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Film Screening and Q&A—Liquid Handcuffs: A Documentary to Free Methadone

  • When
  • February 10, 2020 6:00–8:00 p.m.
  • Where
  • Open Society Foundations–New York
    224 West 57th Street
    New York, NY 10019
    United States of America
  • Speakers
  • David Frank, Helen Redmond, and Daniel Wolfe
Download MP3 Download Transcript

In 2017, the opioid-related overdose crisis killed more than 47,000 people in the United States. Methadone is the best studied and most effective treatment for opioid addiction and is proven to reduce opioid overdose deaths by more than 50 percent. So why is it easier to get heroin than methadone?

Liquid Handcuffs: A Documentary to Free Methadone, co-directed by Helen Redmond and Marilena Marchetti, shines a spotlight on the closed world of methadone clinics. An international cast of methadone users, activists, and healthcare providers explain the benefits and the barriers to getting the medication. 

The documentary, filmed in six countries—Afghanistan, Britain, India, Portugal, Russia, and the United States—explores the intersection of methadone with race, class, social control, and stigma. This is the first feature-length documentary that uses the lens of harm reduction to examine the methadone clinic system.

Speakers

  • David Frank

    Speaker

    David Frank, a sociologist whose work focuses on the intersection of substance use and the war on drugs, is a methadone maintenance treatment patient as well as an advocate for the rights of people who use drugs.

  • Helen Redmond

    Speaker

    Helen Redmond, co-director of Liquid Handcuffs: A Documentary to Free Methadone, is a video journalist and social worker who has long worked with people who use drugs. 

  • Daniel Wolfe

    Moderator

    Until December 2021, Daniel Wolfe was director of the International Harm Reduction Development Program at the Open Society Foundations.

Read more

Event Recap

The Way the U.S. Regulates Methadone Isn’t Working

A new documentary takes a close look at how methadone is used in the United States today, while raising profound questions about the purpose of antidrug policies and the benefits of harm reduction.

February 21, 2020

Drug Policy

The Prescription for Saving Lives

A hand holding a bottle of naloxone

A person dies every five minutes from overdose in the United States. We have the means to dramatically reduce those numbers. But the medication naloxone is suddenly scarce and prices are too high. What needs to happen next to save lives.

November 23, 2021 | Maya Doe-Simkins & Eliza Wheeler

Faith and Healing

Q&A: Preaching Harm Reduction

A woman standing in front of a microphone at a church

By bringing harm reduction to the faith community, Faith in Public Life is using the church to save lives in the face of the overdose crisis.

July 7, 2020

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