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Dr. Andrew Tatarsky is a harm reduction psychotherapist and all around cool guy extraordinaire. Rarely do brilliance and kindness reside in the same person — These are quotes from past Harm Reduction events in NoBox Philippines:
Like many, I grew up being told to stay away from drugs, and to stay away from people involved with drugs.
So when a family member became involved with drugs, we didn’t know what to do.
You can talk to your kids about anything.
I’m a very firm believer that there is always a way to explain things to kids, no matter their age, that doesn’t involve lying, or sugarcoating, or The Stork.
Miguel is not his real name — but this is his real story.
He had been in and out of rehabilitation centers both here in the Philippines and internationally. Eventually, he and his family decided on a center that operated on the philosophy of harm reduction.
Discussions ranged from the heavy burden and enforcement-focused approach placed on the penal system, to the economic losses of investing in ineffective interventions, to the social costs of allowing misguided moralism to color how they responded to drug use.
In an era of alternative facts and fake news, it's hard to know what to believe. We at NoBox want to set the record straight -- with science and evidence!
Watch the video here!
Tonight is not about drugs. It has never been about drugs; it has always been about people.
Tonight we are celebrating stories, stories that may not necessarily be good or bad, for or against anything. It’s just about being honest and true and human.
The relationship between drugs and health, as we were taught, was: drug use, leads to problems, you go to treatment, and everything’s gonna be okay. If not okay, then it’s your fault.
It is not that simple, or as linear.
As I sat to write for this presentation, and it being the –ber months, I settled on my favorite seat and clicked on a Christmas Album on my Spotify. And then it hit me. Christmas this year will be so devastatingly painful for so many of our kapwa Filipinos.
Realizing that simply telling people not to use drugs and arresting them when they do wouldn’t slow HIV infections, health workers advocated for a new approach: harm reduction.
HIV among people who inject drugs (PWID) is a rising problem in the Philippines that urgently needs to be addressed. As of June 2016, 4.5% of HIV transmissions since 1984 were transmitted through the sharing of infected needles.
The 17th Congress is currently deliberating proposed bills to reinstate the death penalty in the Philippines. Most of these bills take off from the government’s ongoing “war on drugs,” which sees people involved with drugs as criminals who should be dealt with the harshest penalty of death.
On May 5 and 6, 2017, eminent speakers and experts from all over the world were invited to participate in an academic forum that discussed the role of science, law enforcement, economics, human rights, and harm reduction in understanding and developing drug policy