Apr 29

Apr 29 Harm Reduction Rant + Repost: The Latin Times, "RFK Jr. to End 'Godsend' Narcan Program"

From Narcan to Neglect

It’s no secret I’ve spent half my life volunteering with harm reduction groups across the U.S. and London. Growing up in Florida in the 90s, I saw addiction in its rawest form: families torn apart, bright kids becoming zombies, and entire cities numbed by opiates and benzos. Later, as a (mostly sober) raver, I bore witness to an endless parade of drug-induced agony and ecstasy. I saw people convulsing on dance floors, catatonic ravers dusted with grainy white powder around their nostrils, unable to form words. I watched people inject while visibly in pain, chasing relief. I’ve seen enough to know: humanity is losing the war on drugs.

I’ve never been mistaken for a narc. I’m short, I don’t wear hiking boots or steel-toed shoes (a giveaway for undercover police at concerts), and I’ve always carried a certain anti-authoritarian energy, even when my hair isn’t long. People on drugs trust me more than the cops or medics. I know how to slip into the pits of festivals, where even responsible people pass out from dehydration. I leaned into that trust before moving to Israel, where strangers are far more likely to intervene in personal matters. I joined safety crews like DanceSafe and “Star Teams,” worked alongside policy advocates at Release UK, and met the founders of cannabis legalization and police reform movements. My goal was simple: reduce harm. Prevent death.

I’m not the ultimate authority on drugs, but I’ve done clinical research using animal models. I had friends at the NIH studying recreational drug use in humans, close enough to admit where data was misrepresented by studies to get another grant. I’ve read Erowid like some people read the Bible. But the deepest knowledge came from the streets. I’ve helped people to med tents, or in rare cases, kept them out of one when I knew intervention could make things worse. I’ve been the voice of trust for many who couldn’t trust themselves, whether they were subconsciously suicidal or just completely lost under the influence. I’ve seen people succumb and I’ve seen people propsper.

Around 2015, harm reduction groups began pivoting hard toward Narcan distribution, sidelining education and testing. Narcan, as you hopefully know, is the emergency opioid reversal drug. Fentanyl related deaths were skyrocketing, so it made sense. Narcan saves lives. It’s also expensive and underdistruted. A person revived by Narcan often wakes up screaming, flooded with pain from receptors they thought they’d buried.

Narcan isn’t just for people in the hood pouring milk on a friend who’s already cold and lifeless. It’s for wealthy parents managing back pain with opiates, when, G-d forbid, a child finds the bottle. It’s for finance bros who take a mislabeled substance. It’s for the tragedies no one saw coming. But Narcan isn’t everything. Healtheir community can be far more valuable in treating depression, anxiety and other health issues.

Harm reduction has lost touch.

While I believe in Narcan, it treats symptoms, not root causes. Without honest conversations about moderation, harm reduction becomes just survival management.

The movement I once loved started to feel less like a team of shamans and doctors and more like a Band-Aid factory. We weren’t asking why people were using. We definitely weren’t helping them stop. We were patting ourselves on the back for keeping them alive with $50 inhalents.

I can not accept, “Great job! Only one person died. Only twenty had nightmarish experiences. Only thousands decided to use for the first or hundredth time. It could be much worse.”

In the most frustrating moments, I saw well-intentioned harm reduction advocates post things like, “I understand if you have to use today” in response to real-world disappointments, like Trump winning an election. I wanted to reply, “You are being reckless.” But I knew any pushback would bring social wrath. Harm reduction advocates have come to treat recreational drugs like a panacea, though they are not one.

I don’t believe in numbing pain, especially those from first world problems, with substances. Medical professionals may advise short term analgesics or opiates for severe pain, but they also know the dangers of extended use and addiction. I believe those involved in harm reduction know the pain of addiction too, but have built a community uncomfortable discussing the very issue we mean to fight against.

I’ve lost too many friends to drugs.

In the last month alone, I lost two friends to what may be attributed to drugs, may be attributed to underlying illness. One died of a heart attack at 32. He was not high at the time, but years of drug use may have stacked the odds against him. Another was shot by police during a psychotic episode, triggered by a relapse, after years of mostly clean living.

In the decades prior to this month I lost friends who may have been suicidal, or may have wanted a pill to help them relax and sleep. Others were murdered in sloppy robberies. Drug use was a factor, if not the root cause, but completely left out of the conversation after. Even among friends who preach drug reform, the topic of whether drugs contributed to these early deaths was strictly kept to private conversations. Publicly, the conversation focused on just about everything else, from income inequality, mental health issues, responsible dosing, policing and other topics people have normalized discussing in public.

We simply don’t talk about drugs honestly. Nobody does. The people willing to talk usually fall into two extremes: “It’s always addiction” or “It’s always treating trauma.” They miss nuance.

At 18, I remember hearing about Amy Winehouse’s death back when I lived in London. The papers said alcohol poisoning, while a friend tossed out heroin he’d bought from her dealer. At 22, I saw Tim Berg (Avicii) overdose at a Miami nightclub. His pin needle pupils were absent from the papers, alleging he had to cancel his Ultra performance for an emergency gallbladder surgery. That incident prompted me to write an essay for a friend’s blog insisting that musicians will die if we can not responsibly discuss their substance use. Thousands of strangers read it, but if any had a real influence, they didn’t care about a random raver’s personal account enough to echo the sentiment. Drug abuse remained a well known secret.

I still support harm reduction. I still will try to carry Narcan at every U.S. festival or Burn, though I am sober. I still believe drug test kits and fresh needles should be widely available. That’s why it infuriates me when an ex-heroin user campaigns against common sense, harm reduction techniques.

But I’m equally angry with the culture I helped build, that romanticizes survival while avoiding the hard conversation about change. Harm reduction volunteers hand out test strips and say, “Have fun!” when they should say, “Be safe. And if you ever need someone to talk to, we’re here, and we will support your sobriety.”

Or maybe they should hang pictures of their friends who died. I know the sight of one of my junky neighbors, a beautiful girl covered in track marks, cysts and hideous scars from lifelong addiction, was a great anti-drug PSA for many. So maybe we just need her and some poor souls from skid row to stand at the front of schools to really make a change. But it would be naive to think that the rise in drug fatalities was not accompanied by people seeing it around them. Seeing horror without guidance is not enough.

Harm reduction has to evolve. Every Narcan dose should come with an addiction guide. Booths at festivals should be a place of sober connection, not just first aid. Too many in this space are falling apart behind the scenes while preaching safety.

We don’t need wook cheerleaders. We need counselors.

Fortunately, harm reduction is doing the best job towards policy change. Legalization, one aspect of harm reduction orgs, would save more lives than Narcan ever could. Regulating substances means purity standards, better labels and, in turn, less deaths. Taxes should be used to offset negative externalities (cigs in some states have an $8 tax!). Without legalization, we can’t tax drugs to fund rehab. We can’t put warning labels on containers. If someone’s using so often that it’s hurting them, their dealer should be the one pointing them to rehab. But street dealers are far more likely to think about consequences for reporting drugs than their client’s health. So we can’t track when casual use turns to addiction.

We can’t even have an honest discussion.

Original article. It’s a short one. No clue why Latin Times is one of the few papers picking up this important story.

I’ll be writing more in a short book. But because I lost two friends this month, I wanted to give a teaser above. And protesting RFK Jr’s wildly ignorant decision is important right now. I don’t care if people can buy Narcan, since I know the people who need it wont.

RFK Jr. to End 'Godsend' Narcan Program That Helped Reduce Overdose Deaths Despite His Past Heroin Addiction

M.B. Mack / Apr 29 2025

Despite his own history of overcoming heroin addiction, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is backing plans to end a federal Narcan distribution program credited with helping drive a steep drop in U.S. overdose deaths.

Narcan, the widely-used overdose reversal drug, has played a major role in reducing opioid-related deaths, particularly amid the fentanyl crisis.

A $56 million annual grant program through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has funded the distribution of Narcan to first responders across the country, training over 66,000 individuals and distributing more than 282,500 kits in 2024 alone. Recent CDC data shows a nearly 24% drop in overdose deaths for the 12 months ending September 2024, the sharpest one-year decline in decades—an achievement partly attributed to widespread naloxone access.

Speaking at the Illicit Drug Summit in Nashville on Thursday, Kennedy reflected on his personal struggle with addiction and emphasized the importance of community, treatment, and hope in solving the drug crisis, USA Today reported. However, behind the scenes, the Trump administration's draft budget includes major cuts to addiction programs, including the termination of the Narcan grant, according to The Independent.

"Narcan has been kind of a godsend as far as opioid epidemics are concerned, and we certainly are in the middle of one now with fentanyl," Donald McNamara of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said. "We need this funding source because it's saving lives every day."

Though Kennedy has previously praised interventions like Narcan as critical to saving lives, he now frames the crisis as one requiring deeper, spiritual and societal change rather than relying solely on "nuts and bolts" medical solutions.

The proposal has drawn swift condemnation from addiction specialists and public health advocates, who warn that cutting Narcan funding could reverse the progress made against overdose deaths. Critics argue that removing life-saving tools while broader societal fixes are slowly pursued would leave vulnerable communities at risk.

While national overdose deaths have declined, experts warn the epidemic is far from over, especially in states still experiencing surges. Ending federal Narcan support could slow or even reverse recent gains.

There have been other proposals to reduce harm reduction spending. LEAP, an org I love, recently posted the following and invited their followers to share: