Top Of Mind With Julie Rose

Maia Szalavitz was introduced to the concept of harm reduction while using illegal drugs in her 20s. A friendly woman advised her to clean the needles with bleach. She claims that kind gesture saved her life even though it was a few years before she kicked the drug habit. Harm reduction has evolved in the last 40 years. New York City just opened the first government-sanctioned supervised injection sites in the country. Can you accept somebody as they are without enabling their harmful behavior to continue? Are they mutually exclusive? Guests: Maia Szalavitz - author of Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction Dr. Leslie Suen - addiction medicine specialist, UCSF Darwin Fisher – Program Manager, Insite Keith Humphreys - addiction researcher, professor, Stanford University School of Medicine David Murray - co-director for the Center for Substance Abuse Policy Research, Hudson Institute Brendan Cox - Director of Policing Strategies, LEAD National Support Bureau