The event is sponsored by the Open Society Foundations Public Health Program, in partnership with Unitarian Church of All Souls. The sponsors’ description of the panel follows:
Homelessness and public drug use are on the rise in New York, and accidental drug overdoses now kill more people than car accidents throughout our country. But there are solutions. Harm reduction programs such as medically supervised injection facilities have been shown to save lives, reduce transmission of diseases like HIV and hepatitis, and help link people to drug treatment and rehabilitation.
This international panel of public health experts will explain how they implemented lifesaving programs in their communities, including supervised injecting facilities, overdose prevention programs, low-threshold services, and housing that does not require people to be drug free.
Speakers:
Senator Larry Campbell is a former officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Drug Squad, a coroner, and former mayor of Vancouver, BC.
Werner Schneider is the former drug czar of Frankfurt, Germany.
Tony Trimingham is a psychotherapist who helped establish the Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centre.
Liz Evans worked as a nurse in Vancouver’s poorest community.
Food and refreshments will be provided, with choral performance by the New Amsterdam Boys and Girls Choir.
The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard honored Goodman with the 2014 I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence Lifetime Achievement Award....