have a large scale HR program for heroin in the 1980s. It has run for decades now and heroin use is down to almost zero. There was a very large English historical review released on the topic last year ("Lessons learned from the Amsterdam Cohort Studies among people who use drugs: a historical perspective")
The Netherlands and Amsterdam is the drug capital of Europe with lots of drug use, needles everywhere, addicts on the streets, dirt/smells/substances polluting the streets, enabled by that broken party culture that even its permanent residents are getting tired of to a point where they're encouraging drug tourists to please not come. Seems like it's working very well huh?
@@pollytix7271 the point is that 90% of that is tourists. Of course, if every addict from europe comes to a single town, that town will be the drug capital of Europe. If every cities would do such a programme, everything would be fine (relative to the topic of course). Don't violate statistics please. Statistics have rights, too!
@@pollytix7271 there is a party culture here. I feel like most Dutch know their limits, because they have not been blinded to the other side. We do have indeed seen the tourist go crazy on the stuff which is normalized in our country. We have our way to go, but the heroïn use is kept down to a bare minimum here + We don't have any fentinal in our cocaïne or heroin
@@pollytix7271 Considering a lot of other posts you've made in the comment section I'm just going to assume you've never been to Amsterdam? Literally the only true thing in your post is that a lot of residents want fewer drug tourists. But that is not because of rampant needles in the streets, it's because they just come to use drugs and assume there are no rules, are loud, raucous, piss on the streets and whatnot, but 95% of what they use is just thc and alcohol.
People who oppose harm reduction policies like overdose prevention centers have an ingroup-outgroup mindset where, as soon as you start using drugs, you're a problem to be dealt with rather than a human to feel empathy for.
Ya but basically with drug users "there on the rail road tracks and the on coming train is blaring it's horn as loud as it can and your not deaf, but you still make excuses to stay on the tracks till it runs you over"
The main problem I have here is that a great many people who endorse this practice also advocate for the decision to use hard drugs. That choice, in particular, is not without consequences and it can destroy more than just the lives of those using. If the discussion was more about getting everyone away from them in the first place? Absolutely, I'd be in favor.
@@Fettclone1 nah, there is TINY minority of people who advocate for that. It is btw also a key Libertarian value. Free as in 'Freedom' to use hard drugs. The correct opinion to have here, since you seem confused is: "People should be ALLOWED to do all drugs, but they should be discouraged through education and lack of availability". Ever been to Europe? over here only possession is a crime, doing drugs is very legal.
And addicts substitute connection with the temporary numbness. I am full of love. I want to give love. The world is a dangerous place. Best keep my love to myself and forget I ever wanted it.
For some reason, John Oliver doesn't want to do an episode on stupid black people mass robbing malls and stores in California, particularly LA and San Francisco. I gueelss he thinks its racist to cover it. 🙄
The Marine veteran: I have a strong feeling that the VA holds some responsibility for his addiction. I am a disabled Marine veteran also. I have at least some level of pain every day. As a result, the VA would give me prescription after prescription of very strong, narcotic pain relievers. I wouldn't just get it from one doctor, I would get prescriptions from multiple doctors at once. I hate taking them as I hate the way they make me feel. So, I only took them when I was in unbearable pain. My medicine cabinet was full of them because they wouldn't ask me if I needed more on my follow up visits. They would just put in script and in the mail they come or I would pick them up with my meds I need every day like my blood pressure med. I have noticed that they have gotten better about it over the last couple of years. They still like to just blindly prescribe meds though. I had a virtual appointment that was set up by another specialist (who was clearly just trying to pawn me off) and rather than actually talk to me and trying to figure out how to help me, he just wanted to prescribe me medication. The appointment was set for one hour and I didn't make it 5 minutes in when he said, "we don't do that. We just prescribe medication." He didn't even want to talk it out to even figure out what meds would be best if that was what I wanted to do. So, I just closed the meeting. Sorry to make a rant about the VA. But, if the VA is the only available healthcare for someone, I would not be shocked to find that they are addicted to drugs. Not to mention the fact that the VA mental health system is absolutely horrible and a complete joke. They have a facade that they help and have the system in place, but it is all a lie. Under Trump, there was a White House VA assistance line and it is a joke. They might as well shut it down for the good it does. So, this veteran likely has mental health issues (as seemingly most us do) which the VA doesn't actually treat and then combined with the fact that the VA has traditionally over prescribed narcotic pain meds, it was a disaster waiting to happen. Politicians who like sending us to wars but don't want to fund the VA to actually help us are guilty of horrific crimes.
This comment isn't nearly read enough. Just know I vote every chance I get to improve your experience! And yeah all American health services are shit. I used to work basic EMS and literally everything about it is broken. Even in the VA, it's hard to get around the disgusting capitalist incentives from the drug market and political interference.
The first thing I thought about when the numbers started rolling out was how many of these people are ex-military personnel. I doubt the VA gives enough of a shit to even monitor this.
Yeah, addiction runs in my family and when I ended up on Percocet for chronic migraines, the providers were shocked when I didn't constantly want barrels of the stuff. I didn't *want* to take it in the first place and a full dose is actually a slight overdose for me (found that out the hard way), so I was splitting the pills and spreading the dose out when I couldn't stand the pain any longer. And the side-effects even if the medication works properly (which it sometimes doesn't) make me pretty fuzzy-headed so that's even less motivation to take the stuff. I'm glad you're staying aware of what you want and don't want, and holding to your boundaries. I'm in the same boat, and in fact getting a controlled substance during covid while not being able to find a doctor I didn't hate... means I gave up on oxy for now. Tylenol (taken with a lot of water) and coffee are getting me through my days and it's not great, sometimes fails miserably, but it ain't opioids so I've got that going for me which is nice.
As a massage therapist working towards her RN, this just breaks my heart. In the future I hope to work to change this. I don't know the nature of your pain, or much about the VA, but if it is musculoskeletal you may be able to get massage prescribed. I know the VA is starting to implement on a limited basis in MN.
I grew up on aggressive, persistent "Just say no" messaging, and it's been hard over the last several years to wrap my brain around the idea of making drug use safer and more recoverable. But the effects can't be denied. Reaching out to someone to help is always more effective than shutting them down. Reading the comments here, for example, gives me reason after reason to put away what I was taught as a child and learn that people are more complex and more worth saving than "Just say no" could ever convey. I might have grown up on that message - but I'm glad to see that we're growing up to try something different.
Agreed. I was in college then and my stoner friends used to laugh at that. I was lucky - I smoked pot sometimes (maybe 10) because of peer pressure. Unlike my roommate who could smoke enough to get a small town stoned and still seem fairly straight, a couple of bong hits turned me into an idiot. When high, I may have been more amusing than Robin Williams. At least my peers seemed to think so. I tried coke once - waste of time. It did not make me feel "high" it just filled me with nervous energy, kept me up all night, And made me talk incessantly about nonsense - as if I did not talk too much when sober. Sadly, I did not escape "drugs" I drank way too much - that drug worked for me. So I remain a "respectable" never jailed person. But I was at least as much a "stoner" as my roommate - who could not hold his liquor. It took me about ten years to get that under control. But Nancy Reagan never told me to "just say no" to beer, and I would have laughed if she had.
@@wmdkitty Yep, I remember having a DARE officer come talk to us almost every month it seemed like and I just remember thinking I'm 8 years old in a tiny farmer town... I would have no idea about ANY of this stuff if it wasn't for you telling me about it. I'm just glad I learned and listened to other things as I got older. DARE can say all they want, but prison rarely actually helps anyone, and if it did help, why does our drug problem just keep getting worse and places that practice Harm Reduction programs are seeing the number of drug users going down?
Yeah we all laughed our asses off at those campaigns and commericials...especially the egg one which I recently saw circle around again somewhere. Yeah the government needs to quit with the fear propaganda lies they put out ... there was an old movie like very very old movie called reefer madness. I've seen clips and that's how the government tried to scare people with that logic.
I grew up on the DARE "Just Say No" education. Won my school's essay contest. I then proceeded to use opiates for 12 years. I'm 4 years clean now. I love this piece. And I hope he does another piece on how drug education in this country has failed.
It wasn't MEANT to work. EX: ALL the judges, police chiefs, and ANYONE powerful or rich or famous....USE DRUGS TO RAPE TEEN GIRLS. Not even a secret. (Every day kops are being arrested now for STEALING DRUGS they seize, and using said drugs to GET TEEN GIRLS TO FUCK KKKOPS. #MeToo REFUSES to discuss it!) THE WAR ON DRUGS was MEANT TO GET KIDS TO DO DRUGS just like the WAR ON DRUGS was never ever ever EVER meant to stop drugs. EVERYTHING IS A LIE.
Congrats dude. I've been in the MMP for year now. Not exactly the same as "clean" by any stretch of the imagination. But It's better than the alternative. :P I remember having a DARE officer. He was such a prick, I swear.
Im an addict. I'm lucky that I've been clean for almost 5years now. The thing that kept me getting help earlier was how ashamed I felt. It honestly crippled me. If someone is feeling disconnected from society, heaping shame ontop of the horrors of being in active addiction does nothing to help the person suffering. I was lucky enough to meet the most compassionate, understanding man in the world, and it was kindness that saved me.
As someone who is currently studying psychology and neuroscience with the goal of helping people suffering from Substance Use Disorders, I wish more people knew how many lives harm reduction saves. I have lost several friends to overdoses, and the tragic fact is that our moralizing a health crisis is literally killing people. This is a great video. Thanks, sad bird man.
@@brendasmart553 I’ve looked into it, but it was definitely more about preventing HIV than helping those with SUDs. It’s important to help everyone, but the priorities are different.
We don't seem to understand the difference between, lowering crime rate, the principal of least harm, and maximum punishment, these three things are not equivalent and we seem to use the methods that cause the most harm for society as a whole, to be honest even if you say fuck the people using what we are doing now hurts people that don't even know anyone that uses drugs
As a former heroin addict from Seattle where harm reduction is firmly implemented I can say it’s more geared towards protecting the community from us, not the other way around the community pushes for it because it means less dirty needles on the street
I’m so glad someone with such a big platform is talking about this. Harm reduction has worked in every single place where has been implemented, is absurd that we haven’t implemented it more globally yet.
It's heartbreaking to hear a vet say he got more help from the safe injection clinic than from VA. And the terrible thing is you know he's telling the truth.
@@ashleyelliott444 Did you actually watch the piece? Neither are "enabling" anything except "this guy not dying when he uses drugs" - and that's the safe injection site.
@@ashleyelliott444 Diluting the discussion down to "one enables" and "one doesn't enable" completely misses the discussion surrounding drug rehabilitation that I have to wonder if you've ever had this discussion with any curiosity or good faith in your life. If it's a matter of life and death, helping someone survive isn't "enabling" because death shouldn't be a legislated "natural consequence" to something that's arguably a choice. Over and over again, studies flood out of medical journalism stating that drug rehabilitation within the US is lackluster at best, completely ineffective and dangerous at worst.
I live next to a halfway house for homeless veterans and from what they describe, the VA has been responsible for getting more vets addicted than they've ever helped with drug treatment. Often what they prescribe for PTSD is too strong, not suited the problem, and addictive. To make sure they're taking the drugs as prescribed they're subject drug testing to make sure they're taking their psychoactive prescriptions. They would often smoke legal substances instead because it helped more, without the addictive properties. They need to listen to their vets.
@Forward Progress why the FUCK would they send cops to someone with suicidal thoughts ? that makes no fucking sense, a single cop accompanying a psychologist to make sure you are not a danger, sure, but a bunch of cops and nothing else ? wtf did they expect the cops to do ? arrest you so you don't kill yourself in a jailcell ?
just cos he says he's not had help in his fucked up state, doesn't mean it's the truth. Let me remind you Whitney Houston had all the help in the world right at her fingertips. But didn't want it. Sure she would make herself out to be the victim.
I’m a retail pharmacist and one of the first things we need to do is stop requiring that needles be sold only through the pharmacy. For God’s sake, we sell tobacco products at the front register that actively kill you. Why not provide a clean needles that can prevent the spread of disease?
Do any pharmacists in your district refuse to sell them at the pharmacy to keep users out of the store? That shit pisses me off. Elitist and cruel, should be malpractice IMO.
You're kidding, right? When you let the addicts buy needles you quickly run out of stock for the diabetics. I know this from working in a pharmacy where the manager tried to be a liberal, understanding baffoon. Addicts can get clean needles just fine, often FOR FREE, they just may have to listen to someone remind them that what they're doing isn't a good idea. And that's the real problem; Addicts do t want harm reduction. They want what they want when they want it. They'll also buy a box of 100 and sell them to other druggies for a quarter each.
I agree with you 100%. When it’s sold in the pharmacy, pharmacists and staff have (depending on jurisdiction) blanket power to sell to whomever they want and deny sale to whomever they please. When it’s outside the pharmacy, other retail staff do not have the ability to deny sale unless there is an age requirement, and that is it. Denial of sale in a standard retail setting usually carries a penalty of termination. Edit: “are blanket power” sounds like I was half asleep, fixed that.
@@Feefa99 I just wish they would all melt a bit faster... if only all these unvaccinated people would just contract more lethal strains and leave the world a better place for us more quickly
Thank you so much for doing this episode. I woke up next to my boyfriend’s dead body in 2014 from fentanyl and my twin brother overdosed and died the same way in 2016. I’ve been sober since 2017. The part about disconnecting people from family, community and then freedom was spot on.
Last year I was stuck in this abusive relationship and was basically manipulated into trying heroin. I was scared but to appease the abuser I tried a very small amount. However it had fentanyl in it and so I overdosed. Luckily paramedics arrived and gave me Narcan just in time (I was later told that I was just a minute or two away from my heart stopping/ cardiac arrest). What surprised me more than anything was how once the doctors/ nurses learned that it was from heroin use I was treated like absolute garbage. Like my presence in their hospital just pissed them off. After they stopped my convulsing and stabilized me I never saw any staff again until the morning when I was told what happened and then just told “If you can stand up you can leave.” I replied “I think so..” I was then pushed out of the hospital so quickly they forgot to take the IV out of my arm! I was still so disoriented and tired that I immediately fall asleep in a chair near the exit where I was quickly told I can’t stay there and forced to leave. I eventually stumble my way back to my abusers apartment (throwing up the whole way, narcan makes you sick) as I was too afraid to tell any family what happened and be judged as a druggy. I thought she would be happy to see that I was ok but instead was very angry for some reason but that’s besides the point. I now have this $2,790 bill for the ambulance that I can’t afford but I shouldn’t complain, I’m lucky that they saved my life. Sorry for the long story and thanks for reading if anybody does. Main point; Please be kinder to people with drug issues. From what I’ve seen there is ALWAYS other issues in their life that got them there because they had no help.
You can try to negotiate the ambulance bill. Call your city government's main number and ask them to guide you to the right office. When you do this, don't go into detail about the reason you needed to be transported to the hospital. They shouldn't need to know, and they shouldn't ask. The point is that you can't pay the bill, and what can they do to help you? If nothing else, they should be able to work out a payment plan.
still baffles me how you need to pay for an ambulance. like imagine if the fire department worked like that. "sorry we couldn't save your house, here's a ridiculously high bill you can never afford"
Just don't pay it throw the bill in the trash next to your other bills, citations, court date papers, basically anything saying anything you don't wanna hear.. grab that syringe and blast off to sweet sweet don't give a fuck land and I'll see you there and we can talk further about how to settle this pesky whambulance bill... Trust me..
@@zwenkwiel816 Honestly way healthcare has become just another toxic part of late stage capitlism just makes me want to burn the whole fucking system down even more
As a recovering sober addict I cannot thank you enough for talking about this! Free needle exchange programs helped me avoid _any blood transmissible diseases_ that are common among IV using addicts, easily available and free rehab services helped me get my worst tailspin stopped and easily available and free methadone rehabilitation helped me get away from buying drugs off the street and eventually find my way to full sobriety. All those services together for sure, with 100% certainty, saved my life. I'm insanely lucky to have been born in a country that provides free healthcare and good welfare systems for its citizens, when I think about how much harder life is for people who have gone through similar hardships as I have in countries that do not offer such services and don't take care of their citizens as well it makes me incredibly sad (and at time incredibly angry) and I really really hope that things will get better, and sooner rather than later because every day that things do not change have a cost in human lives. Also, for those that think that addicts need to be punished all I can say is addiction is already hell and punishment enough on its own, not to mention that the vast majority of addicts (at least every single one I have met) have become addicts because they have been using the drugs to self-medicate, be it because of mental health issues, chronic pain or their lives having become unbearable without drugs giving them some small moments of pleasure and enjoyment, no person ends up a hardcore drug addict because drugs are so much fun, by the time you're badly addicted it's not fun but quite the opposite it's pretty much as close to hell as you can get without living in a warzone or something. If I would tell you some of the life stories I have heard in my decade long battle with addiction and stints in many different rehabilitation programs you would cry, at least you would cry if you had a working sense of empathy... Because some of the demons addicts I've known have used drugs to escape are the sort of things people talk about in hushed voices and often try to not think about at all (absolutely horrible childhood experiences and traumas for example, they're really common among addicts, and very severe mental health issues that have made life unbearable).
I have to agree with everything you said. The self-medicating aspect is 100% real and common and expected. Who lives with a debilitating migraine when a pain reliever is available? Same for other types of pain and issues.
I refuse to let me tax dollars go to free needles. Or drugs to get high. You seem like a great candidate to volunteer your own money and privately fund it.
First, congrats. I've been off heroin for 7 years now, I got out when I got my first bags with fentanyl. Second Morty Sanchez there doesn't realize that their tax monies already are going to needle exchange programs and drugs. They also don't realize it's not about getting high, it's about not getting sick.
The first debate I ever engaged in was in high school social studies some 25 years ago. My teacher assigned me to debate the anti-harm-reduction position and as the son of drug addicts I took the opportunity to do an over-the-top satirical performance that intentionally undermined the position I was assigned to. The class, my teacher, and my debate opponents all loved it. I was surprised then that there was more than one side to the discussion and 25 years later I absolutely cannot fathom how we're still debating the ethics of harm-reduction.
@@em9341 every available empirical, factual, statistical metric would lead any good faith rational actor to come to the opposite conclusion, but thanks for sharing your very wrong, spiteful opinion.
@@em9341 And then people sometimes die trying to go through withdrawal without professional help. This is common knowledge, and has been for decades; the fact that you are ignorant, willfully or not, of that just shows the world you cannot grasp the concept of solutions to complex problems requiring more than simpleton approaches.
What Louise Vincent says in that clip is very important - my older cousin is dealing with an addiction, and one of the biggest reasons she's still around today is because whenever things get too rough, my grandparents are willing to give her a place to be away from it all while she recovers. They've always done that sort of thing as well, we're all lucky to have them and a larger and very supportive family around us when things get bad. That sense of connection is definitely keeping people alive.
I lost my dad to an overdose in 2019. Before fentanyl, he was a totally functioning addict. Retired from AT&T after 31 years, owned his own business, owned his home, had three loving children and more. But he died alone. I’ll miss him forever, and I’ll never judge him for his addiction. He became addicted to painkillers in high school after a severe baseball injury and dulled that pain and many others with drugs.
I lost my fiancée to overdose shortly before the publishing of this video, we were not opioid users, but she took a single percocet that was laced, and she died because of it. We didn't have test strips handy, so I just looked up what the pill looked like.
He would be alive today if we had our way we want a clean pharmacy tested supply that's never even seen that junk if people are gonna use anyways give them clean pure stuff they won't use that garbage
In addition to harm reduction, the U.S. needs to address the triggers that can cause people to turn to drugs in the first place: Poverty, overprescription of opioids, lack of access to healthcare (physical and mental), etc. If politicians *actually* want to reduce drug use, tackling the causes would go a long way, rather than punishing and stigmatizing people for drug use.
But if we don't have a pit of death and suffering at the bottom of society our supply of slave.. err, our.. highly valued.. workers.. would have more time to research local elected officials before voting. Nothing good could come of that.
@@em9341 That's a lot of words for "I refuse to look at reality". Because it actually does help. If you looked at something besides the inside of your colon, you'd see that.
@@mollymac9108 Right back at you. While I'm FAR from perfect, I try to adjust my opinions so they follow the facts from the best sources I can find. From my point of view, if it helps break down the stigma towards drug addicts and works to get help to society's most vulnerable, then it's something I'm fine with. Before this episode, I saw harm reduction centers as an enabling force, but now that I know that they prevent overdoses and encourage getting addiction help, I am in full favor of them.
I am very glad that you changed your mind. When people come to a center to use drugs, they are really considering treatment. Seems like an excellent way to get people help. And there are so many types of treatment options available for people who have opiate dependency. Now if ONLY we could make treatment immediately open to a person who is ready to do IT. Remember: Every life we save is one Zombie less to fight! : )
This is so nice to see when there are people in this very comments section still refusing to see how much good decriminalisation of drugs can do, despite many others, again from this very comments section, sharing how much it helped them beat their addictions. It didn’t enable them, it just prevented them from dying long enough to get clean. It gave them a chance.
Thank you John for doing this piece. I'm an opiate addict and a disabled veteran. I have 2 titanium rods in my back and possible psoriatic arthritis. Opiates like heroine and prescriptions helped mitigate my pain, not to party, but it's so hard to find a safe way to be treated with the drug laws in place so street drugs is where I turned. I've been sober now for over 2 years, but I'm on suboxone treatments which people dont consider "sober". I hurt all over and I am stiff as a board all day long. I'm only 41 by the way. If I hadn't found a doctor that believed in harm reduction I would be dead. I've had people watch me when I sleep because it seemed like I stopped breathing from too much morphine being injected into my body. I also carry neloxone in my car, but I have to get it prescribed. Basically I need to be found worthy enough to save my own life and that's weird to me. There are addicts who do it for the fun of it, but there are some doing it to have some normalcy. Denying services that save lives because you can't fathom that sort of pain or life is ignorant. Harm reduction and safe injection sites should be everywhere. Thank you again John for shining a light on this subject.
Not to detract from anything you said here, but addicts do not do drugs for fun. Users do. Addicts are stuck in hopeless cycle of use drugs or face withdrawal, which is something I wouldn't wish on my worse enemy. Hope you're doing ok these days and I'm sorry your pain can't be properly manages because these drugs companies have doctors running scared now.
@@iamV10010 many people, especially younger people, start out using for fun and become addicted. Teens often think they are invulnerable, or "that'll never happen to me."
I was torn on overdose prevention centers for a bit, until I thought about it in a different context. You see, I've had an eating disorder for almost two decades, to the point there's almost no mental aspect of it now--I purge or fast every single day because it's just habit. My digestive tract just doesn't know what to do with food, it's a mess. There are a ton of really dangerous, shitty 'tricks' spread out there, online or off, about how to purge or starve, some of them truly deadly. Do not fucking eat cotton balls, do not mess around with ipecac, do not tie a lifesaver on a string and swallow it, for fuck's sake. These are bad things people learn and try when they're already disordered--no sane, healthy person thinks, "No, yeah, that sounds like a good idea, let's do that." No healthy, happy person resorts to slow suicide for aesthetics (and honestly, it's not even about looking good, I've found so...). If people are already disordered and they're going to purge anyway, I'd rather they have good information and tools to keep them alive and safer. Like, don't brush your teeth right after without rinsing your mouth, preferably with baking soda to neutralize the stomach acid. Your enamel will thank you. Do drink water before and after, preferably the kind with electrolytes added, because you're gonna need those. Basic things to make it easier. Unfortunately, most people think merely mentioning these positive 'tips' is akin to recruiting others into a disorder. That's just not how it works. Again, no one who is well adjusted is going to hear 'don't brush the stomach acid in or your teeth will rot' and think, "This is the thing that I needed to get me started, now I can go puke too!" I assume most normal people think, "...Ew. wtf, just don't do that at all." The thing about eating disorders is, much like drug use, many people are of the mind that, "They're doing it to themselves, they should just eat a sandwich or die." The idea that it's a voluntary, enjoyed pastime is prevalent. In reality, it's usually a disorder that develops as a coping mechanism to what I like to call 'shit life syndrome.' When smokers get lung cancer, doctors don't sneer and say, "Well, you brought this on yourself, guess you should die." No one argues that providing treatment for that cancer encourages young people to start smoking. No one says designated smoking areas are dens of iniquity. When a smoker laments they just can't quit even though they've tried five times already, no one denies them life-saving medical care and arrests them. And if someone laced their cigs with cyanide, they wouldn't criminalize the victims, they'd find and persecute the ones responsible for dirtying the supply. So anyway. Once I reframed what causes people to use drugs and why, and how we don't demonize other deadly substances or the people who use them, it seemed really fucking dumb of me to be hesitant or waffle over it.
If you actually think about it all of what John said in the video makes perfect sense, the issue is many people are just absolutely brainwashed to think all illegal drug users are evil, incurable people trying to get others to use as well. They don't realize it's mostly formed from systemic racism, completely unwillingness to address poverty and of course to keep the prisons full, because slave labor is alive and well, and at least as profitable as it was before the civil war.
Well said. I'm in Indiana, and Pence did his evangelical bleating of refusing to allow clean needle programs, and you can guess what happened. Morals are a fine thing to have, but you should never condemn someone to die a preventable death because you'd rather demonize them. I think people like that have it so ingrained in them that they hold a monopoly on absolute truth that they can never be wrong. Does your black & white philosophy start to strain when subjected to the colors and grayscale of the real world? Deny it and cling to your black & white like a life raft, even as you're pushing people other under with your oars.
For me drug prevention center is like work place teaching people CPR. I don't see people going "WOW, I'm going to have so many heart attacks now that my coworkers knows CPR".
The woman who said "Addiction is the opposite of connection" is right on the money. Shout it from the rooftops. Look up Bruce Alexander's rat park experiments from the 70s. Addiction is inherently lonely, and isolating/disconnecting these people is the exact opposite of what they need. American obsession with incarcerating/punishing everything we dislike about ourselves causes a lot of damage while solving nothing. It's really easy to run out of sympathy for junkies and drunks, since the affliction hurts everyone around the addict while the addict themselves appears blissfully ignorant. Look up what addiction does to your brain if you're interested- it's horrifying. Some people's reward centers have been so completely rewired by addiction that they literally aren't mentally capable of seeing or understanding the problem. Very frustrating people to deal with, but many can be reached and helped if we approach them with empathy rather than ostracizing and punishing them. - an alcoholic in recovery for 10+ years
Addicts might appear blissfully ignorant but we aren't. We're completely aware and horrified by what our lives have become. We're just stuck until we can get clean. But when we're high we're high so that sure appears blissful. It was terrifying, completely consuming, humiliating, painful, emascula
Bull, when it comes to THC. if legal, as it is in my state, I can purchase pure product. And isolation, you've got that wrong. My PTSD left me homebound. Legal THC allows me to go to the Senior Center to exercise and provide me with social interaction. One puff, and I can leave the house.
@@DebiG1057 Agreed! I take cannabis edibles for good pain free sleep and sub clinical psilocybin to be able to connect to myself which of course helps me connect to others. I think that cannabis is not the kind of drug they are talking about here. Sure cannabis could be isolating if you aren't thoughtful about how much you use it but it's nothing like fentanyl or meth or cocaine in terms of killing relationships and connection. Not to mention all three can kill you if you take too much. Neither cannabis nor psilocybin have ever been shown to truly overdose or kill anyone. There is no physical upper limit.
@@DebiG1057I don't think they're talking about THC. Drugs like dope (heroin, fentanyl/tranq), meth, coke, etc. the hard drugs) are indeed EXTREMELY isolating. Not only I is finding ways to afford your habit isolating, using is generally pretty isolating. You can't meet new people because what are you going to tell them about yourself? The family and friends you do have will likely not know much about you because you have to lie about what you're doing all day. Even if you don't want to lie, it just happens.
I’m from Portugal, a country who’s led the harm reduction and de-criminalization of drugs all round the world. It did wonders for our crises of heroin use here. I feel like people who condemn his policies are simply puritans arguing with a sense of high morality instead of logics, common sense and understanding
Absolutely. I wish America would pay attention and have an actual heart- Portugal's drug law model has been shown to be far more humane and effective at saving lives and actually helping those suffering.
It's unfortunate that Portugal has been backsliding in the last decade. While decriminalization has been a great success in very many ways, drug use was never successfully destigmatized, which is what leads to many of the issues that are contributing factors to drug use to begin with.
@@greglinsmythe3375 Apparently the number of heroin users was divided by 4 since the 2001 law. (source: american psychological association / new york times)
I just have to say, as an opiate addict, getting life saving methadone, thumbs up to EVERYTHING John Oliver have to say in this episode. He have the most edifying show in the world. God bless his heart.
Absolutely to ibogaine. Big no to methadone. Methadone is more physically destructive to your body than heroin is. Been there, done that. It's just another way for the rich to get richer, and for one to be addicted to something new.
@@brian8152 I wouldn't say it's overly stigmatized. But it seems to unjustifiably overshadow the other more practical and efficacious solutions for getting off opioids like ibogaine treatment or actual heroin tapering programs like those seen in Canada.
I wish more ppl could get in board with what John is saying. What he talks about in this video saves lives and cuts down on sooooo much healthcare costs. eg. Giving someone clean needles is sooooooo much cheaper than paying for their life long HIV meds.
In Portugal in the late 90s there was an enormous drug problem. So, they decided to decriminalise every single drug, start treating low dose possession and use people as victims of a horrible drug epidemic and guess what, crime went down, consumption went down and the large drug problem basically ended. Treating people like human beings and understand and hear them it’s all you need…
remember, the US constitution only bans slavery if it isn't punishment of a crime. The US prison system is a machine that requires bodies for free labor. Allowing drugs to be decriminalized and harm to be reduced gets rid of that free prison labor force. Yay capitalism.
@@skipperino2677 This is true, and remember, most all privatized state prisons have a contractual obligation to maintain high percentage minimums of filled beds with private corporation prison systems.
I have to disagree with most of it. I had been in a situation with a guy who got high at Walmart, stole their electric handicap cart, drove to my place of work, and then screamed at me. Told me that I was responsible for calling him an ambulance, grabbed my window to prevent me from rolling it up. We called 911 twice for him. The cops knew he was a repeat offender and didn't show up until went over to Starbucks to scream at some other people. He was a narcissistic spoiled drug addict. Prevent the situation. Tough times make good people. Makes them realize they aren't the center of the world.
In case anyone wants to know. You can go to CVS and ask the pharmacist for narcan and the pharmacist will write the prescription for you. Without a doctor. When i went to the local one near me, the pharmacist hadnt heard of that policy. But its stated on their website so it was easy to clear up. And they wrote the script. I feel that info should be more public.
For us Canadians, a lot of harm reduction centres, as well as police and EMS, will distribute free naloxone kits. The government funds a program for pharmacies to distribute these kits for free as well.
I was living with my cousin when he died of an overdose a couple years ago. I think about it all the time. I had no idea he was taking stuff like that. I was giving him chest compressions when I should have been looking for narcan shots. I miss him a lot.
You can’t beat yourself up over should’ve could’ve would’ve thoughts. Like you said you had no idea. It’s not on you, although I am sorry for your loss.
Those who want to punish drug users into abstinence are also unfortunately okay with punishing them to death. They associate drug use with immorality, and therefore worthy of imprisonment or death. Either will work just fine.
Thank you for this. Raising awareness of harm reduction is vitally important. I lost my son to a fentanyl overdose in October of 2021. Clean needles and Narcan kept him alive for longer than even he expected. I’m grateful for that extra time with him, and hope to get involved with harm reduction programs in my community. If I can spare someone else’s loved one this tragedy, it’s totally worth it.
DRUG addicts will get free heroin at Britain’s first shooting gallery in a police initiative to cut crime and save lives. They will be allowed to inject themselves three times a day supervised by health staff at a centre open seven days a week. from 2019 FREE Pharmaceutical Heroin Sulfate
I'm so sorry for your loss. A dear friend of mine lost his son to a fentanyl overdose as well, and it is heart-breaking even from a distance. I wish you the best of luck with harm reduction facilities in your community.
Alcoholic in recovery with 9 months here. Addiction to drugs and alcohol does the same thing to us whether you’re drinking fine liquor or shooting points of fentanyl from the street. The difference is how the society and the law perceive you. Not once have I ever gotten a dirty look or felt stigma from telling people I’m a 25 year old alcoholic in recovery. But if I were a lower class kid living in Chicago with drug addiction, the state would’ve had me behind bars a decade ago. Thanks John & to the producers for talking about this important issue ❤️
i never thought of this before, that’s an amazing point! i feel like our culture around drinking in general is super broken, too. joking about needing to drink to get though the day, lamenting how hard it’ll be to not drink for 9 months while pregnant, getting mad because the person you bought a drink for didn’t order something with alcohol - that’s all considered normal, but if you swapped alcohol with almost any other drug, people would be super concerned. i think there’s a lot of people out there who are alcoholics (or at least have dangerous drinking habits) but don’t realize because “it’s just alcohol”
I would argue a large part of the difference for peoples (my) reaction isn't in your substance, but that to do anything but alcohol you have to start breaking laws and spend loads of money, which means that even if one doesn't care about your vice they (I) will still look at you as someone who clearly isn't neutered and safe to be around. No matter how ridiculous that mindset is, and how obviously different the crimes ppl (I) fear to be subject to are from the crimes you'd've history with - Being human is to be a hypocrite, because no matter how much we know something rationally we will feel things irrationally.
@@feha92 there are a vast majority of laws that people break all the time, not all laws are created equal. ie it's illegal to own sex toys in some states, but there is not really the same stigma against sex toys as there is for drugs, even though they are arguably both things people do for pleasure in private.
This always gets me, I will never forget going to a parade in a county with "No place for drugs" signs all over the county roads and nearly every town entrance... but they had 3 beer trucks in their homecoming parade for the biggest town there... 3... I just kept laughing all day and pointing out to my family from there that alcohol is a drug too as they drank their beers in public.
@@mermaidismyname if some stranger sources a criminalized electronic device and I find out, I would probably feel at unease standing next to them too, tho? Admittedly there are indeed illegal acts that doesn't make you feel that way, but they are almost always either things you do yourself, or things that no cop would actually act on, usually both at once (ie - while this actually isn't illegal here - jaywalking, something everyone does, and cops would be fine watching you do)
My brother passed away from a fentanyl ealier this month. He had smoked Heroin for 30 years with a good, safe supply. He went to San Francisco, where he didn't know anyone and got a bag of Fentanyl. Got the call that he passed away the next day. Miss you Bri, rest in peace man. Safe injection sites are needed in every single city in the country, and if you oppose that you need to look in the mirror and really think about whether you care about your neighborhood or the health of those in your community.
My brother passed away from the same exact thing earlier this week, I was coming in here to say the same thing. So sorry for your loss and thank you for summing up my thoughts.
For Backwards Hat Guy: If your brother was addicted to heroin which situation would you rather he be in? A. Alone in his apartment, isolated, with absoloutely no one to help him if he overdoses. Or B. He gets medical supervision EVERY time he uses, and also encouragement to seek treatment. I feel like people really ought to try and think of it like the person who is addicted is their brother, sister, child, parent, friend or significant other, and the whole thing might make a bit more sense. Yeah, heroine is bad, but as the woman at the end said, just flat out isolating someone from everything isnt going to help them get better. It will just make them more likely to die alone. Which...I guess means they arent addicted any more, but damn, its really throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Backwards Hat Guy's counter: No one in my family would be stupid enough to do drugs! Now excuse me while a down 4 cups of coffee and an energy drink, go to work at a pharmaceutical company, smoking in the car the whole way, then drink 5 beers at the bar!
@@lauraswager2841 Bars certainly enable, though. Not sure what you're talking about. In fact, they add a social element to it that can make the addiction harder to leave behind, because it can feel like you're forced to abandon friends (especially friends who will think you now think you are better than them) for doing it.
As someone who works for such a facility in Germany for 15 years now, I can say good for you to get this topic on the agenda. In the light of the ongoing opioid crisis in the US this is the way to go, if you care for the life and well being of your fellow citizens. Btw. what is not mentioned here, is that it is also cheaper (for the tax payer) to run such places, than to let the drug problem, that is already there, run wild and to pretend it doesn't exist. There are many reasons why that is, but to name one instead of boring you out with a long list: Under supervision and observation by trained medical personell and/or social workers we prevent or treat many overdoses in-house, so there's no need to call an ambulance in many cases (which would cost a lot of money). OD prevention starts even before consuming drugs, cause you speak to people beforehand and make sure they know what they are doing and they know their current dose etc. I could go on with this rant forever but I spare you further details for now :-D sorry :-*
I think saving ambulance costs is actually less relevant here as the government isn't paying for healthcare. If we had federal health care perhaps science based policies could be more impactful for their economic component.
@@kf10147 try a little common sense. If you call an ambulance, do they check whether you can pay before they come? Do ambulance operators get paid regardless of where they go and who they end up treating? Who pays those ambulance operators? Where does the money to pay them come from? Hopefully that's enough for you to get why this argument stands regardless of whether we have a fully government run health care system or not.
@@kf10147 I'm not German, but Dutch (we've been using this approach for decades, theres cons and pros to it). At any rate, educating and turning the other cheek tends to be the way to go - even for atheists. Giving a heroin addict some methadon is better than letting them steal. The ambulance costs are part of this equation, but most benefit is gained by destressing the people who are self-medicating. It isn't that hard to realise... Drugs, when addicted, are used to numb. To the point of not caring about anything but the high. Junkies will sell their grandmother if you let them... These people don't like the situation they are in, they want help - especially after a few years. You can see a similar thing with people living on the streets: it's not the result of some plan of theirs. It's desperation, cruel emotion; like suicidal tendencies, they aren't completely logical. The odd thing in the US is that you do like drugs and dealing them. You have a similar stance on guns and oil. It's not about morality, it's about money... Also has pros and cons (Me and the German dude watching this show can be considered both). Jon tries to open your eyes, but it's hard I suppose. For non-Americans, this all seems a bit on the nose. A lot of Americans are blissfully unaware - it's where a lot of your problems come from: not really caring as long as you yourself don't have problems. To be fair, the whole world is like that, but we aren't all the best country in the world, I suppose. You simply don't seem to want to realise and you just move on. Being a stickler for ambulances is typical, I guess ;)
It's odd to be that angry as a nation, while you also praise Jebus and freedom. The brits kicking out the diehard puritan criminals wasn't that smart either, seemingly.
I view Harm Reduction the same as having seatbelts and airbags in cars. We know car accidents are an inevitability, so rather than banning all cars we put in places measures to help in preventing deaths.
We all know pedophilia is an inevitably. We should give free kiddie porn to would be sex offenders so they don't have the urge to seek it out themselves. It's just like seatbelts. Ain't I smart and compassionate?
Harm reduction is seen by a lot of people as the equivalent of putting nets under every skyscraper because sometimes people jump off them. That is to say “why bother trying to prevent the harm that they themselves seem bent on self inflicting.” Speaking for myself, the idea of going out of my way in order to try to help someone essentially hurt themselves less is a little galling. It feels a lot like saying that if your friend wants to commit suicide, you’re supposed to hand him the knife least likely to actually get the job done. I’d rather not hand him anything at all. He might do it no matter what, but that doesn’t magically trap me into a moral quandary about the lesser of two evils which obligates me to help. I think people should be free to do what they want with their own bodies, completely, but that doesn’t entitle them to help when their own actions lead to predictable consequences. The same way you assume the risks of your parachute not opening when you go skydiving, recreational drug users should assume the risks of their own actions in their totality, assuming they took that risk of their own free will.
@@darylbas8216 There's all types of problems with your analogies, so I'll just start with the skyscraper one... Harm Reduction isn't like putting a net up so when people jump they fall into a net. The proper parallel would be having a sincere counselor by your side as you walk up the stairs, reminding you of all the things you could lose and all the people that will miss you and all the chances you still have to make the world a better place for yourself and if you still choose to jump, there's a net to stop you and someone to remind you of all the things they said before. You may want to read up on addiction, as your understanding of it isn't great. The reason it's generally classified as a disease, is because it destroys people's abilities to think clearly and their bodies and minds are fighting to continue to use the substance. Which sort of throws "free will" out of the window a little, wouldn't you say?
Even if I were to concede that addiction somehow, magically, robs you of your free will, which I don’t, but let’s say I did, how does that do anything to justify the very first step a person must necessarily make to get to that point? If someone, of their own volition, placed that first needle in their arm, I consider them to be responsible for all ensuing consequences. Addiction being categorized as a disease or not is irrelevant, because even if it is, it is a self inflicted one. I find it a questionable policy, at best, to interfere with what a person does with their own body, or to remove their agency over it in any way. All recreational drugs should be legal as far I’m concerned, and treated just like alcohol is, but I would not spend a dime of taxpayer money on programs like AA, even if their success rate was much higher than it actually is. An action that results solely in a person harming themselves should be the sole purview of that person, for good or ill. If family or friends want to help, that’s their business, but to actually have public funds diverted towards that assistance is beyond the pale. My analogy may have been incomplete because harm reduction programs don’t only provide a safety net, but it wasn’t wrong. Fundamentally, such programs aim at correcting self imposed destructive behavior, and at preventing the end result which such behavior so often leads to. Justify it how you want, make whatever excuses you want, but at the end of the day almost all addicts are victims by their own hand. I have a friend who was recently diagnosed with lung cancer after having smoked a pack a day for most of his life, despite everybody and their mother asking him to quit. I hate to say it, but he got exactly what he asked for, no more, no less. He’s probably going to die, and as far as I’m concerned he’ll have committed suicide. I have another friend who does so many steroids he’s probably going to end up having open heart surgery by the time he’s 40. Drug users are generally not any more ignorant of the potential consequences of their addiction than my friends are, but they continue to indulge their habit for any one of a thousand reasons. I don’t judge them. God knows there are plenty of things in this life that make being high as a kite 24/7 seem like a good idea, but we don’t excuse drunks from the consequences when they decide to drive, just because they have a real good reason for drinking, do we? We shouldn’t excuse addicts from any consequences their own actions lead to, no matter how tragic, because at the end of the day, those consequences were foreseeable and avoidable. If I’m completely wrong about everything else, you can be certain I’m right on this: those programs are always going to face an uphill battle to see widespread acceptance as long as the people they are trying to help are seen as the authors of their own fate. It’s simply human nature to buck at the idea of helping someone who they see as having cut off their own nose, not even to spite their face, but just because it felt so damn good.
Daryl Bas, Look for the comment below by Domingos Varela Marreiros regarding Portugal's experience. Empathy doesn't seem to be your strong suit, maybe a little enlightened self interest might work
I was pretty much on the other side of the fence for the first few minutes, but John got me to come over. Drug addicts are gonna do drugs. Better to have them in an environment that keeps them and those around them safe. Louise Vincent made a very powerful point.
Also remember that being strung out is horrible and you almost always wake up feeling awful. It’s not like it’s fun to be a junky despite what the right wing politicians will tell you . Imagine being an active part in your own self destruction and being unable to stop, not a good time.
thanks for keeping an open mind about it. Also, i've taken a fuckload of drugs, (never addicted like in the movies but that's also what most addicts would say :-) ) most my friends have too, and most grow out of it naturally, sometimes with a bit of help, sometimes through life experiences. Putting people in prison for it doesn't help that come sooner, quite the contrary.
I don't know about drugs, but I do know about alcohol. You know how sometimes you get so drunk you throw up? Ok, when you've been drinking too much for too long, it's the opposite. You start puking when you DON'T drink. That's when you feel that you can't stop, and it's not a good feeling. I imagine it's even harder than that with drugs.
I would have been opposed to this as well before because two of my brothers were addicts and I had a lot of childhood resentment towards them. One of them passed away because he took what he thought was Xanax, but it was spiked with fentanyl. Changed my perspective entirely. The police said this was epidemic to the area and people were dying from fentanyl spikes left and right. They also said they had a good idea who was doing it, but couldn't pin it on the person.
@@MrVovansim as someone currently studying psychopharmacology, alcohol is categorically a drug, and one of the most destructive at that. I think it's really interesting how our culture (and therefore policy) frames different substances as illicit/acceptable not based on research or outcomes, but on social norms and perception. For example, alcohol usage kills approximately 95,000 people in the US annually, more than heroin, methamphetamine, ecstacy, LSD, or cannabis, and yet alcohol remains far more socially and legally acceptable than any of these drugs.
As an MD, yes, it's BS. Don't eat, inject or put inside your body; otherwise, you're fine. Also, don't flush down the toilet. Pharmacies can take opioids and dispose of them safely, assuming we're talking prescription meds. For heroin, it may be more complicated (don't walk into a pharmacy with heroin xP). Maybe there's the option of DisposeRx? It's a powder that works for all sorts of meds and kind of cakes them in a blob.
"When you treat a drug like a bioweapon you jutsify a punitive militarized response to it" This was terrifying to hear, becuase it could open the floodgates to militarized DEA police similar to what is seen in Latin America.
While the US police are militarised, I think the original comment is referring to units like BOPE in Brazil whose tactics whilst politically effective are akin to military combat operations without much oversight or accountability.
This mind hygiene Nazism is created and perpetrated by the US and its war on the people, which they call war on drugs. It spread from there, for example to Latin America
Another huge issue, is that once an addict goes to an outpatient rehab facility it takes 2 full weeks of being CLEAN before they can see a suboxone doctor. This is what killed my husband. Addicts can't stay clean for 2 weeks, so instead they continue using and give up, or die. Our whole system is broken and is killing people every second of every day.
I am so sorry for your loss. That is reprehensible and makes absolutely no fkin sense to me. I have been on suboxone for a year and I went to a clinic as soon as I hit withdrawal. I can't imagine an actual rehab restricting this option and thinking they are even close to doing due diligence in harm reduction. At the very least he should have started methadone or SOMETHING. No one makes it two weeks. If he was clean for that long then they clearly just want people addicted to the suboxone. Which is a whole other demon entirely. My condolences.
That's horrible. No addict could make it two weeks clean. Goddamn if they did that WHY would they need to get a Suboxone prescription? I am sorry for your loss.
This may have been true before, or in your specific situation, but this isn't true anymore. You need two weeks clean before you can go on vivitrol(naltrexone) but that's just because of the mechanics of the drug.
@@timothytorigian7932 yeah but they say you MUST be in withdrawal before starting Suboxone and I did that the first time I took it but second time I filled my script went home and took it and didn't miss a beat. Then I was told I wasn't at a bad level comparatively though I was taking 7-8 10mg hydrocodone daily so ?
@@r.shanethompson7933 you honestly shouldn't go on suboxone if you were only taking 8 vicodin a day. Suboxone is so much stronger. The concern is going into precipitated withdrawal, when you are addicted to heroin and don't wait long enough to take suboxone, the naloxone in it will send you into immediate withdrawal. It is extremely painful. This wouldn't happen on that much vicodin. The "experts" don't know this though because its never happened to them before, they are just warned about it, and they've seen it happen to addicts who lie about feeling bad enough because they just want to take something.
I think this is fundamentally an argument between moral purists and realists those who love to play blame games and those who are willing to swallow the bitter pill and come up with solutions
This applies to so many things. Homelessness in particular. Many people become addicted AFTER they become homeless. People complain about the problem, erroneously blaming addicts, but whenever someone comes up with a solution, the complainers call NIMBY. Could actually take care of two problems at once with HRCs.
They like to pat themselves on the back, claiming the moral high ground, while advocating for the opposite of what actually works, just to be able to pat themselves on the back that much harder.
The realist would claim that with money being tight everywhere the last place to shove it into should be the rehabilitation of people who signed up for their misery. I know everyone loves the narrative of the addict who had a perfect live and then an injury happened and the addiction started bc of the pain meds. I'm sure that's how they all started. Not by using shit they shouldn't have to treat problems that are more often than not self-made.
I disagree. I don’t think HRCs enable addiction or shouldn’t exist, but I think it’s a fine line. My complicated emotions behind HRCs come from desperation to lesser this problem, not a moralistic viewpoint.
I work in harm reduction and am happy this episode was made. One thing that needed to be changed was the information on Naloxone. There is more to know then it "Builds a wall against opioids" It saves lives and should always be used but you should also know that it does not stop Overdose it just blocks it for a short time. Always call 911 after to get medical help
What John Oliver and staff are doing is so important, week in and last week out. Pulling no punches, examining and exhibiting both sides of the hypocrisy in this country, and somehow making it entertaining. I fucking love this show and am thankful for it.
As a four-year recovering addict I think I can speak for all of us when I say I greatly appreciate the coverage you do on this topic and I hope that one day the government will stray from their old ways and try something different to help with this epidemic
Congrats on your sobriety, man! And adding I also really appreciate the coverage (have not personally had addiction, but live in a city where it's a big problem, and I want my neighbors to live!)
i remember, a few years ago, i was taking the bus and i overheard two guy sitting in front of me talking. one was much older than the other, and he’d must’ve noticed the younger guy had a bag or shirt or something associated with a rehab, because he said that he’d been there too. he asked the younger guy how many times he’d been to rehab, and the younger guy mumbled “15,” like he was ashamed of it. the older guy then told him, “don’t feel too bad if you still relapse. i went 42 times before i stopped using.” that broke the ice and they started fervently talking about drugs, addiction, trying to stay sober, etc. (i don’t really remember the details because i was trying not to eavesdrop). i think about that a lot when people say addicts are a drain/ shouldn’t have much support. it would’ve been easy for people to see 41 times at rehab and 41 relapses after and conclude that trying again is a waste of taxpayer money. but no one stopped him, he went one more time, and that time it stuck. people are unpredictable and complex, we can’t judge others’ lives by how they look on paper.
it just takes a few nice words everyday from someone you respect and who respects you no matter what in times when you need help and you will change yourself....I know a guy who used heroin for 13 years and once he found a job and a boss who gave him a chance no matter how many times he didnt show up working or messed up....in a few months without any rehab or any substitutes he was clean....boss took him in while he was cleaning up his addiction....he is now clean for 8 years, still works for the same guy and calls him father....what can just one man do....imagine if a country would try to help....this goes for depression also....
biggest problem we humans face is that we see our problems as the biggest ones and everyone else should just deal with theirs....we need a work place where bosses are accepting of your life troubles not only the daily profits....when you feel down you need someone to talk to you not yell at you....we live in a mess up society....am have depression and use weed for it....it isnt helping but it is making me not care for a few hours....but a month ago I got a new job, people are understanding and give me a lot of confidance in my abilities by giving me words of praise and bigger responsibilities, something I didnt have in my last few jobs....I have cut down on weed and selfisolation.....sometimes phisical or mental pain is all you need to ruin your life.....and a kind person to start building it up....
As an addict for years now in recovery, this is incredibly on point. John Oliver seems to be stating the truth heavier than almost anyone I see on TV these days. It is comedy, but hard reality all the same. Kudos.
He's been so good at that since his show debuted. Comedy but he and his research staff are on point. The spend a LOT of time doing research on his featured topic of the week.
Thank you for acknowledging (in an excellent comedic fashion) the importance of our life saving health interventions. As the Executive Director of the first two OPC’s in the US I’m honored to have influential people like you on the right side of this. Believe me, I understand it what looks like from 30,000 feet away but I offer anyone an opportunity to visit and see what we do and how we do it. I’m blessed with well trained/amazing/caring/loving staff who embrace the humanity in all of our participants. Let’s not get stuck on propaganda, like with all medicine lets use facts and science, not fiction, opinions, drama and scare tactics.
15:15 - "I truly believe that addiction is the opposite of connection." As it turns out, she was right. The worst thing you can do to an addict is let them be by themself.
I'm still waiting for the the Sackler family to face any real consequences for the opioid crisis . The billions recovered in civil forfeiture, like other drug dealers, would go a long way in funding.
They never will, after the ruling. They are monsters. I don’t wish death on people because it’s bad karma but fuck man I also wouldn’t shed a single tear if something awful happened to them.
@@LikeTheProphet Yeah.Opioid addiction is pure hell and suffering. Honestly i would rather be shot in the head than go through another cold turkey in my life. The withdrawal alone traumatized me. But the consequences of having no money and living on the street...cant imagine that. Im incredibly lucky here in germany,and didnt had to live long like this. But months,years just out there? having those turkeys in some shelter? Thats the real hell for you...but for people that didnt deserve it. Just imagine thos Sackler people getting some cold turkey themselves. Thats karma for you :)
This makes me so happy to see it! I volunteer for Dance Safe in the DC area, one of the key things we do is provide testing at festivals and raves as well and we train folks on how apply Narcan. This service has saved many lives
I study public policy, and one of the biggest things I have learned is that good policy is not always immediately likeable. It often counters preconceived notions about the world. Good policy is based on data, not feelings.
I agree. That's why we should get rid of narcan. I know, it doesn't feel good but the data shows that given time the problem would sort itself out if we didn't give it out to people who use illegal drugs.
@@darcyrobbs6866 There's nothing that shows that nor is there any realistic line of logic that would give credence to the idea so stop trying to be cute. Getting rid of narcan is not going to help anyone. Just more death. Literally no upside. Addicts can't get clean if they die from fentanyl before then. And people who don't even use opioids, who aren't even addicts or habitual users still have to navigate around fentanyl and other contaminants.
@@darcyrobbs6866 are you saying that public policy should be to just allow all addicts to overdoes and die and that would fix the problem of drug use? I really hope thats not what you intended but that is what it came across as saying.
Question: What is a long-term, sustainable solution to a public that is more welcoming to counterintuitive but ultimately correct policies? My intuition says education but I hope the true answer is not so painfully clear
This happened to me…I overdosed a couple years ago in Wareham, Ma., at my moms house (cringe)…one of the officers who arrived on the scene faked an overdose. We used our dope in my brothers room, and i “went out” in the living room. My brother called 912, 2 officers showed up, and one of them asked what i took, my brother said it was either heroin or fentanyl. The other officer heard fentanyl, and started acting like he was overdosing. He had to have another ambulance come to get him. He also got a two week paid vacation and was hailed as a hero. It was on major news outlets. Luckily, my name or mothers address wasn’t used. The fire dept. and police dept. tried pulling some shady fentanyl testing at my mother’s house, but couldn’t find anything. Careful out there people.
When you called for help, the responders were uneducation and unfeeling, and apparently looking for a way to profit from the crisis they were supoosed to (and paid to) mitigate.
I'm a librarian, and one neat thing my library does is we have naloxone kits available for free, no questions asked. It's a small thing, but I think it's a step in the right direction.
Pre pandemic The downtown Denver public library has a whole floor dedicated to helping the homeless and people with adiction. Not as far as naloxone kits (as far as I know) but they have an area where people can sit, eat snacks that the library privides and twice a week people from the department of labor are a avalible to help get people programs to help them get on their feet. Its not much and I don't know if they are able to do as much because we are still coming out of the pandemic. The thing is the library became the safe space for people needing help. To the point that when I heard the library's buget was getting cut so the fucking police could get more I was fucking pissed!
The funny part is that Paw Patrol is actually more nuanced; the villain is often the mayor and the police dog does community work! So, Blue Bloods is racist, worse, adult paw patrol.
@@Kane_the_Newschool_DM my thoughts exactly!! Blue Bloods wishes it was half as good as paw patrol! Paw patrol is also way more successful they have their movie and all, billions of views on their UA-cam clips, and a much higher quality show overall.
I wanna thank you and your team for shedding a deeper light on facilities that help drug addicted users to administer their "highs" safely. I had always taken the stance that it was enabling them, and taking resources away from much more important things like helping those struggling with homelessness. You have 100% enlightened me and changed my mind. Personally I also don't have anyone in my life that is a user so it was always easy to be disconnected from their plight, but after everything presented you definitely made me realize that I misunderstood the intention of these facilities and how they are actually effective in helping save lives as well as helping people quit. It's amazing work what you and your fellow journalists and team do...thank you!!
@@Inanedata Seriously, this. Many of the gigantic problems we have in the world is because people are not willing to change their minds because it damages their ego directly and they simply can't admit it (I personally think it has to do with the fear of death).
I have a load of respect for you keeping an open mind, willing to adjust course with new information / perspectives. I deeply wish the world was filled with more who were willing to approach things that way. 💓
Much respect for your open-mindedness! It takes a strong person to take a stance, it takes an even stronger one to change that stance in the face of convincing arguments and evidence. Here's hoping that more of us are strong like you.
15:15 "Addiction is the opposite of connection." This is 100% true. As a psychonaut myself, I can tell I'm most afraid of the substances I consume when I feel lonely. You can learn a lot from veneficium, but you learn way more sharing the world you perceive with others.
I’m a harm reduction worker id a new scope of social work that’s incredibly effective. Thank you for the coverage this is undoubtedly the best way forward
I've just remembered that I was about 14 or 15 Yo when our town introduced such a program and people in general were very happy with some one helping those poor people "living in a daily hell" of addiction. It prevented a lot of deaths. Later I met people who told me, that they used to do heroin, and I could not believe it, since they were all... just normal citizens partaking in regular live. I don't want to image how many I would not have met without such programs like the one in our small town in Germany. I am 40+ now, btw. so you are a little late to the helping, USA.
i'm in western canada, and it seems like most people are on board having these clinics available, but the public never seems to want it in their own community. "not in my backyard" or "NIMBY" as we refer to it... it applies to a lot of these social programs. they want to see these people get help, but not if it means having to walk past a needle exchange on their way to their bus stop or cafe. so where to build them? thankfully they do still get built.
Yeah, I truly believe that people who use drugs are no less capable than others. Everyone has issues and needs to be healed in an environment which respects them.
NEVER ONCE IN HUMAN HISTORY DID COPS TELL THE TRUTH. And in 2022, everyone is STILL PLAYING DUMB, just like Oliver. KKKOPS WERE INVENTED TO RAPE / ROB / TERRORIZE us serfs, on behalf of their EMPEROR MASTERS. Exactly same as 2022.
I have had fentanyl in a hospital and have a paradoxical reaction to it. It makes me incredibly awake but increases my pain. I must be an extra superhero.
For real, I have seen drug users do some superhuman shit. I once saw a tweeker running down the street with a VCR under each arm being chased by the cops like 10 feet behind him dive into some bushes and *actually* vanished. Saw a dude on angel dust get pissed at someone and flipped their volvo over with his bare hands. I, myself, once ate three and a half soft shell taco supreme grande meals (That's 35 tacos, for those who don't know)in a single sitting when I was really baked, and I didn't even get explosive diarrhea. And then we have the *true* 'gods among men', like Keith Richards and Ozzy Osbourne, who have literally done all the drugs, and will be the last two cohesive molecular constructs when our universe suffers heat death. Then, one of them will snort the other, causing all matter in the universe to collapse to a single finite point, and restarting the universe once more.
The "war on drugs" served two purposes. First it gave police departments access to huge budget increases and military weaponry ; and two, it insured prisons were packed with non violent small fry drug use offenders , which justified huge prison guard salaries. It also helped destroy minority neighborhoods that were victimized by drugs coming in from outsiders by throwing the victims in prisons , and justified White racism against the victims of the drug epidemic of the 1980s to the present. Only when the epidemic reached rural White America did it become a medical social problem rather than a law enforcement problem.
Drugs are not a victimless crime. These people steal and even kill to get this stuff. We don’t live in a world where we all hold hands and pray the addiction away
As someone who is going into a professional peer support specialist field, I’ve learned all about harm reduction, and it WORKS. The goal is to provide as much safety as possible for those who are using, and as they continue protective modalities, they’ll be more likely to decide to recover instead of just die alone, STIGMA KILLS
I love that you’re educating people about this. I’ve lost many friends to addiction and overdose. I myself, like many others, became an addict after being grossly overprescribed pain meds after having work done on my teeth. I’m fortunate in having been able to recover. 8 years sober.
As someone who was arrested in PA specifically for running a county harm reduction service for a decade, thank you. We need more people teaching the facts and less media dramatization.
The criminalization of addiction has not just caused overdose deaths, its caused people to get addicted. Why, because people in pain become desperate and frantic to find a solution and instead of working with patience to solve over prescription issues in opioids, and what might make someone have a predisposition to addiction, or properly educate communities, they just demonize and remove crucial treatments.
I worked with a 32-year-old who'd been addicted to heroin for almost two decades at that point. (According to him, pot very much was an entry drug for him. Pot at 12, heroin at 13.) He'd been to jail (possibly even prison) a couple of times, including for armed robbery to finance his drug use. I met him when he went through professional training as an adult. Smart enough and motivated man. Reducing his heroin use further and further. (He was in a controlled drug dispensary programme.) That was the way to deal with the problems he was having and the problems he was causing. He sure wasn't robbing anyone while in that programme. And the jail/prison stints surely hadn't helped him get clean.
I was in a car accident, an 87 year old with dementia T-boned my car as he blew a red light. I have 5 herniated disc in my neck, 3 more in my lower back. I also have issues with my rotator cuff and my left shoulder that I often experience loss of felling in that entire arm. I am on a medication patch not Fentanyl! And it works for me, I can function without being in pain. Since that accident though all I’ve tried doing is getting medical treatment to function. Addiction is when you take medication to escape reality. I am trying to not escape but continue to participate in society due to the limitations I now expect to last for a long time. I was called a drug addict by a former manager and fired. I won that lawsuit. But my point is the government is trying so hard to ban opioids 100%. They serve a purpose for Cancer patients, chronic pain patients, etc. I’m not in my 40s or older. I’d say I am young and my doctors continue to try and reduce or take me off the medication that’s been helping. I wish the government and insurance would allow my doctors to practice medicine!!! What’s worse is those deaths are mostly from illegal street use. I won’t judge those folks. But please separate death by medication prescribed and illicit drug use. Please. Because if I tell anyone in my life I am on the medications I have I get instant judgement. I may discuss this online. Or my family is aware but no friends of mine are aware. No coworkers. I refuse to tell anyone.
@@krisrk Of course there are reasons to prescribe these meds. But they are highly addictive. Which means that people can become addicted to them. Which means in turn that doctors have to be careful when prescribing them. But that doesn't mean they have to stop prescribing them completely. I don't know if this is any way realistic, but the way it is often portrayed in media, one might think that in the US, people get pain meds that are addictive - or that can even just make them really drowsy - very quickly. How often have I seen people faking pain in a scene on t.v. in order to get pain meds that they are addicted to and how often have I seen a scene where someone was in actual pain and refusing pain meds because they were trying to stay sober? The level of (faked) pain that is portrayed in these scenes is one where I find it weird that someone would get the kind of pain meds that are addictive. (Which seem to be the ones for really bad pain.) I hope that these things are being portrayed very unrealistically on t.v. I have been in pain that was bigger than what I see portrayed on t.v. in these "I am about to get prescribed addictive pain meds" situations twice in my life and neither time did the concept of addictive pain meds come up. Again, I don't know how realistic that picture in my mind is, but it seems that at least until several years ago, US doctors tended to give people addictive pain meds when this wasn't necessary.
@@camelopardalis84 I agree with most of what you state. Media and television is controlled and that’s why someone who may not be popular on reality is the Prom Queen in a movie, because the director said so. Doctors see through fake pain. You can’t fake it, I once at a regular visit heard a lady in the next room say her pain level was a 10/10. If that was true she’d be unable to speak, sit and walk and would be in a hospital. People abuse everything. Just don’t punish people with documentation of a major injury like myself. I basically collect MRIs. The last time at an ER I couldn’t speak, was crying and screaming. I was given a strong med via IV it did nothing and 30 minutes later they double dosed me after they had results showing my CT and MRI. I now stay home vs going to a hospital because they can’t do any for me at this point. I’m on a high level med. I have break through pain medications to help when I change my patch. Pain comes and goes in waves. Doctors kicking patients off medication has caused suicides and true pain patients those who have Cancer to turn to street drugs for relief. When you’re hurt so badly that if someone said hey if you eat dog poop it’ll help. I’d gladly do it to try it out because I just want my life back pre accident that I didn’t cause. No amount of money will ever fix me. Not will it for most. And at the time that person had a 10k policy so I didn’t win a lottery here either. I’d actually rather get off these meds and have a solution but that’s easier said than done.
I find it amazing that Oz felt comfortable enough in this space to speak out even when he was using right there. Judging by the reaction of the first woman talking, she wasn't expecting him to say anything, but he did and while he doesn't have his face showing, it's still amazing to me that he trusts the place that much. The logic took a few leaps for me, but I dunno. For me it just adds to the idea that these places arent as horrible as people make them out to be
There's a lot of parallels here to sex education. "Just don't do it lol" is pretty much most older folks response to sex and drugs. But people WILL have sex and they WILL do drugs. So stop attacking people over it and help them instead.
@@JanLCn There are plenty of reasons why people start using, from peer pressure to curiosity to rebellion. It doesn't matter why they started, all that matters is that they get the help they need, bc once you have the addiction, you need help to have any chance of being able to get better.
@@JanLCn "What in the world is getting you started on drugs?" Probably white evangelical Christians demanding kids and young adults suppress their "natural instinct" to have sex until they're married! In all seriousness, since the vast majority of overdose deaths over the last decade involve opioids, the "what in the world" is the Sackler family and Perdue Pharma, plus countless doctors who overprescribed OxyContin to treat their patients' chronic pain issues, often for injuries that didn't require a highly addictive opioid to manage their condition. Then, when their doctor yanked their Rx without addressing the dependence it created, those patients had to turn to black-market opioids to satisfy the addiction created by the OxyContin. Even more powerfully than the natural instinct to have sex, opioid withdrawal is something that "can't be suppressed".
it seems those who are so adamantly opposed to any laws or programs designed to help with addiction/keep addicts alive haven't dealt with it in their personal lives. From my experience, they have. They simply don't realize someone close to them has or is going through it.
I was given fentanyl patches for years from my doctor for pain due to a broken back and it helped, but it's amazing how people reacted! My doctor mentioned that if it got too hot it would release more than intended and I swear anytime it got over 70 degrees outside my friends and family would panic that I was going to sweat on something and kill them 😂🤦
That's crazy... You were basically the canary in the coal mine. They should have been worried about you, or at a minimum only worry if Malinda drops dead. At any rate, I hope your back is doing better and you are able to manage the pain.
🤣🤣🤣 Literally LMAO 🤣 whatever did the do when you went into a hot tub?! 😂😂 The misinformation about opioids perpetuated by the media and government agencies has led to some ridiculous thoughts and attitudes by the Gen Pop….like touching a small amount of fentanyl can cause an overdose in an unsuspecting “victim”! FFS 🤦♀️
Absolutely love this! Harm reduction is exactly why my wife and I founded Secret Dance Addiction; to normalize healthy nightlife, remove barriers, and connect over music. Last year we threw Sundown Music Festival, the USA's first ever Detox (sober) Music Festival, reconnecting ~1000 sober attendees in music and mindfulness, and it was truly magical. Loving deeper is always the answer. Stay lit 🔥
Thank you for saying it how it is. This issue is near and dear to me. I'm 10 years clean from heroin and when you're in that system it's clear what could be done and how many giant forces are working against people in need. Your show has helped me see hope in situations that seemed completely hopeless in the past.
I watch this show every week to learn new things about whatever John is talking about, the stories directly about the US are always very interesting but also most of them are pretty sad to hear, I hope for you all that things will change for the better
@@patrick6213 If I am interested about things talked about here in more detail I do my own research but this is good entertainment and gives me one opinion supported by sources to listen to, it's not a case of blindly believing everything I hear, that's not how the internet works, but by having sources, this is a lot more trustworthy than a lot of other takes on topics
@@rptrrwr and THAT is a huge part of the problem. Jails and Prisons should never be for-profit. Calling them "correctional facilities" is a fucking joke.
@@shadesmarerik4112 agreed, but I'm just pointing out out part of the difficulty in changing things. Decriminalization would go a LOOOONG way to improving the addiction problems people have in this country, but policy makers are not given enough incentive to change their minds. You're right, it's absolutely absurd. And I'm really hoping there's a way we can change this issue.
I'll be marking 2 years of sobriety on April 15th and I really enjoyed this segment. I have always been a huge proponent of harm reduction and I know it saves lives. I wish the rest of the US could see that instead of judging addicts for using and condemning us.
It's a sad mentality of narcissists who feel good by stomping down on people who have it worse and only want relief from the hardship of life. Then again, they themselves are only stomping down because they, too, want the same relief. They are far more like those who they judge than they realise. Anyways, I'm proud of your tremendous effort and wish for you the love you deserve. You certainly have mine, even though I'm just a youtube comment.
My best friend saved my life twice during the worst of my alcoholism. He died of an overdose in a sobriety house. Sneaking it in and using it in a high risk situation with zero potential support during use. RIP Joe.
Can i just say i appreciate and recognize that John Oliver is one of the very few late night hosts who cover the news that consistently mentions when racism is involved in most of these historical moments. Thank you.
My cousin who was like a brother to me died of an overdose in December and fentanyl was suspected of being involved. The line about people who use harm reduction centers having 100% chance of not dying while they’re there really hit me hard because I immediately realized my cousin would be alive if he’d been able to go to such a place. 😭
Finally got the coroner’s report back yesterday. Just as we suspected, fentanyl was the cause of death. In a way, I’m relieved because it pretty much confirms that he didn’t overdose on purpose, but it’s bittersweet because it also means it could’ve been prevented.
My sympathies. There are FAR TOO MANY people in the world suffering losses such as yours. The stigma of addiction, which is a disease- not a moral failing is literally killing people. This country is very far behind most of the world in treating this disease.
"Whether it's deliberate or not..." It is. It is explicitly deliberate. I've known so many people who basically think drug users are less than human and undeserving of basic dignity. It's asinine.
@@em9341 Are you stupid? Society is the REASON heroin and fentanyl even exists.. so yes society should contribute to harm prevention/reduction. On top of that most opiate abuse starts from pre-existing mental and/or physical suffering of which our "Civil" society chooses to do nothing about unless that person has top of the line healthcare or is loaded with cash.
E M - There aren't enough good paying jobs, supportive social programs, affordable housing, mental health care options out there in major urban areas where the largest populations have been affected by the drug pandemic- Y ou are most likely one of the biggest reasons for this, as people like yourself have been objecting and saying "Not in My neighborhood!!" For far too long. The world is not your personal playground, you coexist with Many other kinds of people; All as deserving of a good life as you think you are.
Unrelated, but somebody once told me that people with HIV/AIDS don't deserve treatment, because they were clearly having sex outside of marriage. People like that exist.
@@RooRoove - Who are you or I, for that matter, to judge someone else so harshly without knowing him or her personally? And if you're not interested in knowing these people, how can you make a blanket statement like that? Doesn't the Bible say Judge Not, lest ye also be judged? Let he who is without sin throw the first stone. It's those holier- than-thou types who screw things up for everybody else. Live and let live. And if you can't do that, then you cannot call yourself human. This isn't an attack, just an observation.
We should want drug users to be safe, warm and cared for during their addiction. Of course people are going to be more likely to seek help if they're in a stable environment. You're ensuring that the drug itself isn't their sole form of security and familiarity, you're building trust and respect, and they know that if they relapse there's still a support network rather than being out in the cold.
That is very interesting. I am in recovery not from drugs but from being raised by addicts and I know that my 12 step program and my therapy helps me to do that so why not give addicts the opportunity not to act out their shame and blame by living such a sad dangerous life. The harm reduction centers in San Francisco were accepted by most but kind of grudgingly. People without addiction or without family trapped in addiction don't understand the pain and suffering the addict brings not just to themselves but to everyone around them. To give them a chance to see themselves as saveable and able to recover is a great gift...to everyone.
I’m American but I’ve been living overseas for several years. I’ll have to move back at some point, and I dread returning to the dismissive cruelty that prevents us from discussing issues like this productively. Every country has its blind spots-addiction is one of ours. Addiction is a difficult byproduct of having a brain. Addicts aren’t a separate species. Many of us could become addicted to something if we got lonely enough or depressed enough.
America legalized Cannabis Sativa to stop the Holocaust. The reason why everyone is depressed is because we all know that the US Federal government has been lying to us in order to wage the war on drugs. Watch *Hemp For Victory* and end the government's lies.
when a society grows up on words not actions....look at history of fallen empires and you will see all that is wrong in usa today and the last 40 years...all the signs of collapsing empire are there....lack of care for the common people, lack of care if a leader is good at his job just that he/she reapets what we want to hear, speanding on millitary, lack of education to new generations, and lack of appreciations of new generations to old ones that build it all....worst of all lack of wanting an education and too much wanting of personal freedoms and opinions at any cost...
“D is for Substance D. ‘D’ is dumbness, and despair, desertion-desertion of you from your friends, your friends from you, everyone from everyone. Isolation and loneliness... and hating and suspecting each other, ‘D’ is finally death. Slow death from the head down. Well... that’s it.”
….you also have the population of one of our states. It’s not the same issue, I’m afraid. We have more junkies than you have population. I worked with them and addicted newborns for years, it’s heartbreaking.
Users definitely need to stop being locked up, I'll give you a damn good reason why, I worked as a county jail guard and you know what one of the worst things to watch for a 14 hour shift? Someone going through withdrawals. Its heart breaking and what I experienced during my time there I shifted a lot of my perspective on crime and punishment. Currently on my way to being a Police Officer and let me tell you, I'm not arresting people for possession, not unless they have enough to be considered a dealer. If you have enough cocaine on you to kill an elephant, you need to be locked up. But I digress, users need to be given the opportunity to have safe and clean means to use and have the resources made available to get off the devils sauce.
SO YOU SAY SOMEONE WITH ENOUGH COKE (MEDICINE CREATED BY MEDICAL DOCTORS) TO KILL AN ELEPHANT SHOULD BE LOCKED UP....BUT NOT ONE PERSON WITH ENOUGH OXY OR MORPHINE OR FENTANYL TO KILL AN ELEPHANT SHOULD BE (aka Pharmacies). YOU ARE A HYPOCRITE, sir.
Good to see someone with your background say that... you could help out by talking to friends and family and colleagues about it and sharing this video on social media
Just because you have enough heroin on you to be considered a dealer doesn't mean you are when I was using I had enough heroin to kill an entire city but that was like my daily dose
I really am glad to hear that as someone whos been off drugs for 8 years I had a couple times where I couldnt hold the pencil to sign my name on my intake forms. The other inmates hated it too everyone gave me their jello cause it was all I could keep down lol
I have experience as a drug user, and have been engaged in addiction recovery as a licensed therapist for now 25 years. One of the first things I can identify as an absolute truth is that the Reagan Adm era re: the "War on Drugs" was an abysmal failure. It didn't recognize why drugs are used, the nature of addiction, nor address the issue of recovery. It focused on prosecution of "offenders" rather than treatment, in step with the "tough on crime" fervor of the 1980s, and turned the issue into a political quagmire. And it REALLY didn't work. In re: to "harm reduction", I've certainly seen it work for a lot of folks, while it also provides a methodology to continue behaviors of addiction on a forever basis. There are no easy answers here.
But regarding your last point...maybe there are people who won't stop. I mean, you saw pictures of those HR centers, it's not a cosy place you go because you want to have a good time. You go there and take the drugs there so you won't accidentally kill yourself in the process. That's not the actions of someone who would be able to stop themselves if it weren't for those centers, it's the actions of someone who knows this is harmful, dangerous and bad for them, but they cannot stop. There they get to live another Day, get an offer of help when they are ready and until then don't stop. What is the alternative to make sure that those 'forever' candidates would stop? Because if access to help won't do it, I doubt more suffering would. So, I don't think we should let the risk of a few we can't help stop us from doing a good thing. Also, Prison, punishment and isolation clearly haven't stopped people from sticking with the drug either, they just die at some point, so, even if HR centers make it a forever option for a those that can't stop, they help many people to stop (was it 30% I saw somewhere? Don't quote me on that though) and the rest gets to live and have another chance at becoming clean later. So, basically, I can't really see the downside, because all alternatives are worse and do less, what did I miss? Is there a better way to stop the 'forever' option?
What I dislike about Reagan was the drug trade increased under him. This guy most have slept through history class because Prohibition let to more crime and more dangerous products entering the market because suppliers had to smuggle smaller amounts of booze in resulting in them being more potent and thus more dangerous. The same thing can be applied to the drug trade.
@@nellgwyn2723 I agree. Addiction is a mental illness, we've done studies to show that it seems to stem from the lack of community and connections, the lack of a support network (Rat Land). And sometimes you can't help people. Someone with severe anxiety may always have severe anxiety. Someone with epilepsy is probably always going to have strokes. At the point you are talking about forever use... the question really is do you want to punish them and potentially kill them, or do you want to provide a support network for them so they can be as safe as they can possibly be? We don't punish people with medical issues. We don't punish people for making poor life decisions. And the only people they are harming are themselves, same if they used legal drugs like Alcohol.
As a nurse who constantly cares for addicts in a medical-surgical setting, I also wish there was a commitment process for addicts. Often we admit addicts who have terrible wounds from botched IV use--and I mean some of the worst wounds I've seen in my career. We can still save their limb with surgical skill and long-term wound care, but often addicts can't deal with the withdrawal long enough to stay. When they leave halfway through their care, they endanger themselves and others, create more antibiotic resistance, and worsen their wound to the point of needing amputation or becoming septic. Sometimes they come in, get Narcan, get stable, then walk right out and fatally OD within hours. Addicts right off the street who come in high aren't in their right mind. They can't make decisions for themselves. They need to be compelled to stay, with protocols in place so that medications can help them through detox. The revolving door just doesn't work. Harm reduction would reduce the need for this (and I'm all for it) but some people's disease is so advanced that they can't make adult decisions anymore. Yes, this is a DISEASE, and that means it has late stages that should be treated as such. Also, fuck cops and their dramatics. I see how they treat the addicts they bring in.
As somebody who was born and raised in the US, I’ve always felt something was very wrong about cutting someone off for being an addict. I’m glad to see I was onto something. Sometimes the best help is just being there for another.
This is incredible! I work in Harm Reduction in Ohio and just great to see this topic on a national platform as overdose deaths continue to be a critical issue. Thanks for sharing again and everyone needs to see this to understand harm reduction and how it really really works to save lives 💜
Well I know that a few years ago Portugal legalized all illicit drugs.. Guess what happened. Rates of usage fell. And the government spent less money treating people versus prosecuting people. Imagine.
I think you mean that Portugal decriminalized the usage of drugs which is far different than legalizing drugs (ie. they cannot be sold legally and you still face consequences for possession of drugs beyond certain limits) and the government spent the money treating people and educating people on the dangers of drugs. which are by far the more important parts of the plan.. even growing your own weed is still illegal there btw.
In parts of the EU they have government-owned labs where teens can send their drugs (e.g. XTC, LSD, etc.) and get back results to be safe they don't consume any deadly chemicals. I always thought this is ingenious. If you can't make the kids not use drugs, at least protect them from the harmful quality.
Yup. Like the states that teach abstinence instead of protection. You're not going to stop it, so you might as well tell them their life dreams will come crashing down if they don't use a condom.
@@bobbyboucher1096: That's assuming they don't indoctrinate their next generations with the same poisonous rhetoric which corrupted them. Waiting for an idea to die is a losing proposition; we must stamp it out with education.
The book Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari completely altered my view of drugs and the way we deal with addiction. I used to very anti-drug, judgemental of users, and incredulous that people were actually proposing these kinds of centers. But as I kept reading and learned more and more about the history of the drug war and its impact on various communities, as well as the nature of addiction and how various policies and treatment methods have worked/haven't worked, the more my misconceptions and judgements unraveled. Honestly one of the most perspective-changing books I've ever read.
Thanks to the needle exchange my wife is still alive. We were heroin addicts, iv heroin addicts. They didn't just give needles at the exchange they gave naloxone and taught us how to use it. She ODed 2 times really bad and I had to give her nalxone the second time she was out for 30 mins before I found her. She lived. We got clean shortly after qnd have over 5 years clean now. Because of harm reduction She got out of heroin addiction with her life, and our body's didn't get fucked up thanks to clean needles and being taught how to proply filter and Inject heroin.....
I know it probably means very little from an internet stranger, but I am very proud of both of you! It must have been incredibly hard to make that step and I think you should be proud of having pulled it off :)
Congrats man! I’m happy to hear that
That's awesome! Keep it up. :-)
It's not societies job to help you or your junky wife.
@@schmucknorris2672 then what the fuck is society even for then if not to help people?
As a therapist who has worked with clients recovering from drug addiction, I believe one reason why harm reduction works is because it reduces the stigma and shame drug users experience. Shame will only amplify the use. They're human beings who are hurting. I really wish our government could get that through their thick skulls.
Out government doesn’t even care about us citizens who aren’t drug addicts. Why do you think they would care about drug addicts? And the day they do start caring about their citizens, drug addicts will be on the bottom of the priority list unfortunately. The only way we can all help each other is not with the government but to help each other out in our local communities. F the government. It’s about us locally helping one another out.
I agree. It's so easy to be judgemental about drug users and write them off as stupid, weak, dangerous, worthless. I always think when it was your own child who was addicted you'd know to help them instead of putting them in prison.
Portugal decreased the amount of overdoses and addicted people by getting rid of the stigma, stopping their war on drugs and decriminalizing the use of all drugs.
Yes these people are hurting and need proper help. Portugal made the change in policy and are so so far better of now, the stats are crazy. All because they stopped their war on drugs, harm reduction etc.
Dr. Gabor Maté has a really good documentary about that: the wisdom of trauma. It's about the shame behind the use, and the stigma that hold up this shame..
You’re a hero.
Not every therapist says this.
My mom died of an accidental opiate overdose back in the early 2000's. She was a good person, she was in pain 💔. She took care of everyone around her, but she had nobody to take care of her. Addicts are anyone and everyone, chances are you love someone who is, was, or will struggle with addiction. They need help not ridicule.
So sorry for your loss, Lindsay!
These comments are making me cry but this one sent me over the edge. I'm so sorry, I miss my momma so much. It wasn't an OD but I still know how it feels to lose someone who's the most special in your life.
I’m so sorry for your loss.
So sorry to hear about your loss, Lindsay - thank you for sharing her story.
thats the thing people dont realize is that its not just some homeless person its your neighbor its your boss its your kids its the guy who went to war for your country
Harm reduction was a life changing experience for me! I'm now 3 years sober after 15 years of opiod addiction.
Well done!
Currently trying to get off of the shit. Opioids and benzos, the worst combo you can use basically for OD. Its been a long ride
@@thetruecrinkleyjoe4383 yeah I started down the benzo path but it was either I couldn't get enough or I'd black out and not get that true euphoric experience. I liked getting as high as I could while still being able to function. All I can say is keep trying to quit no matter how many times you relapse and councilling will keep you accountable without being insanely ashamed.
@@thetruecrinkleyjoe4383 i hope you know its never a bad time to try get some help or support. You deserve to be happy and healthy.
@@TheNeishaHarris I agree. They do. Sending you all the good things I'm capable of.
As a detox nurse, I love that harm reduction is being covered by a man who actually looks at facts. Mr Oliver, bless you.
You guys are heroes, thanks for putting up with our sweaty barfing diarrhea having selves coming off fent and being so nice
Absolutely! I can’t even explain how grateful I am that he is covering this topic, which, unfortunately, doesn’t get much attention.
May god bless all of you.
Well, he did forget to mention that Naloxone isn't all that effective against Fentanyl. I've seen people who needed 4 single use nasal spray narcans for fentanyl OD. So it'd be good to tell people that it's not always super effective. Also, when the narcan wears off the OD can start again so you need to get people ODing to a doctor ASAP because once narcan wears off the opiates can come back and cause another OD.
Maybe invite people who don’t like these centers to walk thru a graveyard and count how many deaths due to fentanyl...especially those under 20.
The Netherlands was one of the first countries to have a large scale HR program for heroin in the 1980s. It has run for decades now and heroin use is down to almost zero. There was a very large English historical review released on the topic last year ("Lessons learned from the Amsterdam Cohort Studies among people who use drugs: a historical perspective")
The Netherlands and Amsterdam is the drug capital of Europe with lots of drug use, needles everywhere, addicts on the streets, dirt/smells/substances polluting the streets, enabled by that broken party culture that even its permanent residents are getting tired of to a point where they're encouraging drug tourists to please not come. Seems like it's working very well huh?
Wait so you are saying actually treating the illness instead of just demonizing those who have it actually *helps* people? Who would have imagined?
@@pollytix7271 the point is that 90% of that is tourists.
Of course, if every addict from europe comes to a single town, that town will be the drug capital of Europe.
If every cities would do such a programme, everything would be fine (relative to the topic of course).
Don't violate statistics please. Statistics have rights, too!
@@pollytix7271 there is a party culture here. I feel like most Dutch know their limits, because they have not been blinded to the other side. We do have indeed seen the tourist go crazy on the stuff which is normalized in our country. We have our way to go, but the heroïn use is kept down to a bare minimum here + We don't have any fentinal in our cocaïne or heroin
@@pollytix7271 Considering a lot of other posts you've made in the comment section I'm just going to assume you've never been to Amsterdam? Literally the only true thing in your post is that a lot of residents want fewer drug tourists. But that is not because of rampant needles in the streets, it's because they just come to use drugs and assume there are no rules, are loud, raucous, piss on the streets and whatnot, but 95% of what they use is just thc and alcohol.
People who oppose harm reduction policies like overdose prevention centers have an ingroup-outgroup mindset where, as soon as you start using drugs, you're a problem to be dealt with rather than a human to feel empathy for.
The nail has been hit on the head.
Ya but basically with drug users "there on the rail road tracks and the on coming train is blaring it's horn as loud as it can and your not deaf, but you still make excuses to stay on the tracks till it runs you over"
The main problem I have here is that a great many people who endorse this practice also advocate for the decision to use hard drugs. That choice, in particular, is not without consequences and it can destroy more than just the lives of those using.
If the discussion was more about getting everyone away from them in the first place? Absolutely, I'd be in favor.
@@Fettclone1
You didn’t even watch the video, did you?
@@Fettclone1 nah, there is TINY minority of people who advocate for that. It is btw also a key Libertarian value. Free as in 'Freedom' to use hard drugs.
The correct opinion to have here, since you seem confused is: "People should be ALLOWED to do all drugs, but they should be discouraged through education and lack of availability".
Ever been to Europe? over here only possession is a crime, doing drugs is very legal.
"Addiction is the opposite of connection." - Louise Vincent
Probably the wisest quote about addiction out here.
And addicts substitute connection with the temporary numbness. I am full of love. I want to give love. The world is a dangerous place. Best keep my love to myself and forget I ever wanted it.
Trying to get off the shit rn. It's been a long ride
She’s quoting Dr Gabor Maté, from his book In the realm of hungry ghosts
For some reason, John Oliver doesn't want to do an episode on stupid black people mass robbing malls and stores in California, particularly LA and San Francisco. I gueelss he thinks its racist to cover it. 🙄
Johann Hari said it originally.
The Marine veteran: I have a strong feeling that the VA holds some responsibility for his addiction. I am a disabled Marine veteran also. I have at least some level of pain every day. As a result, the VA would give me prescription after prescription of very strong, narcotic pain relievers. I wouldn't just get it from one doctor, I would get prescriptions from multiple doctors at once. I hate taking them as I hate the way they make me feel. So, I only took them when I was in unbearable pain. My medicine cabinet was full of them because they wouldn't ask me if I needed more on my follow up visits. They would just put in script and in the mail they come or I would pick them up with my meds I need every day like my blood pressure med. I have noticed that they have gotten better about it over the last couple of years. They still like to just blindly prescribe meds though. I had a virtual appointment that was set up by another specialist (who was clearly just trying to pawn me off) and rather than actually talk to me and trying to figure out how to help me, he just wanted to prescribe me medication. The appointment was set for one hour and I didn't make it 5 minutes in when he said, "we don't do that. We just prescribe medication." He didn't even want to talk it out to even figure out what meds would be best if that was what I wanted to do. So, I just closed the meeting. Sorry to make a rant about the VA. But, if the VA is the only available healthcare for someone, I would not be shocked to find that they are addicted to drugs. Not to mention the fact that the VA mental health system is absolutely horrible and a complete joke. They have a facade that they help and have the system in place, but it is all a lie. Under Trump, there was a White House VA assistance line and it is a joke. They might as well shut it down for the good it does. So, this veteran likely has mental health issues (as seemingly most us do) which the VA doesn't actually treat and then combined with the fact that the VA has traditionally over prescribed narcotic pain meds, it was a disaster waiting to happen. Politicians who like sending us to wars but don't want to fund the VA to actually help us are guilty of horrific crimes.
This comment isn't nearly read enough. Just know I vote every chance I get to improve your experience!
And yeah all American health services are shit. I used to work basic EMS and literally everything about it is broken. Even in the VA, it's hard to get around the disgusting capitalist incentives from the drug market and political interference.
This is horrifying. I feel this needs to have a wider audience. The US military should not be receiving any new grunts until they fix the VA.
The first thing I thought about when the numbers started rolling out was how many of these people are ex-military personnel. I doubt the VA gives enough of a shit to even monitor this.
Yeah, addiction runs in my family and when I ended up on Percocet for chronic migraines, the providers were shocked when I didn't constantly want barrels of the stuff. I didn't *want* to take it in the first place and a full dose is actually a slight overdose for me (found that out the hard way), so I was splitting the pills and spreading the dose out when I couldn't stand the pain any longer. And the side-effects even if the medication works properly (which it sometimes doesn't) make me pretty fuzzy-headed so that's even less motivation to take the stuff.
I'm glad you're staying aware of what you want and don't want, and holding to your boundaries. I'm in the same boat, and in fact getting a controlled substance during covid while not being able to find a doctor I didn't hate... means I gave up on oxy for now. Tylenol (taken with a lot of water) and coffee are getting me through my days and it's not great, sometimes fails miserably, but it ain't opioids so I've got that going for me which is nice.
As a massage therapist working towards her RN, this just breaks my heart. In the future I hope to work to change this.
I don't know the nature of your pain, or much about the VA, but if it is musculoskeletal you may be able to get massage prescribed. I know the VA is starting to implement on a limited basis in MN.
I grew up on aggressive, persistent "Just say no" messaging, and it's been hard over the last several years to wrap my brain around the idea of making drug use safer and more recoverable. But the effects can't be denied. Reaching out to someone to help is always more effective than shutting them down. Reading the comments here, for example, gives me reason after reason to put away what I was taught as a child and learn that people are more complex and more worth saving than "Just say no" could ever convey.
I might have grown up on that message - but I'm glad to see that we're growing up to try something different.
DARE messed up a lot of people.
@@wmdkitty Big Pharm messed up a lot of people too. They are the culprit in much of this.
Agreed. I was in college then and my stoner friends used to laugh at that. I was lucky - I smoked pot sometimes (maybe 10) because of peer pressure. Unlike my roommate who could smoke enough to get a small town stoned and still seem fairly straight, a couple of bong hits turned me into an idiot. When high, I may have been more amusing than Robin Williams. At least my peers seemed to think so.
I tried coke once - waste of time. It did not make me feel "high" it just filled me with nervous energy, kept me up all night, And made me talk incessantly about nonsense - as if I did not talk too much when sober.
Sadly, I did not escape "drugs" I drank way too much - that drug worked for me. So I remain a "respectable" never jailed person. But I was at least as much a "stoner" as my roommate - who could not hold his liquor. It took me about ten years to get that under control. But Nancy Reagan never told me to "just say no" to beer, and I would have laughed if she had.
@@wmdkitty Yep, I remember having a DARE officer come talk to us almost every month it seemed like and I just remember thinking I'm 8 years old in a tiny farmer town... I would have no idea about ANY of this stuff if it wasn't for you telling me about it.
I'm just glad I learned and listened to other things as I got older. DARE can say all they want, but prison rarely actually helps anyone, and if it did help, why does our drug problem just keep getting worse and places that practice Harm Reduction programs are seeing the number of drug users going down?
Yeah we all laughed our asses off at those campaigns and commericials...especially the egg one which I recently saw circle around again somewhere. Yeah the government needs to quit with the fear propaganda lies they put out ... there was an old movie like very very old movie called reefer madness. I've seen clips and that's how the government tried to scare people with that logic.
I grew up on the DARE "Just Say No" education. Won my school's essay contest. I then proceeded to use opiates for 12 years. I'm 4 years clean now. I love this piece. And I hope he does another piece on how drug education in this country has failed.
It wasn't MEANT to work.
EX:
ALL the judges, police chiefs, and ANYONE powerful or rich or famous....USE DRUGS TO RAPE TEEN GIRLS.
Not even a secret.
(Every day kops are being arrested now for STEALING DRUGS they seize, and using said drugs to GET TEEN GIRLS TO FUCK KKKOPS. #MeToo REFUSES to discuss it!)
THE WAR ON DRUGS was MEANT TO GET KIDS TO DO DRUGS just like the WAR ON DRUGS was never ever ever EVER meant to stop drugs.
EVERYTHING IS A LIE.
omg we're practically twins. yeah it's almost like "abstinence only" doesn't work. congrats on recovery!!
Congrats dude. I've been in the MMP for year now. Not exactly the same as "clean" by any stretch of the imagination. But It's better than the alternative. :P
I remember having a DARE officer. He was such a prick, I swear.
Same. Still working on staying clean. Congrats on four years!
If abstinence only doesn’t work with sex Ed then there is no reason to think it would work w drug use
Im an addict. I'm lucky that I've been clean for almost 5years now. The thing that kept me getting help earlier was how ashamed I felt. It honestly crippled me.
If someone is feeling disconnected from society, heaping shame ontop of the horrors of being in active addiction does nothing to help the person suffering.
I was lucky enough to meet the most compassionate, understanding man in the world, and it was kindness that saved me.
I agree.
Congratulations on getting clean! That isn’t an easy feat.
Congratulations! I'm clean 4 years now!
Great job on being clean
i’m so proud of you
As someone who is currently studying psychology and neuroscience with the goal of helping people suffering from Substance Use Disorders, I wish more people knew how many lives harm reduction saves. I have lost several friends to overdoses, and the tragic fact is that our moralizing a health crisis is literally killing people. This is a great video. Thanks, sad bird man.
@@brendasmart553 I’ve looked into it, but it was definitely more about preventing HIV than helping those with SUDs. It’s important to help everyone, but the priorities are different.
ua-cam.com/video/SZU1glezsKw/v-deo.html.
That was an unnecessary burn at the end 💀😂
We don't seem to understand the difference between, lowering crime rate, the principal of least harm, and maximum punishment, these three things are not equivalent and we seem to use the methods that cause the most harm for society as a whole, to be honest even if you say fuck the people using what we are doing now hurts people that don't even know anyone that uses drugs
As a former heroin addict from Seattle where harm reduction is firmly implemented I can say it’s more geared towards protecting the community from us, not the other way around the community pushes for it because it means less dirty needles on the street
I’m so glad someone with such a big platform is talking about this. Harm reduction has worked in every single place where has been implemented, is absurd that we haven’t implemented it more globally yet.
What do you mean when you say they are "working"?
@@ryanb4268 They have reduced OD death by literally 100%. There has never been a recorded OD in a Harm Reduction center
@@em9341 make them OD and die? what are you saying
@@ryanb4268 less people dying needlessly, less families mourning the death of their loved ones. ya know that sorta thing
I find it weird that he's not talking about the war in Ukraine
It's heartbreaking to hear a vet say he got more help from the safe injection clinic than from VA. And the terrible thing is you know he's telling the truth.
@@ashleyelliott444 Did you actually watch the piece? Neither are "enabling" anything except "this guy not dying when he uses drugs" - and that's the safe injection site.
@@ashleyelliott444 Diluting the discussion down to "one enables" and "one doesn't enable" completely misses the discussion surrounding drug rehabilitation that I have to wonder if you've ever had this discussion with any curiosity or good faith in your life.
If it's a matter of life and death, helping someone survive isn't "enabling" because death shouldn't be a legislated "natural consequence" to something that's arguably a choice. Over and over again, studies flood out of medical journalism stating that drug rehabilitation within the US is lackluster at best, completely ineffective and dangerous at worst.
I live next to a halfway house for homeless veterans and from what they describe, the VA has been responsible for getting more vets addicted than they've ever helped with drug treatment. Often what they prescribe for PTSD is too strong, not suited the problem, and addictive. To make sure they're taking the drugs as prescribed they're subject drug testing to make sure they're taking their psychoactive prescriptions. They would often smoke legal substances instead because it helped more, without the addictive properties. They need to listen to their vets.
@Forward Progress why the FUCK would they send cops to someone with suicidal thoughts ? that makes no fucking sense, a single cop accompanying a psychologist to make sure you are not a danger, sure, but a bunch of cops and nothing else ? wtf did they expect the cops to do ? arrest you so you don't kill yourself in a jailcell ?
just cos he says he's not had help in his fucked up state, doesn't mean it's the truth. Let me remind you Whitney Houston had all the help in the world right at her fingertips. But didn't want it. Sure she would make herself out to be the victim.
Thank you. I work in a safe injection site and this is a perfect synopsis of everything we do and stand for. Harm reduction works.
I’m a retail pharmacist and one of the first things we need to do is stop requiring that needles be sold only through the pharmacy. For God’s sake, we sell tobacco products at the front register that actively kill you. Why not provide a clean needles that can prevent the spread of disease?
Do any pharmacists in your district refuse to sell them at the pharmacy to keep users out of the store? That shit pisses me off. Elitist and cruel, should be malpractice IMO.
You're kidding, right? When you let the addicts buy needles you quickly run out of stock for the diabetics. I know this from working in a pharmacy where the manager tried to be a liberal, understanding baffoon. Addicts can get clean needles just fine, often FOR FREE, they just may have to listen to someone remind them that what they're doing isn't a good idea. And that's the real problem; Addicts do t want harm reduction. They want what they want when they want it.
They'll also buy a box of 100 and sell them to other druggies for a quarter each.
100%
I agree with you 100%. When it’s sold in the pharmacy, pharmacists and staff have (depending on jurisdiction) blanket power to sell to whomever they want and deny sale to whomever they please. When it’s outside the pharmacy, other retail staff do not have the ability to deny sale unless there is an age requirement, and that is it. Denial of sale in a standard retail setting usually carries a penalty of termination.
Edit: “are blanket power” sounds like I was half asleep, fixed that.
Imagine living in a country where you can buy guns at Walmart and be denied to buy needles at the pharmacy
Always love starting my week with a joyous bit of depressing information.
That’s John Oliver for ya!
Its educational
🎶Don’t do drugs!🎵
@@lynnwilhoite6194
lol now it’s 🎶 do drugs safely 🎶
Always love starting the week with that warm fuzzy feeling I get from knowing I dont live in the us.
I wish the “facts don’t care about your feelings” crowd would really start to listen to the facts rather than their feelings here
@@darcyrobbs6866 Yeah, that's been going well the last forty years, hasn't it?
@@darcyrobbs6866 but... That's not a fact... You confuse me
You make the mistake of thinking they have any interest whatsoever in discussing things in good faith or that they actually care about facts.
They are melting every day
@@Feefa99 I just wish they would all melt a bit faster... if only all these unvaccinated people would just contract more lethal strains and leave the world a better place for us more quickly
Thank you so much for doing this episode. I woke up next to my boyfriend’s dead body in 2014 from fentanyl and my twin brother overdosed and died the same way in 2016. I’ve been sober since 2017. The part about disconnecting people from family, community and then freedom was spot on.
Last year I was stuck in this abusive relationship and was basically manipulated into trying heroin. I was scared but to appease the abuser I tried a very small amount. However it had fentanyl in it and so I overdosed. Luckily paramedics arrived and gave me Narcan just in time (I was later told that I was just a minute or two away from my heart stopping/ cardiac arrest). What surprised me more than anything was how once the doctors/ nurses learned that it was from heroin use I was treated like absolute garbage. Like my presence in their hospital just pissed them off. After they stopped my convulsing and stabilized me I never saw any staff again until the morning when I was told what happened and then just told “If you can stand up you can leave.” I replied “I think so..” I was then pushed out of the hospital so quickly they forgot to take the IV out of my arm! I was still so disoriented and tired that I immediately fall asleep in a chair near the exit where I was quickly told I can’t stay there and forced to leave. I eventually stumble my way back to my abusers apartment (throwing up the whole way, narcan makes you sick) as I was too afraid to tell any family what happened and be judged as a druggy. I thought she would be happy to see that I was ok but instead was very angry for some reason but that’s besides the point. I now have this $2,790 bill for the ambulance that I can’t afford but I shouldn’t complain, I’m lucky that they saved my life. Sorry for the long story and thanks for reading if anybody does. Main point; Please be kinder to people with drug issues. From what I’ve seen there is ALWAYS other issues in their life that got them there because they had no help.
Thank you for sharing your story-- I hope you are out of the abusive relationship and with a supportive community!
You can try to negotiate the ambulance bill. Call your city government's main number and ask them to guide you to the right office. When you do this, don't go into detail about the reason you needed to be transported to the hospital. They shouldn't need to know, and they shouldn't ask. The point is that you can't pay the bill, and what can they do to help you? If nothing else, they should be able to work out a payment plan.
still baffles me how you need to pay for an ambulance. like imagine if the fire department worked like that.
"sorry we couldn't save your house, here's a ridiculously high bill you can never afford"
Just don't pay it throw the bill in the trash next to your other bills, citations, court date papers, basically anything saying anything you don't wanna hear.. grab that syringe and blast off to sweet sweet don't give a fuck land and I'll see you there and we can talk further about how to settle this pesky whambulance bill... Trust me..
@@zwenkwiel816 Honestly way healthcare has become just another toxic part of late stage capitlism just makes me want to burn the whole fucking system down even more
As a recovering sober addict I cannot thank you enough for talking about this!
Free needle exchange programs helped me avoid _any blood transmissible diseases_ that are common among IV using addicts, easily available and free rehab services helped me get my worst tailspin stopped and easily available and free methadone rehabilitation helped me get away from buying drugs off the street and eventually find my way to full sobriety. All those services together for sure, with 100% certainty, saved my life. I'm insanely lucky to have been born in a country that provides free healthcare and good welfare systems for its citizens, when I think about how much harder life is for people who have gone through similar hardships as I have in countries that do not offer such services and don't take care of their citizens as well it makes me incredibly sad (and at time incredibly angry) and I really really hope that things will get better, and sooner rather than later because every day that things do not change have a cost in human lives.
Also, for those that think that addicts need to be punished all I can say is addiction is already hell and punishment enough on its own, not to mention that the vast majority of addicts (at least every single one I have met) have become addicts because they have been using the drugs to self-medicate, be it because of mental health issues, chronic pain or their lives having become unbearable without drugs giving them some small moments of pleasure and enjoyment, no person ends up a hardcore drug addict because drugs are so much fun, by the time you're badly addicted it's not fun but quite the opposite it's pretty much as close to hell as you can get without living in a warzone or something.
If I would tell you some of the life stories I have heard in my decade long battle with addiction and stints in many different rehabilitation programs you would cry, at least you would cry if you had a working sense of empathy...
Because some of the demons addicts I've known have used drugs to escape are the sort of things people talk about in hushed voices and often try to not think about at all (absolutely horrible childhood experiences and traumas for example, they're really common among addicts, and very severe mental health issues that have made life unbearable).
I have to agree with everything you said. The self-medicating aspect is 100% real and common and expected. Who lives with a debilitating migraine when a pain reliever is available? Same for other types of pain and issues.
Congratulations for being on the path to sobriety
I refuse to let me tax dollars go to free needles. Or drugs to get high.
You seem like a great candidate to volunteer your own money and privately fund it.
First, congrats. I've been off heroin for 7 years now, I got out when I got my first bags with fentanyl. Second Morty Sanchez there doesn't realize that their tax monies already are going to needle exchange programs and drugs. They also don't realize it's not about getting high, it's about not getting sick.
@Warutteri, I see you're still doing well. Congratulations! And Thank you, for sharing your experience...
The first debate I ever engaged in was in high school social studies some 25 years ago. My teacher assigned me to debate the anti-harm-reduction position and as the son of drug addicts I took the opportunity to do an over-the-top satirical performance that intentionally undermined the position I was assigned to. The class, my teacher, and my debate opponents all loved it. I was surprised then that there was more than one side to the discussion and 25 years later I absolutely cannot fathom how we're still debating the ethics of harm-reduction.
@@em9341 every available empirical, factual, statistical metric would lead any good faith rational actor to come to the opposite conclusion, but thanks for sharing your very wrong, spiteful opinion.
@@em9341 Your opinions are fundamentally irrational and ultimately don't matter. Your position only works ironically, as satire.
@@em9341 you are out of your mind and just saying straight up lies. Respect to the OP for not engaging with you further
@@em9341 “can quit anytime they like” my man you have no idea what you are talking about.
@@em9341 And then people sometimes die trying to go through withdrawal without professional help. This is common knowledge, and has been for decades; the fact that you are ignorant, willfully or not, of that just shows the world you cannot grasp the concept of solutions to complex problems requiring more than simpleton approaches.
What Louise Vincent says in that clip is very important - my older cousin is dealing with an addiction, and one of the biggest reasons she's still around today is because whenever things get too rough, my grandparents are willing to give her a place to be away from it all while she recovers. They've always done that sort of thing as well, we're all lucky to have them and a larger and very supportive family around us when things get bad. That sense of connection is definitely keeping people alive.
I lost my dad to an overdose in 2019. Before fentanyl, he was a totally functioning addict. Retired from AT&T after 31 years, owned his own business, owned his home, had three loving children and more. But he died alone. I’ll miss him forever, and I’ll never judge him for his addiction. He became addicted to painkillers in high school after a severe baseball injury and dulled that pain and many others with drugs.
♥️
So sorry to hear that
May they rest in peace
I lost my fiancée to overdose shortly before the publishing of this video, we were not opioid users, but she took a single percocet that was laced, and she died because of it. We didn't have test strips handy, so I just looked up what the pill looked like.
He would be alive today if we had our way we want a clean pharmacy tested supply that's never even seen that junk if people are gonna use anyways give them clean pure stuff they won't use that garbage
In addition to harm reduction, the U.S. needs to address the triggers that can cause people to turn to drugs in the first place: Poverty, overprescription of opioids, lack of access to healthcare (physical and mental), etc. If politicians *actually* want to reduce drug use, tackling the causes would go a long way, rather than punishing and stigmatizing people for drug use.
This! 100% this! Sigh, it won't happen tho....
But if we don't have a pit of death and suffering at the bottom of society our supply of slave.. err, our.. highly valued.. workers.. would have more time to research local elected officials before voting.
Nothing good could come of that.
yeah, trying to fix society by making people stop abusing drugs is like trying to cure cancer by taking pain meds.
The problem now is under prescribing. Suffering is not cool.
@@em9341 That's a lot of words for "I refuse to look at reality".
Because it actually does help.
If you looked at something besides the inside of your colon, you'd see that.
The episode actually made me change my mind on harm reduction centers, thank you for that.
Mad respect for your open mind 💓
@@mollymac9108 Right back at you. While I'm FAR from perfect, I try to adjust my opinions so they follow the facts from the best sources I can find. From my point of view, if it helps break down the stigma towards drug addicts and works to get help to society's most vulnerable, then it's something I'm fine with. Before this episode, I saw harm reduction centers as an enabling force, but now that I know that they prevent overdoses and encourage getting addiction help, I am in full favor of them.
I am very glad that you changed your mind. When people come to a center to use drugs, they are really considering treatment. Seems like an excellent way to get people help. And there are so many types of treatment options available for people who have opiate dependency. Now if ONLY we could make treatment immediately open to a person who is ready to do IT. Remember: Every life we save is one Zombie less to fight! : )
Wish there were more open minded people like you on this planet.🙏🙏
This is so nice to see when there are people in this very comments section still refusing to see how much good decriminalisation of drugs can do, despite many others, again from this very comments section, sharing how much it helped them beat their addictions. It didn’t enable them, it just prevented them from dying long enough to get clean. It gave them a chance.
Thank you John for doing this piece. I'm an opiate addict and a disabled veteran. I have 2 titanium rods in my back and possible psoriatic arthritis. Opiates like heroine and prescriptions helped mitigate my pain, not to party, but it's so hard to find a safe way to be treated with the drug laws in place so street drugs is where I turned. I've been sober now for over 2 years, but I'm on suboxone treatments which people dont consider "sober". I hurt all over and I am stiff as a board all day long. I'm only 41 by the way. If I hadn't found a doctor that believed in harm reduction I would be dead. I've had people watch me when I sleep because it seemed like I stopped breathing from too much morphine being injected into my body. I also carry neloxone in my car, but I have to get it prescribed. Basically I need to be found worthy enough to save my own life and that's weird to me. There are addicts who do it for the fun of it, but there are some doing it to have some normalcy. Denying services that save lives because you can't fathom that sort of pain or life is ignorant. Harm reduction and safe injection sites should be everywhere. Thank you again John for shining a light on this subject.
Not to detract from anything you said here, but addicts do not do drugs for fun. Users do. Addicts are stuck in hopeless cycle of use drugs or face withdrawal, which is something I wouldn't wish on my worse enemy. Hope you're doing ok these days and I'm sorry your pain can't be properly manages because these drugs companies have doctors running scared now.
Thank you for your service. My show Recover Loud! shares stories of amazing comebacks and commiry resources. Search for it on UA-cam
@@iamV10010 many people, especially younger people, start out using for fun and become addicted. Teens often think they are invulnerable, or "that'll never happen to me."
I was torn on overdose prevention centers for a bit, until I thought about it in a different context.
You see, I've had an eating disorder for almost two decades, to the point there's almost no mental aspect of it now--I purge or fast every single day because it's just habit. My digestive tract just doesn't know what to do with food, it's a mess.
There are a ton of really dangerous, shitty 'tricks' spread out there, online or off, about how to purge or starve, some of them truly deadly. Do not fucking eat cotton balls, do not mess around with ipecac, do not tie a lifesaver on a string and swallow it, for fuck's sake. These are bad things people learn and try when they're already disordered--no sane, healthy person thinks, "No, yeah, that sounds like a good idea, let's do that." No healthy, happy person resorts to slow suicide for aesthetics (and honestly, it's not even about looking good, I've found so...). If people are already disordered and they're going to purge anyway, I'd rather they have good information and tools to keep them alive and safer. Like, don't brush your teeth right after without rinsing your mouth, preferably with baking soda to neutralize the stomach acid. Your enamel will thank you. Do drink water before and after, preferably the kind with electrolytes added, because you're gonna need those. Basic things to make it easier.
Unfortunately, most people think merely mentioning these positive 'tips' is akin to recruiting others into a disorder. That's just not how it works. Again, no one who is well adjusted is going to hear 'don't brush the stomach acid in or your teeth will rot' and think, "This is the thing that I needed to get me started, now I can go puke too!" I assume most normal people think, "...Ew. wtf, just don't do that at all."
The thing about eating disorders is, much like drug use, many people are of the mind that, "They're doing it to themselves, they should just eat a sandwich or die." The idea that it's a voluntary, enjoyed pastime is prevalent. In reality, it's usually a disorder that develops as a coping mechanism to what I like to call 'shit life syndrome.'
When smokers get lung cancer, doctors don't sneer and say, "Well, you brought this on yourself, guess you should die." No one argues that providing treatment for that cancer encourages young people to start smoking. No one says designated smoking areas are dens of iniquity. When a smoker laments they just can't quit even though they've tried five times already, no one denies them life-saving medical care and arrests them. And if someone laced their cigs with cyanide, they wouldn't criminalize the victims, they'd find and persecute the ones responsible for dirtying the supply.
So anyway. Once I reframed what causes people to use drugs and why, and how we don't demonize other deadly substances or the people who use them, it seemed really fucking dumb of me to be hesitant or waffle over it.
If you actually think about it all of what John said in the video makes perfect sense, the issue is many people are just absolutely brainwashed to think all illegal drug users are evil, incurable people trying to get others to use as well. They don't realize it's mostly formed from systemic racism, completely unwillingness to address poverty and of course to keep the prisons full, because slave labor is alive and well, and at least as profitable as it was before the civil war.
Compassion for those who are suffering is a wonderful tool for paving the way for a more healthy society.
♥️
Well said.
I'm in Indiana, and Pence did his evangelical bleating of refusing to allow clean needle programs, and you can guess what happened. Morals are a fine thing to have, but you should never condemn someone to die a preventable death because you'd rather demonize them. I think people like that have it so ingrained in them that they hold a monopoly on absolute truth that they can never be wrong. Does your black & white philosophy start to strain when subjected to the colors and grayscale of the real world? Deny it and cling to your black & white like a life raft, even as you're pushing people other under with your oars.
For me drug prevention center is like work place teaching people CPR.
I don't see people going "WOW, I'm going to have so many heart attacks now that my coworkers knows CPR".
The woman who said "Addiction is the opposite of connection" is right on the money. Shout it from the rooftops. Look up Bruce Alexander's rat park experiments from the 70s. Addiction is inherently lonely, and isolating/disconnecting these people is the exact opposite of what they need. American obsession with incarcerating/punishing everything we dislike about ourselves causes a lot of damage while solving nothing. It's really easy to run out of sympathy for junkies and drunks, since the affliction hurts everyone around the addict while the addict themselves appears blissfully ignorant. Look up what addiction does to your brain if you're interested- it's horrifying. Some people's reward centers have been so completely rewired by addiction that they literally aren't mentally capable of seeing or understanding the problem. Very frustrating people to deal with, but many can be reached and helped if we approach them with empathy rather than ostracizing and punishing them.
- an alcoholic in recovery for 10+ years
Addicts might appear blissfully ignorant but we aren't. We're completely aware and horrified by what our lives have become. We're just stuck until we can get clean. But when we're high we're high so that sure appears blissful. It was terrifying, completely consuming, humiliating, painful, emascula
emasculating I meant to add
Bull, when it comes to THC. if legal, as it is in my state, I can purchase pure product. And isolation, you've got that wrong. My PTSD left me homebound. Legal THC allows me to go to the Senior Center to exercise and provide me with social interaction. One puff, and I can leave the house.
@@DebiG1057 Agreed! I take cannabis edibles for good pain free sleep and sub clinical psilocybin to be able to connect to myself which of course helps me connect to others. I think that cannabis is not the kind of drug they are talking about here. Sure cannabis could be isolating if you aren't thoughtful about how much you use it but it's nothing like fentanyl or meth or cocaine in terms of killing relationships and connection. Not to mention all three can kill you if you take too much. Neither cannabis nor psilocybin have ever been shown to truly overdose or kill anyone. There is no physical upper limit.
@@DebiG1057I don't think they're talking about THC. Drugs like dope (heroin, fentanyl/tranq), meth, coke, etc. the hard drugs) are indeed EXTREMELY isolating. Not only I is finding ways to afford your habit isolating, using is generally pretty isolating. You can't meet new people because what are you going to tell them about yourself? The family and friends you do have will likely not know much about you because you have to lie about what you're doing all day. Even if you don't want to lie, it just happens.
I’m from Portugal, a country who’s led the harm reduction and de-criminalization of drugs all round the world. It did wonders for our crises of heroin use here.
I feel like people who condemn his policies are simply puritans arguing with a sense of high morality instead of logics, common sense and understanding
@Russ ...no
Absolutely.
I wish America would pay attention and have an actual heart- Portugal's drug law model has been shown to be far more humane and effective at saving lives and actually helping those suffering.
@@JemLeavitt Is the usage rate decreasing though, that’s what matters the most to me?
It's unfortunate that Portugal has been backsliding in the last decade.
While decriminalization has been a great success in very many ways, drug use was never successfully destigmatized, which is what leads to many of the issues that are contributing factors to drug use to begin with.
@@greglinsmythe3375 Apparently the number of heroin users was divided by 4 since the 2001 law. (source: american psychological association / new york times)
I just have to say, as an opiate addict, getting life saving methadone, thumbs up to EVERYTHING John Oliver have to say in this episode. He have the most edifying show in the world. God bless his heart.
Or ibogaine. Somehow legal in Canada and Mexico but not in the states.
good luck on your journey
I'm 7 years clean thanks to methadone. for me its been super effective. i wish it wasnt so stigmatized from decades of misinformation
Absolutely to ibogaine. Big no to methadone. Methadone is more physically destructive to your body than heroin is. Been there, done that. It's just another way for the rich to get richer, and for one to be addicted to something new.
@@brian8152 I wouldn't say it's overly stigmatized. But it seems to unjustifiably overshadow the other more practical and efficacious solutions for getting off opioids like ibogaine treatment or actual heroin tapering programs like those seen in Canada.
I’m glad this is being talked about, I’ve volunteered and interned in harm reduction and it was a very rewarding experience.
I wish more ppl could get in board with what John is saying. What he talks about in this video saves lives and cuts down on sooooo much healthcare costs. eg. Giving someone clean needles is sooooooo much cheaper than paying for their life long HIV meds.
It's not about "cost", it's about profit, and there's no profit in healthy people.
@@ynemey1243 And a lot of private profit in incarcerating people.
In Portugal in the late 90s there was an enormous drug problem. So, they decided to decriminalise every single drug, start treating low dose possession and use people as victims of a horrible drug epidemic and guess what, crime went down, consumption went down and the large drug problem basically ended. Treating people like human beings and understand and hear them it’s all you need…
Shhh, we're not supposed to talk about that, nor much else that makes perfect sense😕
remember, the US constitution only bans slavery if it isn't punishment of a crime. The US prison system is a machine that requires bodies for free labor. Allowing drugs to be decriminalized and harm to be reduced gets rid of that free prison labor force. Yay capitalism.
@@skipperino2677
This is true, and remember, most all privatized state prisons have a contractual obligation to maintain high percentage minimums of filled beds with private corporation prison systems.
I have to disagree with most of it. I had been in a situation with a guy who got high at Walmart, stole their electric handicap cart, drove to my place of work, and then screamed at me. Told me that I was responsible for calling him an ambulance, grabbed my window to prevent me from rolling it up. We called 911 twice for him. The cops knew he was a repeat offender and didn't show up until went over to Starbucks to scream at some other people. He was a narcissistic spoiled drug addict. Prevent the situation. Tough times make good people. Makes them realize they aren't the center of the world.
@@annthatsallshewrote
Factual data always empirically trumps anecdotal false equivalency "feelings".
In case anyone wants to know. You can go to CVS and ask the pharmacist for narcan and the pharmacist will write the prescription for you. Without a doctor. When i went to the local one near me, the pharmacist hadnt heard of that policy. But its stated on their website so it was easy to clear up. And they wrote the script. I feel that info should be more public.
That's a great tip! I've been wanting to get some to keep in a first aid bag for my car.
@@Sophie-ge7ti sorry i wasnt clear when i typed it. All states can get it from cvs but those states listed they will even deliver it for u
For us Canadians, a lot of harm reduction centres, as well as police and EMS, will distribute free naloxone kits. The government funds a program for pharmacies to distribute these kits for free as well.
Yeah it should! I got narcan from my methadone clinic. 2 boxes(4 doses) for free.
Rite Aid has that policy as well. As John said, it’s a good first step, but it would be better if it was over the counter.
I was living with my cousin when he died of an overdose a couple years ago. I think about it all the time. I had no idea he was taking stuff like that. I was giving him chest compressions when I should have been looking for narcan shots. I miss him a lot.
Golden Thief Bug Card- Sorry for your loss.
Don't blame yourself, you didn't know.
My sister lost her son last year. So much pain.
You can’t beat yourself up over should’ve could’ve would’ve thoughts. Like you said you had no idea. It’s not on you, although I am sorry for your loss.
Those who want to punish drug users into abstinence are also unfortunately okay with punishing them to death. They associate drug use with immorality, and therefore worthy of imprisonment or death. Either will work just fine.
It's not a morality issue. It's a utility issue. These people will never be productive again.
Thank you for this. Raising awareness of harm reduction is vitally important. I lost my son to a fentanyl overdose in October of 2021. Clean needles and Narcan kept him alive for longer than even he expected. I’m grateful for that extra time with him, and hope to get involved with harm reduction programs in my community. If I can spare someone else’s loved one this tragedy, it’s totally worth it.
DRUG addicts will get free heroin at Britain’s first shooting gallery in a police initiative to cut crime and save lives.
They will be allowed to inject themselves three times a day supervised by health staff at a centre open seven days a week.
from 2019
FREE Pharmaceutical Heroin Sulfate
So sorry for your loss and admire your wish to help others
Never a good right thing to say, but sending you tight hugs and gentle compassion. Thank you for sharing your kind heart ❤️
I'm so sorry for your loss. A dear friend of mine lost his son to a fentanyl overdose as well, and it is heart-breaking even from a distance. I wish you the best of luck with harm reduction facilities in your community.
So, what your saying is that he overdosed more than once and kept shooting up.
Alcoholic in recovery with 9 months here. Addiction to drugs and alcohol does the same thing to us whether you’re drinking fine liquor or shooting points of fentanyl from the street.
The difference is how the society and the law perceive you. Not once have I ever gotten a dirty look or felt stigma from telling people I’m a 25 year old alcoholic in recovery. But if I were a lower class kid living in Chicago with drug addiction, the state would’ve had me behind bars a decade ago.
Thanks John & to the producers for talking about this important issue ❤️
i never thought of this before, that’s an amazing point! i feel like our culture around drinking in general is super broken, too. joking about needing to drink to get though the day, lamenting how hard it’ll be to not drink for 9 months while pregnant, getting mad because the person you bought a drink for didn’t order something with alcohol - that’s all considered normal, but if you swapped alcohol with almost any other drug, people would be super concerned. i think there’s a lot of people out there who are alcoholics (or at least have dangerous drinking habits) but don’t realize because “it’s just alcohol”
I would argue a large part of the difference for peoples (my) reaction isn't in your substance, but that to do anything but alcohol you have to start breaking laws and spend loads of money, which means that even if one doesn't care about your vice they (I) will still look at you as someone who clearly isn't neutered and safe to be around. No matter how ridiculous that mindset is, and how obviously different the crimes ppl (I) fear to be subject to are from the crimes you'd've history with - Being human is to be a hypocrite, because no matter how much we know something rationally we will feel things irrationally.
@@feha92 there are a vast majority of laws that people break all the time, not all laws are created equal. ie it's illegal to own sex toys in some states, but there is not really the same stigma against sex toys as there is for drugs, even though they are arguably both things people do for pleasure in private.
This always gets me, I will never forget going to a parade in a county with "No place for drugs" signs all over the county roads and nearly every town entrance... but they had 3 beer trucks in their homecoming parade for the biggest town there... 3... I just kept laughing all day and pointing out to my family from there that alcohol is a drug too as they drank their beers in public.
@@mermaidismyname if some stranger sources a criminalized electronic device and I find out, I would probably feel at unease standing next to them too, tho? Admittedly there are indeed illegal acts that doesn't make you feel that way, but they are almost always either things you do yourself, or things that no cop would actually act on, usually both at once (ie - while this actually isn't illegal here - jaywalking, something everyone does, and cops would be fine watching you do)
My brother passed away from a fentanyl ealier this month. He had smoked Heroin for 30 years with a good, safe supply.
He went to San Francisco, where he didn't know anyone and got a bag of Fentanyl. Got the call that he passed away the next day. Miss you Bri, rest in peace man. Safe injection sites are needed in every single city in the country, and if you oppose that you need to look in the mirror and really think about whether you care about your neighborhood or the health of those in your community.
So sorry for your loss. It can happen to anyone. We need to help each other not hurt and judge.
My brother passed away from the same exact thing earlier this week, I was coming in here to say the same thing. So sorry for your loss and thank you for summing up my thoughts.
Good grief 30 years....
I am so sorry for your loss!
For Backwards Hat Guy: If your brother was addicted to heroin which situation would you rather he be in?
A. Alone in his apartment, isolated, with absoloutely no one to help him if he overdoses.
Or B. He gets medical supervision EVERY time he uses, and also encouragement to seek treatment.
I feel like people really ought to try and think of it like the person who is addicted is their brother, sister, child, parent, friend or significant other, and the whole thing might make a bit more sense. Yeah, heroine is bad, but as the woman at the end said, just flat out isolating someone from everything isnt going to help them get better. It will just make them more likely to die alone. Which...I guess means they arent addicted any more, but damn, its really throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Backwards Hat Guy's counter: No one in my family would be stupid enough to do drugs! Now excuse me while a down 4 cups of coffee and an energy drink, go to work at a pharmaceutical company, smoking in the car the whole way, then drink 5 beers at the bar!
@@scottthewaterwarrior Alternately, he'll just choose option A.
And just insist that if everyone he loves overdoses they deserve it.
Hate to tell backwards hat guy: bars are harm reduction centers for alcohol. Does that stop you from drinking alcohol? Does it feel like its enabling?
Presumably, he'd say he'd rather his brother not do heroin at all, and just straight up fail to comprehend that that's not an option.
@@lauraswager2841 Bars certainly enable, though. Not sure what you're talking about. In fact, they add a social element to it that can make the addiction harder to leave behind, because it can feel like you're forced to abandon friends (especially friends who will think you now think you are better than them) for doing it.
As someone who works for such a facility in Germany for 15 years now, I can say good for you to get this topic on the agenda. In the light of the ongoing opioid crisis in the US this is the way to go, if you care for the life and well being of your fellow citizens. Btw. what is not mentioned here, is that it is also cheaper (for the tax payer) to run such places, than to let the drug problem, that is already there, run wild and to pretend it doesn't exist. There are many reasons why that is, but to name one instead of boring you out with a long list: Under supervision and observation by trained medical personell and/or social workers we prevent or treat many overdoses in-house, so there's no need to call an ambulance in many cases (which would cost a lot of money). OD prevention starts even before consuming drugs, cause you speak to people beforehand and make sure they know what they are doing and they know their current dose etc. I could go on with this rant forever but I spare you further details for now :-D sorry :-*
I think saving ambulance costs is actually less relevant here as the government isn't paying for healthcare. If we had federal health care perhaps science based policies could be more impactful for their economic component.
Vielen Dank für Ihre wichtige Arbeit!
Hoffen wir, dass der Krieg nicht alle sinnvollen Pläne der Ampel auf Eis legt.
@@kf10147 try a little common sense.
If you call an ambulance, do they check whether you can pay before they come?
Do ambulance operators get paid regardless of where they go and who they end up treating?
Who pays those ambulance operators?
Where does the money to pay them come from?
Hopefully that's enough for you to get why this argument stands regardless of whether we have a fully government run health care system or not.
@@kf10147 I'm not German, but Dutch (we've been using this approach for decades, theres cons and pros to it). At any rate, educating and turning the other cheek tends to be the way to go - even for atheists. Giving a heroin addict some methadon is better than letting them steal. The ambulance costs are part of this equation, but most benefit is gained by destressing the people who are self-medicating. It isn't that hard to realise... Drugs, when addicted, are used to numb. To the point of not caring about anything but the high. Junkies will sell their grandmother if you let them... These people don't like the situation they are in, they want help - especially after a few years. You can see a similar thing with people living on the streets: it's not the result of some plan of theirs. It's desperation, cruel emotion; like suicidal tendencies, they aren't completely logical.
The odd thing in the US is that you do like drugs and dealing them. You have a similar stance on guns and oil. It's not about morality, it's about money... Also has pros and cons (Me and the German dude watching this show can be considered both). Jon tries to open your eyes, but it's hard I suppose. For non-Americans, this all seems a bit on the nose. A lot of Americans are blissfully unaware - it's where a lot of your problems come from: not really caring as long as you yourself don't have problems. To be fair, the whole world is like that, but we aren't all the best country in the world, I suppose. You simply don't seem to want to realise and you just move on.
Being a stickler for ambulances is typical, I guess ;)
It's odd to be that angry as a nation, while you also praise Jebus and freedom. The brits kicking out the diehard puritan criminals wasn't that smart either, seemingly.
I view Harm Reduction the same as having seatbelts and airbags in cars. We know car accidents are an inevitability, so rather than banning all cars we put in places measures to help in preventing deaths.
We all know pedophilia is an inevitably. We should give free kiddie porn to would be sex offenders so they don't have the urge to seek it out themselves. It's just like seatbelts. Ain't I smart and compassionate?
Harm reduction is seen by a lot of people as the equivalent of putting nets under every skyscraper because sometimes people jump off them. That is to say “why bother trying to prevent the harm that they themselves seem bent on self inflicting.” Speaking for myself, the idea of going out of my way in order to try to help someone essentially hurt themselves less is a little galling. It feels a lot like saying that if your friend wants to commit suicide, you’re supposed to hand him the knife least likely to actually get the job done. I’d rather not hand him anything at all. He might do it no matter what, but that doesn’t magically trap me into a moral quandary about the lesser of two evils which obligates me to help. I think people should be free to do what they want with their own bodies, completely, but that doesn’t entitle them to help when their own actions lead to predictable consequences. The same way you assume the risks of your parachute not opening when you go skydiving, recreational drug users should assume the risks of their own actions in their totality, assuming they took that risk of their own free will.
@@darylbas8216 There's all types of problems with your analogies, so I'll just start with the skyscraper one... Harm Reduction isn't like putting a net up so when people jump they fall into a net. The proper parallel would be having a sincere counselor by your side as you walk up the stairs, reminding you of all the things you could lose and all the people that will miss you and all the chances you still have to make the world a better place for yourself and if you still choose to jump, there's a net to stop you and someone to remind you of all the things they said before.
You may want to read up on addiction, as your understanding of it isn't great. The reason it's generally classified as a disease, is because it destroys people's abilities to think clearly and their bodies and minds are fighting to continue to use the substance. Which sort of throws "free will" out of the window a little, wouldn't you say?
Even if I were to concede that addiction somehow, magically, robs you of your free will, which I don’t, but let’s say I did, how does that do anything to justify the very first step a person must necessarily make to get to that point? If someone, of their own volition, placed that first needle in their arm, I consider them to be responsible for all ensuing consequences. Addiction being categorized as a disease or not is irrelevant, because even if it is, it is a self inflicted one.
I find it a questionable policy, at best, to interfere with what a person does with their own body, or to remove their agency over it in any way. All recreational drugs should be legal as far I’m concerned, and treated just like alcohol is, but I would not spend a dime of taxpayer money on programs like AA, even if their success rate was much higher than it actually is. An action that results solely in a person harming themselves should be the sole purview of that person, for good or ill. If family or friends want to help, that’s their business, but to actually have public funds diverted towards that assistance is beyond the pale.
My analogy may have been incomplete because harm reduction programs don’t only provide a safety net, but it wasn’t wrong. Fundamentally, such programs aim at correcting self imposed destructive behavior, and at preventing the end result which such behavior so often leads to. Justify it how you want, make whatever excuses you want, but at the end of the day almost all addicts are victims by their own hand.
I have a friend who was recently diagnosed with lung cancer after having smoked a pack a day for most of his life, despite everybody and their mother asking him to quit. I hate to say it, but he got exactly what he asked for, no more, no less. He’s probably going to die, and as far as I’m concerned he’ll have committed suicide. I have another friend who does so many steroids he’s probably going to end up having open heart surgery by the time he’s 40. Drug users are generally not any more ignorant of the potential consequences of their addiction than my friends are, but they continue to indulge their habit for any one of a thousand reasons. I don’t judge them. God knows there are plenty of things in this life that make being high as a kite 24/7 seem like a good idea, but we don’t excuse drunks from the consequences when they decide to drive, just because they have a real good reason for drinking, do we? We shouldn’t excuse addicts from any consequences their own actions lead to, no matter how tragic, because at the end of the day, those consequences were foreseeable and avoidable.
If I’m completely wrong about everything else, you can be certain I’m right on this: those programs are always going to face an uphill battle to see widespread acceptance as long as the people they are trying to help are seen as the authors of their own fate. It’s simply human nature to buck at the idea of helping someone who they see as having cut off their own nose, not even to spite their face, but just because it felt so damn good.
Daryl Bas, Look for the comment below by Domingos Varela Marreiros regarding Portugal's experience. Empathy doesn't seem to be your strong suit, maybe a little enlightened self interest might work
I was pretty much on the other side of the fence for the first few minutes, but John got me to come over. Drug addicts are gonna do drugs. Better to have them in an environment that keeps them and those around them safe. Louise Vincent made a very powerful point.
Also remember that being strung out is horrible and you almost always wake up feeling awful. It’s not like it’s fun to be a junky despite what the right wing politicians will tell you .
Imagine being an active part in your own self destruction and being unable to stop, not a good time.
thanks for keeping an open mind about it. Also, i've taken a fuckload of drugs, (never addicted like in the movies but that's also what most addicts would say :-) ) most my friends have too, and most grow out of it naturally, sometimes with a bit of help, sometimes through life experiences. Putting people in prison for it doesn't help that come sooner, quite the contrary.
I don't know about drugs, but I do know about alcohol. You know how sometimes you get so drunk you throw up? Ok, when you've been drinking too much for too long, it's the opposite. You start puking when you DON'T drink. That's when you feel that you can't stop, and it's not a good feeling. I imagine it's even harder than that with drugs.
I would have been opposed to this as well before because two of my brothers were addicts and I had a lot of childhood resentment towards them. One of them passed away because he took what he thought was Xanax, but it was spiked with fentanyl. Changed my perspective entirely. The police said this was epidemic to the area and people were dying from fentanyl spikes left and right. They also said they had a good idea who was doing it, but couldn't pin it on the person.
@@MrVovansim as someone currently studying psychopharmacology, alcohol is categorically a drug, and one of the most destructive at that. I think it's really interesting how our culture (and therefore policy) frames different substances as illicit/acceptable not based on research or outcomes, but on social norms and perception. For example, alcohol usage kills approximately 95,000 people in the US annually, more than heroin, methamphetamine, ecstacy, LSD, or cannabis, and yet alcohol remains far more socially and legally acceptable than any of these drugs.
As someone with an addict in the family. I have been incredibly scared of touching anything. This is good to know we should be questioning
As an MD, yes, it's BS. Don't eat, inject or put inside your body; otherwise, you're fine. Also, don't flush down the toilet. Pharmacies can take opioids and dispose of them safely, assuming we're talking prescription meds.
For heroin, it may be more complicated (don't walk into a pharmacy with heroin xP). Maybe there's the option of DisposeRx? It's a powder that works for all sorts of meds and kind of cakes them in a blob.
"When you treat a drug like a bioweapon you jutsify a punitive militarized response to it"
This was terrifying to hear, becuase it could open the floodgates to militarized DEA police similar to what is seen in Latin America.
Too late.
@@EAKugler my thoughts exactly…
We already have those in the USA.
While the US police are militarised, I think the original comment is referring to units like BOPE in Brazil whose tactics whilst politically effective are akin to military combat operations without much oversight or accountability.
This mind hygiene Nazism is created and perpetrated by the US and its war on the people, which they call war on drugs. It spread from there, for example to Latin America
Another huge issue, is that once an addict goes to an outpatient rehab facility it takes 2 full weeks of being CLEAN before they can see a suboxone doctor. This is what killed my husband. Addicts can't stay clean for 2 weeks, so instead they continue using and give up, or die. Our whole system is broken and is killing people every second of every day.
I am so sorry for your loss. That is reprehensible and makes absolutely no fkin sense to me. I have been on suboxone for a year and I went to a clinic as soon as I hit withdrawal. I can't imagine an actual rehab restricting this option and thinking they are even close to doing due diligence in harm reduction.
At the very least he should have started methadone or SOMETHING. No one makes it two weeks. If he was clean for that long then they clearly just want people addicted to the suboxone. Which is a whole other demon entirely. My condolences.
That's horrible. No addict could make it two weeks clean. Goddamn if they did that WHY would they need to get a Suboxone prescription? I am sorry for your loss.
This may have been true before, or in your specific situation, but this isn't true anymore. You need two weeks clean before you can go on vivitrol(naltrexone) but that's just because of the mechanics of the drug.
@@timothytorigian7932 yeah but they say you MUST be in withdrawal before starting Suboxone and I did that the first time I took it but second time I filled my script went home and took it and didn't miss a beat. Then I was told I wasn't at a bad level comparatively though I was taking 7-8 10mg hydrocodone daily so ?
@@r.shanethompson7933 you honestly shouldn't go on suboxone if you were only taking 8 vicodin a day. Suboxone is so much stronger. The concern is going into precipitated withdrawal, when you are addicted to heroin and don't wait long enough to take suboxone, the naloxone in it will send you into immediate withdrawal. It is extremely painful. This wouldn't happen on that much vicodin. The "experts" don't know this though because its never happened to them before, they are just warned about it, and they've seen it happen to addicts who lie about feeling bad enough because they just want to take something.
I think this is fundamentally an argument between moral purists and realists those who love to play blame games and those who are willing to swallow the bitter pill and come up with solutions
This applies to so many things. Homelessness in particular. Many people become addicted AFTER they become homeless. People complain about the problem, erroneously blaming addicts, but whenever someone comes up with a solution, the complainers call NIMBY. Could actually take care of two problems at once with HRCs.
They like to pat themselves on the back, claiming the moral high ground, while advocating for the opposite of what actually works, just to be able to pat themselves on the back that much harder.
The realist would claim that with money being tight everywhere the last place to shove it into should be the rehabilitation of people who signed up for their misery. I know everyone loves the narrative of the addict who had a perfect live and then an injury happened and the addiction started bc of the pain meds. I'm sure that's how they all started. Not by using shit they shouldn't have to treat problems that are more often than not self-made.
I disagree. I don’t think HRCs enable addiction or shouldn’t exist, but I think it’s a fine line.
My complicated emotions behind HRCs come from desperation to lesser this problem, not a moralistic viewpoint.
I work in harm reduction and am happy this episode was made. One thing that needed to be changed was the information on Naloxone. There is more to know then it "Builds a wall against opioids" It saves lives and should always be used but you should also know that it does not stop Overdose it just blocks it for a short time. Always call 911 after to get medical help
What John Oliver and staff are doing is so important, week in and last week out. Pulling no punches, examining and exhibiting both sides of the hypocrisy in this country, and somehow making it entertaining. I fucking love this show and am thankful for it.
As a four-year recovering addict I think I can speak for all of us when I say I greatly appreciate the coverage you do on this topic and I hope that one day the government will stray from their old ways and try something different to help with this epidemic
Then elect the government that would do that.
Congrats on your sobriety, man! And adding I also really appreciate the coverage (have not personally had addiction, but live in a city where it's a big problem, and I want my neighbors to live!)
@@basilspaghetti thank you 😊
i remember, a few years ago, i was taking the bus and i overheard two guy sitting in front of me talking. one was much older than the other, and he’d must’ve noticed the younger guy had a bag or shirt or something associated with a rehab, because he said that he’d been there too. he asked the younger guy how many times he’d been to rehab, and the younger guy mumbled “15,” like he was ashamed of it. the older guy then told him, “don’t feel too bad if you still relapse. i went 42 times before i stopped using.” that broke the ice and they started fervently talking about drugs, addiction, trying to stay sober, etc. (i don’t really remember the details because i was trying not to eavesdrop).
i think about that a lot when people say addicts are a drain/ shouldn’t have much support. it would’ve been easy for people to see 41 times at rehab and 41 relapses after and conclude that trying again is a waste of taxpayer money. but no one stopped him, he went one more time, and that time it stuck. people are unpredictable and complex, we can’t judge others’ lives by how they look on paper.
it just takes a few nice words everyday from someone you respect and who respects you no matter what in times when you need help and you will change yourself....I know a guy who used heroin for 13 years and once he found a job and a boss who gave him a chance no matter how many times he didnt show up working or messed up....in a few months without any rehab or any substitutes he was clean....boss took him in while he was cleaning up his addiction....he is now clean for 8 years, still works for the same guy and calls him father....what can just one man do....imagine if a country would try to help....this goes for depression also....
biggest problem we humans face is that we see our problems as the biggest ones and everyone else should just deal with theirs....we need a work place where bosses are accepting of your life troubles not only the daily profits....when you feel down you need someone to talk to you not yell at you....we live in a mess up society....am have depression and use weed for it....it isnt helping but it is making me not care for a few hours....but a month ago I got a new job, people are understanding and give me a lot of confidance in my abilities by giving me words of praise and bigger responsibilities, something I didnt have in my last few jobs....I have cut down on weed and selfisolation.....sometimes phisical or mental pain is all you need to ruin your life.....and a kind person to start building it up....
As an addict for years now in recovery, this is incredibly on point. John Oliver seems to be stating the truth heavier than almost anyone I see on TV these days. It is comedy, but hard reality all the same. Kudos.
He's been so good at that since his show debuted. Comedy but he and his research staff are on point. The spend a LOT of time doing research on his featured topic of the week.
Thank you for acknowledging (in an excellent comedic fashion) the importance of our life saving health interventions. As the Executive Director of the first two OPC’s in the US I’m honored to have influential people like you on the right side of this. Believe me, I understand it what looks like from 30,000 feet away but I offer anyone an opportunity to visit and see what we do and how we do it. I’m blessed with well trained/amazing/caring/loving staff who embrace the humanity in all of our participants. Let’s not get stuck on propaganda, like with all medicine lets use facts and science, not fiction, opinions, drama and scare tactics.
15:15 - "I truly believe that addiction is the opposite of connection." As it turns out, she was right. The worst thing you can do to an addict is let them be by themself.
EXACTLY 100%
I'm still waiting for the the Sackler family to face any real consequences for the opioid crisis . The billions recovered in civil forfeiture, like other drug dealers, would go a long way in funding.
Campaign finance reform
They deserve to all rot in Jail, then an eternity rotting in hell.
They never will, after the ruling. They are monsters. I don’t wish death on people because it’s bad karma but fuck man I also wouldn’t shed a single tear if something awful happened to them.
It's over.... unless vigilantes suddenly become a thing.... there's nothing to be done.
@@LikeTheProphet Yeah.Opioid addiction is pure hell and suffering. Honestly i would rather be shot in the head than go through another cold turkey in my life. The withdrawal alone traumatized me. But the consequences of having no money and living on the street...cant imagine that. Im incredibly lucky here in germany,and didnt had to live long like this. But months,years just out there? having those turkeys in some shelter? Thats the real hell for you...but for people that didnt deserve it.
Just imagine thos Sackler people getting some cold turkey themselves. Thats karma for you :)
This makes me so happy to see it! I volunteer for Dance Safe in the DC area, one of the key things we do is provide testing at festivals and raves as well and we train folks on how apply Narcan. This service has saved many lives
Kids, never do coke in the middle of the street, the wind is likely to blow it all away.
Or that chick in the poodle skirt. Nobody will ever share with her again. Ungrateful!
The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind
This is not only good drug advice, its also good economic advice
@@theherk imagine how long Jimmy had to save up his allowance to buy that much coke
Absolute travesty
I study public policy, and one of the biggest things I have learned is that good policy is not always immediately likeable. It often counters preconceived notions about the world. Good policy is based on data, not feelings.
I agree. That's why we should get rid of narcan. I know, it doesn't feel good but the data shows that given time the problem would sort itself out if we didn't give it out to people who use illegal drugs.
@@darcyrobbs6866 There's nothing that shows that nor is there any realistic line of logic that would give credence to the idea so stop trying to be cute. Getting rid of narcan is not going to help anyone. Just more death. Literally no upside. Addicts can't get clean if they die from fentanyl before then. And people who don't even use opioids, who aren't even addicts or habitual users still have to navigate around fentanyl and other contaminants.
@@darcyrobbs6866 are you saying that public policy should be to just allow all addicts to overdoes and die and that would fix the problem of drug use? I really hope thats not what you intended but that is what it came across as saying.
@@drayle71 Yes that's exactly what he's saying. Because addicts are beneath him apparently.
Question: What is a long-term, sustainable solution to a public that is more welcoming to counterintuitive but ultimately correct policies? My intuition says education but I hope the true answer is not so painfully clear
This happened to me…I overdosed a couple years ago in Wareham, Ma., at my moms house (cringe)…one of the officers who arrived on the scene faked an overdose. We used our dope in my brothers room, and i “went out” in the living room. My brother called 912, 2 officers showed up, and one of them asked what i took, my brother said it was either heroin or fentanyl. The other officer heard fentanyl, and started acting like he was overdosing. He had to have another ambulance come to get him. He also got a two week paid vacation and was hailed as a hero. It was on major news outlets. Luckily, my name or mothers address wasn’t used. The fire dept. and police dept. tried pulling some shady fentanyl testing at my mother’s house, but couldn’t find anything. Careful out there people.
When you called for help, the responders were uneducation and unfeeling, and apparently looking for a way to profit from the crisis they were supoosed to (and paid to) mitigate.
You overdosed on dope? How much did you take? 2 pounds?
Holy fuck, dude. When the people who are supposed to help just make a bad situation worse.
Wow! Like we werent having enough trouble with cops already!
FTP
I'm a librarian, and one neat thing my library does is we have naloxone kits available for free, no questions asked. It's a small thing, but I think it's a step in the right direction.
That’s excellent! Yet more fantastic things for the community coming out of libraries
Wow that's so cool
Pre pandemic The downtown Denver public library has a whole floor dedicated to helping the homeless and people with adiction. Not as far as naloxone kits (as far as I know) but they have an area where people can sit, eat snacks that the library privides and twice a week people from the department of labor are a avalible to help get people programs to help them get on their feet. Its not much and I don't know if they are able to do as much because we are still coming out of the pandemic. The thing is the library became the safe space for people needing help. To the point that when I heard the library's buget was getting cut so the fucking police could get more I was fucking pissed!
sober person here, i'm now tempted to go do opioids in your library
just kidding i'm addicted as fuck lol
Libraries are honestly the best places in the world.
as a person who works in healthcare I'm glad that videos like this exist and spread good information and facts
“Blue Bloods is essentially adult Paw Patrol”
They secured the Emmy award right there.
Blue Bloods is bound to get nominated now.
Isn't it just a framing device for reverse mortgage scams?
We are speaking the same language right now.
The funny part is that Paw Patrol is actually more nuanced; the villain is often the mayor and the police dog does community work! So, Blue Bloods is racist, worse, adult paw patrol.
@@Kane_the_Newschool_DM my thoughts exactly!! Blue Bloods wishes it was half as good as paw patrol! Paw patrol is also way more successful they have their movie and all, billions of views on their UA-cam clips, and a much higher quality show overall.
I wanna thank you and your team for shedding a deeper light on facilities that help drug addicted users to administer their "highs" safely. I had always taken the stance that it was enabling them, and taking resources away from much more important things like helping those struggling with homelessness. You have 100% enlightened me and changed my mind. Personally I also don't have anyone in my life that is a user so it was always easy to be disconnected from their plight, but after everything presented you definitely made me realize that I misunderstood the intention of these facilities and how they are actually effective in helping save lives as well as helping people quit. It's amazing work what you and your fellow journalists and team do...thank you!!
It very much is enabling them and it's also not John q taxpayer's responsibility to give addicts a place to go shoot up.
Love to hear it, I wanna thank you to being open to having your mind changed.
@@Inanedata Seriously, this. Many of the gigantic problems we have in the world is because people are not willing to change their minds because it damages their ego directly and they simply can't admit it (I personally think it has to do with the fear of death).
I have a load of respect for you keeping an open mind, willing to adjust course with new information / perspectives. I deeply wish the world was filled with more who were willing to approach things that way. 💓
Much respect for your open-mindedness! It takes a strong person to take a stance, it takes an even stronger one to change that stance in the face of convincing arguments and evidence.
Here's hoping that more of us are strong like you.
15:15 "Addiction is the opposite of connection." This is 100% true. As a psychonaut myself, I can tell I'm most afraid of the substances I consume when I feel lonely. You can learn a lot from veneficium, but you learn way more sharing the world you perceive with others.
Watch the ted talk by johann hari about this, PLEASE!
I’m a harm reduction worker id a new scope of social work that’s incredibly effective. Thank you for the coverage this is undoubtedly the best way forward
I've just remembered that I was about 14 or 15 Yo when our town introduced such a program and people in general were very happy with some one helping those poor people "living in a daily hell" of addiction. It prevented a lot of deaths. Later I met people who told me, that they used to do heroin, and I could not believe it, since they were all... just normal citizens partaking in regular live. I don't want to image how many I would not have met without such programs like the one in our small town in Germany. I am 40+ now, btw. so you are a little late to the helping, USA.
i'm in western canada, and it seems like most people are on board having these clinics available, but the public never seems to want it in their own community. "not in my backyard" or "NIMBY" as we refer to it... it applies to a lot of these social programs. they want to see these people get help, but not if it means having to walk past a needle exchange on their way to their bus stop or cafe. so where to build them? thankfully they do still get built.
@@jlt131 NIMBYs are pretty awful, you're right about that
Yeah, I truly believe that people who use drugs are no less capable than others. Everyone has issues and needs to be healed in an environment which respects them.
@@jlt131 That is true
Yeah, we've been late on a lot of things. Gun control, drugs, alcohol, public school regulations, unchecked state powers, etc etc
"The slightest exposure can cause an overdose."
So . . . Are actual drug users superheroes than who are above all of us mortal men?
big lol thks
NEVER ONCE IN HUMAN HISTORY DID COPS TELL THE TRUTH.
And in 2022, everyone is STILL PLAYING DUMB, just like Oliver.
KKKOPS WERE INVENTED TO RAPE / ROB / TERRORIZE us serfs, on behalf of their EMPEROR MASTERS.
Exactly same as 2022.
I have had fentanyl in a hospital and have a paradoxical reaction to it. It makes me incredibly awake but increases my pain. I must be an extra superhero.
For real, I have seen drug users do some superhuman shit. I once saw a tweeker running down the street with a VCR under each arm being chased by the cops like 10 feet behind him dive into some bushes and *actually* vanished. Saw a dude on angel dust get pissed at someone and flipped their volvo over with his bare hands. I, myself, once ate three and a half soft shell taco supreme grande meals (That's 35 tacos, for those who don't know)in a single sitting when I was really baked, and I didn't even get explosive diarrhea.
And then we have the *true* 'gods among men', like Keith Richards and Ozzy Osbourne, who have literally done all the drugs, and will be the last two cohesive molecular constructs when our universe suffers heat death. Then, one of them will snort the other, causing all matter in the universe to collapse to a single finite point, and restarting the universe once more.
Presumably tolerance is a factor...
The "war on drugs" served two purposes. First it gave police departments access to huge budget increases and military weaponry ; and two, it insured prisons were packed with non violent small fry drug use offenders , which justified huge prison guard salaries. It also helped destroy minority neighborhoods that were victimized by drugs coming in from outsiders by throwing the victims in prisons , and justified White racism against the victims of the drug epidemic of the 1980s to the present. Only when the epidemic reached rural White America did it become a medical social problem rather than a law enforcement problem.
Exactly correct!!! I love this comment
Great summation! My thoughts exactly- thanks!!
Drugs are not a victimless crime. These people steal and even kill to get this stuff. We don’t live in a world where we all hold hands and pray the addiction away
@@Cuphandoe Luckily no one is endorsing the ridiculous stawman you created to argue against.
@@voxomnes9537 what would you like done then? Invite these people into you’re home
As someone who is going into a professional peer support specialist field, I’ve learned all about harm reduction, and it WORKS. The goal is to provide as much safety as possible for those who are using, and as they continue protective modalities, they’ll be more likely to decide to recover instead of just die alone, STIGMA KILLS
I love that you’re educating people about this. I’ve lost many friends to addiction and overdose. I myself, like many others, became an addict after being grossly overprescribed pain meds after having work done on my teeth. I’m fortunate in having been able to recover. 8 years sober.
Congrats on your sobriety. 8 years!! 🎉
As someone who was arrested in PA specifically for running a county harm reduction service for a decade, thank you. We need more people teaching the facts and less media dramatization.
Bless you for helping your fellow humans.
The criminalization of addiction has not just caused overdose deaths, its caused people to get addicted. Why, because people in pain become desperate and frantic to find a solution and instead of working with patience to solve over prescription issues in opioids, and what might make someone have a predisposition to addiction, or properly educate communities, they just demonize and remove crucial treatments.
I worked with a 32-year-old who'd been addicted to heroin for almost two decades at that point. (According to him, pot very much was an entry drug for him. Pot at 12, heroin at 13.) He'd been to jail (possibly even prison) a couple of times, including for armed robbery to finance his drug use.
I met him when he went through professional training as an adult. Smart enough and motivated man. Reducing his heroin use further and further. (He was in a controlled drug dispensary programme.) That was the way to deal with the problems he was having and the problems he was causing. He sure wasn't robbing anyone while in that programme. And the jail/prison stints surely hadn't helped him get clean.
Nope criminalization isn't to blame the medical community is they pushed opioids for decades
I was in a car accident, an 87 year old with dementia T-boned my car as he blew a red light.
I have 5 herniated disc in my neck, 3 more in my lower back. I also have issues with my rotator cuff and my left shoulder that I often experience loss of felling in that entire arm.
I am on a medication patch not Fentanyl! And it works for me, I can function without being in pain. Since that accident though all I’ve tried doing is getting medical treatment to function.
Addiction is when you take medication to escape reality. I am trying to not escape but continue to participate in society due to the limitations I now expect to last for a long time.
I was called a drug addict by a former manager and fired. I won that lawsuit.
But my point is the government is trying so hard to ban opioids 100%. They serve a purpose for Cancer patients, chronic pain patients, etc.
I’m not in my 40s or older. I’d say I am young and my doctors continue to try and reduce or take me off the medication that’s been helping.
I wish the government and insurance would allow my doctors to practice medicine!!!
What’s worse is those deaths are mostly from illegal street use. I won’t judge those folks. But please separate death by medication prescribed and illicit drug use. Please.
Because if I tell anyone in my life I am on the medications I have I get instant judgement.
I may discuss this online. Or my family is aware but no friends of mine are aware. No coworkers. I refuse to tell anyone.
@@krisrk Of course there are reasons to prescribe these meds. But they are highly addictive. Which means that people can become addicted to them. Which means in turn that doctors have to be careful when prescribing them. But that doesn't mean they have to stop prescribing them completely.
I don't know if this is any way realistic, but the way it is often portrayed in media, one might think that in the US, people get pain meds that are addictive - or that can even just make them really drowsy - very quickly. How often have I seen people faking pain in a scene on t.v. in order to get pain meds that they are addicted to and how often have I seen a scene where someone was in actual pain and refusing pain meds because they were trying to stay sober? The level of (faked) pain that is portrayed in these scenes is one where I find it weird that someone would get the kind of pain meds that are addictive. (Which seem to be the ones for really bad pain.) I hope that these things are being portrayed very unrealistically on t.v. I have been in pain that was bigger than what I see portrayed on t.v. in these "I am about to get prescribed addictive pain meds" situations twice in my life and neither time did the concept of addictive pain meds come up.
Again, I don't know how realistic that picture in my mind is, but it seems that at least until several years ago, US doctors tended to give people addictive pain meds when this wasn't necessary.
@@camelopardalis84 I agree with most of what you state.
Media and television is controlled and that’s why someone who may not be popular on reality is the Prom Queen in a movie, because the director said so.
Doctors see through fake pain. You can’t fake it, I once at a regular visit heard a lady in the next room say her pain level was a 10/10. If that was true she’d be unable to speak, sit and walk and would be in a hospital.
People abuse everything. Just don’t punish people with documentation of a major injury like myself. I basically collect MRIs.
The last time at an ER I couldn’t speak, was crying and screaming. I was given a strong med via IV it did nothing and 30 minutes later they double dosed me after they had results showing my CT and MRI.
I now stay home vs going to a hospital because they can’t do any for me at this point. I’m on a high level med. I have break through pain medications to help when I change my patch. Pain comes and goes in waves.
Doctors kicking patients off medication has caused suicides and true pain patients those who have Cancer to turn to street drugs for relief.
When you’re hurt so badly that if someone said hey if you eat dog poop it’ll help. I’d gladly do it to try it out because I just want my life back pre accident that I didn’t cause.
No amount of money will ever fix me.
Not will it for most. And at the time that person had a 10k policy so I didn’t win a lottery here either.
I’d actually rather get off these meds and have a solution but that’s easier said than done.
I find it amazing that Oz felt comfortable enough in this space to speak out even when he was using right there. Judging by the reaction of the first woman talking, she wasn't expecting him to say anything, but he did and while he doesn't have his face showing, it's still amazing to me that he trusts the place that much.
The logic took a few leaps for me, but I dunno. For me it just adds to the idea that these places arent as horrible as people make them out to be
There's a lot of parallels here to sex education. "Just don't do it lol" is pretty much most older folks response to sex and drugs. But people WILL have sex and they WILL do drugs. So stop attacking people over it and help them instead.
exactly! abstinence only sex ed has also been proven to not work.
But sex is a natural instinct that can't be suppressed, what in the world is getting you started on drugs?
@@JanLCn There are plenty of reasons why people start using, from peer pressure to curiosity to rebellion. It doesn't matter why they started, all that matters is that they get the help they need, bc once you have the addiction, you need help to have any chance of being able to get better.
@@JanLCn "What in the world is getting you started on drugs?" Probably white evangelical Christians demanding kids and young adults suppress their "natural instinct" to have sex until they're married!
In all seriousness, since the vast majority of overdose deaths over the last decade involve opioids, the "what in the world" is the Sackler family and Perdue Pharma, plus countless doctors who overprescribed OxyContin to treat their patients' chronic pain issues, often for injuries that didn't require a highly addictive opioid to manage their condition. Then, when their doctor yanked their Rx without addressing the dependence it created, those patients had to turn to black-market opioids to satisfy the addiction created by the OxyContin. Even more powerfully than the natural instinct to have sex, opioid withdrawal is something that "can't be suppressed".
it seems those who are so adamantly opposed to any laws or programs designed to help with addiction/keep addicts alive haven't dealt with it in their personal lives. From my experience, they have. They simply don't realize someone close to them has or is going through it.
I was given fentanyl patches for years from my doctor for pain due to a broken back and it helped, but it's amazing how people reacted! My doctor mentioned that if it got too hot it would release more than intended and I swear anytime it got over 70 degrees outside my friends and family would panic that I was going to sweat on something and kill them 😂🤦
That's crazy... You were basically the canary in the coal mine. They should have been worried about you, or at a minimum only worry if Malinda drops dead. At any rate, I hope your back is doing better and you are able to manage the pain.
How stupid is your family wtf?? Sorry to say that but how can they think it could hurt them WHILE THE PATCH IS ON YOUR SKIN???
🤣🤣🤣 Literally LMAO 🤣 whatever did the do when you went into a hot tub?! 😂😂 The misinformation about opioids perpetuated by the media and government agencies has led to some ridiculous thoughts and attitudes by the Gen Pop….like touching a small amount of fentanyl can cause an overdose in an unsuspecting “victim”! FFS 🤦♀️
This is INSANE.
Omg seriously you had a patch of the stuff and they thought a little sweat residue would kill them 🙄
Absolutely love this! Harm reduction is exactly why my wife and I founded Secret Dance Addiction; to normalize healthy nightlife, remove barriers, and connect over music. Last year we threw Sundown Music Festival, the USA's first ever Detox (sober) Music Festival, reconnecting ~1000 sober attendees in music and mindfulness, and it was truly magical.
Loving deeper is always the answer.
Stay lit 🔥
Sending you tight hugs 🫂 💓 and my heartfelt condolences.
Thank you for saying it how it is. This issue is near and dear to me. I'm 10 years clean from heroin and when you're in that system it's clear what could be done and how many giant forces are working against people in need. Your show has helped me see hope in situations that seemed completely hopeless in the past.
I watch this show every week to learn new things about whatever John is talking about, the stories directly about the US are always very interesting but also most of them are pretty sad to hear, I hope for you all that things will change for the better
Amen. I love hearing the issue and one side of it. Many times he is spot on. But one has to know about it to research it.
Sorry, but if you’re getting you info on here you are often being mislead. Though this episode largely didn’t.
Yea he's been consistent weekly for years
@@patrick6213 If I am interested about things talked about here in more detail I do my own research but this is good entertainment and gives me one opinion supported by sources to listen to, it's not a case of blindly believing everything I hear, that's not how the internet works, but by having sources, this is a lot more trustworthy than a lot of other takes on topics
Please keep sending us your hopes but don't forget to send us all of your thoughts, prayers AND wishes..
"Stop warehousing drug users in prisons" should be every government's priority. This would solve many of our societies' issues.
Only problem is then jails lose money and by extension, the politicians who they support
Hey at least in prison Theyre off that shit its tough but works far better then babying them
@@rptrrwr There shouldnt be financial incentives to lock people up in the first place. This is Nazi level wrong
@@rptrrwr and THAT is a huge part of the problem. Jails and Prisons should never be for-profit. Calling them "correctional facilities" is a fucking joke.
@@shadesmarerik4112 agreed, but I'm just pointing out out part of the difficulty in changing things. Decriminalization would go a LOOOONG way to improving the addiction problems people have in this country, but policy makers are not given enough incentive to change their minds. You're right, it's absolutely absurd. And I'm really hoping there's a way we can change this issue.
I'll be marking 2 years of sobriety on April 15th and I really enjoyed this segment. I have always been a huge proponent of harm reduction and I know it saves lives. I wish the rest of the US could see that instead of judging addicts for using and condemning us.
2 years? Dude, good for you.
It's a sad mentality of narcissists who feel good by stomping down on people who have it worse and only want relief from the hardship of life. Then again, they themselves are only stomping down because they, too, want the same relief. They are far more like those who they judge than they realise.
Anyways, I'm proud of your tremendous effort and wish for you the love you deserve. You certainly have mine, even though I'm just a youtube comment.
🎊Congratulations 🎊
My best friend saved my life twice during the worst of my alcoholism. He died of an overdose in a sobriety house. Sneaking it in and using it in a high risk situation with zero potential support during use.
RIP Joe.
Can i just say i appreciate and recognize that John Oliver is one of the very few late night hosts who cover the news that consistently mentions when racism is involved in most of these historical moments. Thank you.
My cousin who was like a brother to me died of an overdose in December and fentanyl was suspected of being involved. The line about people who use harm reduction centers having 100% chance of not dying while they’re there really hit me hard because I immediately realized my cousin would be alive if he’d been able to go to such a place. 😭
So sorry for your loss.
my condolences.
Finally got the coroner’s report back yesterday. Just as we suspected, fentanyl was the cause of death. In a way, I’m relieved because it pretty much confirms that he didn’t overdose on purpose, but it’s bittersweet because it also means it could’ve been prevented.
My sympathies. There are FAR TOO MANY people in the world suffering losses such as yours. The stigma of addiction, which is a disease- not a moral failing is literally killing people. This country is very far behind most of the world in treating this disease.
I'm so sorry for your loss
"Whether it's deliberate or not..."
It is. It is explicitly deliberate. I've known so many people who basically think drug users are less than human and undeserving of basic dignity. It's asinine.
@@em9341 Are you stupid? Society is the REASON heroin and fentanyl even exists.. so yes society should contribute to harm prevention/reduction. On top of that most opiate abuse starts from pre-existing mental and/or physical suffering of which our "Civil" society chooses to do nothing about unless that person has top of the line healthcare or is loaded with cash.
E M - There aren't enough good paying jobs, supportive social programs, affordable housing, mental health care options out there in major urban areas where the largest populations have been affected by the drug pandemic- Y ou are most likely one of the biggest reasons for this, as people like yourself have been objecting and saying "Not in My neighborhood!!" For far too long.
The world is not your personal playground, you coexist with Many other kinds of people;
All as deserving of a good life as you think you are.
Unrelated, but somebody once told me that people with HIV/AIDS don't deserve treatment, because they were clearly having sex outside of marriage.
People like that exist.
@@RooRoove - Who are you or I, for that matter, to judge someone else so harshly without knowing him or her personally? And if you're not interested in knowing these people, how can you make a blanket statement like that?
Doesn't the Bible say Judge Not, lest ye also be judged? Let he who is without sin throw the first stone. It's those holier- than-thou types who screw things up for everybody else. Live and let live. And if you can't do that, then you cannot call yourself human.
This isn't an attack, just an observation.
@@em9341 "workers deprive themselves of mansions and yachts. if they want them, just can just earn more." see how dumb that sounds?
We should want drug users to be safe, warm and cared for during their addiction. Of course people are going to be more likely to seek help if they're in a stable environment. You're ensuring that the drug itself isn't their sole form of security and familiarity, you're building trust and respect, and they know that if they relapse there's still a support network rather than being out in the cold.
😂😂😂
@@Kingko1234 wrong
That is very interesting. I am in recovery not from drugs but from being raised by addicts and I know that my 12 step program and my therapy helps me to do that so why not give addicts the opportunity not to act out their shame and blame by living such a sad dangerous life.
The harm reduction centers in San Francisco were accepted by most but kind of grudgingly. People without addiction or without family trapped in addiction don't understand the pain and suffering the addict brings not just to themselves but to everyone around them. To give them a chance to see themselves as saveable and able to recover is a great gift...to everyone.
I’m American but I’ve been living overseas for several years. I’ll have to move back at some point, and I dread returning to the dismissive cruelty that prevents us from discussing issues like this productively. Every country has its blind spots-addiction is one of ours. Addiction is a difficult byproduct of having a brain. Addicts aren’t a separate species. Many of us could become addicted to something if we got lonely enough or depressed enough.
Well if indeed u HAVE to move back, make sure to pick a good state!
* whispering* Don't move back, don't do it. Think of the cost on you mentally and financially.
Yall have so many blindspots its like watching Hellen Keller
America has more blind spots than the majority of humanity lmao
America legalized Cannabis Sativa to stop the Holocaust.
The reason why everyone is depressed is because we all know that the US Federal government has been lying to us in order to wage the war on drugs.
Watch *Hemp For Victory* and end the government's lies.
Thank you John. From a recovering herion addict. I've been sober since spring 2014.
Congratulations on your sobriety!
The woman talking about disconnecting...was so fucking accurate it made me tear up. She's 100% correct.
when a society grows up on words not actions....look at history of fallen empires and you will see all that is wrong in usa today and the last 40 years...all the signs of collapsing empire are there....lack of care for the common people, lack of care if a leader is good at his job just that he/she reapets what we want to hear, speanding on millitary, lack of education to new generations, and lack of appreciations of new generations to old ones that build it all....worst of all lack of wanting an education and too much wanting of personal freedoms and opinions at any cost...
“D is for Substance D. ‘D’ is dumbness, and despair, desertion-desertion of you from your friends, your friends from you, everyone from everyone. Isolation and loneliness... and hating and suspecting each other, ‘D’ is finally death. Slow death from the head down. Well... that’s it.”
We have this lovely thing in Toronto, Canada called “narcan kits are free at pharmacies for anyone who wants them”
In all of Alberta as well
….you also have the population of one of our states. It’s not the same issue, I’m afraid. We have more junkies than you have population. I worked with them and addicted newborns for years, it’s heartbreaking.
Users definitely need to stop being locked up, I'll give you a damn good reason why, I worked as a county jail guard and you know what one of the worst things to watch for a 14 hour shift? Someone going through withdrawals. Its heart breaking and what I experienced during my time there I shifted a lot of my perspective on crime and punishment. Currently on my way to being a Police Officer and let me tell you, I'm not arresting people for possession, not unless they have enough to be considered a dealer. If you have enough cocaine on you to kill an elephant, you need to be locked up. But I digress, users need to be given the opportunity to have safe and clean means to use and have the resources made available to get off the devils sauce.
SO YOU SAY SOMEONE WITH ENOUGH COKE (MEDICINE CREATED BY MEDICAL DOCTORS) TO KILL AN ELEPHANT SHOULD BE LOCKED UP....BUT NOT ONE PERSON WITH ENOUGH OXY OR MORPHINE OR FENTANYL TO KILL AN ELEPHANT SHOULD BE (aka Pharmacies).
YOU ARE A HYPOCRITE, sir.
Good to see someone with your background say that... you could help out by talking to friends and family and colleagues about it and sharing this video on social media
Just because you have enough heroin on you to be considered a dealer doesn't mean you are when I was using I had enough heroin to kill an entire city but that was like my daily dose
I really am glad to hear that as someone whos been off drugs for 8 years I had a couple times where I couldnt hold the pencil to sign my name on my intake forms. The other inmates hated it too everyone gave me their jello cause it was all I could keep down lol
I have experience as a drug user, and have been engaged in addiction recovery as a licensed therapist for now 25 years. One of the first things I can identify as an absolute truth is that the Reagan Adm era re: the "War on Drugs" was an abysmal failure. It didn't recognize why drugs are used, the nature of addiction, nor address the issue of recovery. It focused on prosecution of "offenders" rather than treatment, in step with the "tough on crime" fervor of the 1980s, and turned the issue into a political quagmire. And it REALLY didn't work. In re: to "harm reduction", I've certainly seen it work for a lot of folks, while it also provides a methodology to continue behaviors of addiction on a forever basis. There are no easy answers here.
But regarding your last point...maybe there are people who won't stop. I mean, you saw pictures of those HR centers, it's not a cosy place you go because you want to have a good time. You go there and take the drugs there so you won't accidentally kill yourself in the process. That's not the actions of someone who would be able to stop themselves if it weren't for those centers, it's the actions of someone who knows this is harmful, dangerous and bad for them, but they cannot stop. There they get to live another Day, get an offer of help when they are ready and until then don't stop.
What is the alternative to make sure that those 'forever' candidates would stop? Because if access to help won't do it, I doubt more suffering would. So, I don't think we should let the risk of a few we can't help stop us from doing a good thing.
Also, Prison, punishment and isolation clearly haven't stopped people from sticking with the drug either, they just die at some point, so, even if HR centers make it a forever option for a those that can't stop, they help many people to stop (was it 30% I saw somewhere? Don't quote me on that though) and the rest gets to live and have another chance at becoming clean later.
So, basically, I can't really see the downside, because all alternatives are worse and do less, what did I miss? Is there a better way to stop the 'forever' option?
What I dislike about Reagan was the drug trade increased under him. This guy most have slept through history class because Prohibition let to more crime and more dangerous products entering the market because suppliers had to smuggle smaller amounts of booze in resulting in them being more potent and thus more dangerous. The same thing can be applied to the drug trade.
@@nellgwyn2723 I agree. Addiction is a mental illness, we've done studies to show that it seems to stem from the lack of community and connections, the lack of a support network (Rat Land). And sometimes you can't help people. Someone with severe anxiety may always have severe anxiety. Someone with epilepsy is probably always going to have strokes.
At the point you are talking about forever use... the question really is do you want to punish them and potentially kill them, or do you want to provide a support network for them so they can be as safe as they can possibly be? We don't punish people with medical issues. We don't punish people for making poor life decisions. And the only people they are harming are themselves, same if they used legal drugs like Alcohol.
Drug addicts should be executed
@@kappadarwin9476 yes we should work to reduce demand than reduce supply. We should execute all drug user and the drug trade will die.
As a nurse who constantly cares for addicts in a medical-surgical setting, I also wish there was a commitment process for addicts. Often we admit addicts who have terrible wounds from botched IV use--and I mean some of the worst wounds I've seen in my career. We can still save their limb with surgical skill and long-term wound care, but often addicts can't deal with the withdrawal long enough to stay. When they leave halfway through their care, they endanger themselves and others, create more antibiotic resistance, and worsen their wound to the point of needing amputation or becoming septic. Sometimes they come in, get Narcan, get stable, then walk right out and fatally OD within hours.
Addicts right off the street who come in high aren't in their right mind. They can't make decisions for themselves. They need to be compelled to stay, with protocols in place so that medications can help them through detox. The revolving door just doesn't work. Harm reduction would reduce the need for this (and I'm all for it) but some people's disease is so advanced that they can't make adult decisions anymore. Yes, this is a DISEASE, and that means it has late stages that should be treated as such.
Also, fuck cops and their dramatics. I see how they treat the addicts they bring in.
I love you.
As somebody who was born and raised in the US, I’ve always felt something was very wrong about cutting someone off for being an addict. I’m glad to see I was onto something. Sometimes the best help is just being there for another.
This is incredible! I work in Harm Reduction in Ohio and just great to see this topic on a national platform as overdose deaths continue to be a critical issue. Thanks for sharing again and everyone needs to see this to understand harm reduction and how it really really works to save lives 💜
Well I know that a few years ago Portugal legalized all illicit drugs.. Guess what happened. Rates of usage fell. And the government spent less money treating people versus prosecuting people. Imagine.
Did they legalise or decriminalise? Slightly different (but still good). I could be wrong I just thought that‘s what I remembered of it
@@tairneanaich they decriminalized the possession of small amounts of drugs basically.
You do know that Oliver as well as the entire political establishment in the US is against decriminalization yes?
@@Paonporteur What a pathetic reply to my argument. Can't you think up something better to say?
I think you mean that Portugal decriminalized the usage of drugs which is far different than legalizing drugs (ie. they cannot be sold legally and you still face consequences for possession of drugs beyond certain limits) and the government spent the money treating people and educating people on the dangers of drugs. which are by far the more important parts of the plan.. even growing your own weed is still illegal there btw.
In parts of the EU they have government-owned labs where teens can send their drugs (e.g. XTC, LSD, etc.) and get back results to be safe they don't consume any deadly chemicals. I always thought this is ingenious. If you can't make the kids not use drugs, at least protect them from the harmful quality.
Yup. Like the states that teach abstinence instead of protection. You're not going to stop it, so you might as well tell them their life dreams will come crashing down if they don't use a condom.
In the US not only would they not get the drugs back, they'd get arrested.
In order for this to happen we're going to have to wait out the "Just say no" generation.
@@bobbyboucher1096: That's assuming they don't indoctrinate their next generations with the same poisonous rhetoric which corrupted them. Waiting for an idea to die is a losing proposition; we must stamp it out with education.
should be treated same as condoms....a tool to prevent unwanted outcomes be it STD or kids....but why think racionaly when we can jugde emotionaly
The book Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari completely altered my view of drugs and the way we deal with addiction. I used to very anti-drug, judgemental of users, and incredulous that people were actually proposing these kinds of centers. But as I kept reading and learned more and more about the history of the drug war and its impact on various communities, as well as the nature of addiction and how various policies and treatment methods have worked/haven't worked, the more my misconceptions and judgements unraveled. Honestly one of the most perspective-changing books I've ever read.
John thank you for speaking on this, I was in the camp that didn’t know what sage injection sites really do. This changed my entire perspective.