2022-09-22
54 分钟Liberals endorse harm reduction when it comes to the opioid epidemic. Are they ready to take the same approach to climate change?
This administration has been very clear.
For the first time in the history of the United States federal government, we have made harm reduction the central tenet of how we need to move forward.
That is Rahul Gupta.
He is director of national drug policy at the White House.
The mission, basically, is to reduce the prevalence as well as the harms from illicit drugs across the nation and.
And address it from a global standpoint.
When Gupta talks about harm reduction, what is that?
You could think of harm reduction as not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
You could think of it as public health realism.
Do you remember the just say no anti drug campaign from the 1980s?
Harm reduction is pretty much the opposite of just say no, because just say no has not been working.
We're seeing over 108,000 americans dying in any given year from either a drug overdose or poisoning.
Most of those overdoses are from opioids, including black market fentanyl.
Gupta is also an internal medicine physician, and he has a lot of experience with opioid deaths.
He used to be public health commissioner of West Virginia.
When I became commissioner of health, West Virginia had the highest death rate from overdoses.
Historically.
It was very important for me to look at why that's happening.
He commissioned an analysis that covered every west virginian who died of an overdose.
Half of the victims who had received medical treatment, Gupta found, could have been saved.