I believe that little separates people inside Death Row from those outside it. We are all a complex jumble of hopes, dreams, virtues and mistakes. We strive to be better people. We often fail. Being human is learning to rise …
Is tragedy the only way to spark change? If we believe it is not, then how do we cultivate communities strong and kind enough to explore difficult issues before discrimination, oppression and murder take…
After a flood wiped out Bexy Guerrero Salmiento’s home in 2013, her husband disappeared. Just days earlier, Manuel, Bexy and their five children had fled the wreckage of their washed-out…
The atmosphere at the Rattanakosin Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand, was electric. It was the kind of energy that forms when a powerful idea sweeps the room, person by person, until everyone is…
Natauboo Jama started selling methamphetamine in northern Thailand after her second child was born. Known locally as yaba, it is sold mixed in a three-to-one ratio of caffeine to meth and…
In July 2008, Ecuador released 2,221 people from prison accused of small-scale drug transport. Most were women. That October, the nation of 16 million ratified a new constitution. It declared addiction a…
Smoking might be out of vogue, but flavored cigarette bans—like those of flavored vapes—are trending. Several cities in the United States, most recently San Francisco, have prohibited or restricted the sale of menthol cigarettes. Other…
Police cause great harm in the course of the drug war, which they help to sustain through their advocacy, and officers’ conversions therefore reduce harms. And for many sections of…
For six weeks this summer I had the extraordinary opportunity to visit harm reduction programs all over Western Europe. In Belgium I toured a safe consumption site where people smoke…
Transgender people, especially those who use drugs, face a variety of risks in all spheres of life. But by adopting a holistic and inclusive approach to wellness, harm reduction and…