BETTER HARM REDUCTION –
April 14, 2023 – Swallow THIS makes an unapologetic case to abolish the methadone clinic system. It’s a call to action to finally free all people who take methadone from daily attendance at opioid treatment programs (OTPs), with their oppressive surveillance and constant threats of removing access to lifesaving medication. These form huge barriers to care amid an unprecedented opioid-involved overdose crisis.
How many more people would still be alive today if methadone could be picked up at a local drug store once a month?
The United States’ pandemic experience showed that allowing more take-home doses did not increase fatal overdoses or “negative treatment outcomes,” and “diversion” was rare. But other countries don’t have methadone clinics at all, and have shown that methadone can be picked up at pharmacies like any other medicine.
How many more people would still be alive today if methadone could be picked up at a local drug store once a month?
We premiered at San Francisco’s Tenderloin Museum last month. As ground zero for the overdose crisis and punitive responses, it was a fitting neighborhood. Alex Spoto, the museum’s program director,praised the film’s framing “of the methadone clinic as an extension of the carceral state.”
