Join author, filmmaker, social worker, and journalist Helen Redmond, LCSW to discuss her new book, Liquid Handcuffs: Policing and Punishment in Methadone Clinics and the Future of Opioid Addiction Treatment, described as a hard-hitting exposé of how methadone clinics fail people in recovery—and an urgent, unapologetic case for their abolition. The book takes readers inside the hidden world of methadone clinics, exposing the “culture of cruelty” that polices, punishes, and profits from those they’re meant to serve. Through patient stories and extensive interviews with methadone users and clinic workers, Redmond weaves a compelling argument against the current clinic system. She provides a detailed history of how methadone was first developed and why the current system for dispensing methadone arose in the U.S., tracing its entanglement with the carceral system and the “War on Drugs” as well as private equity firms and tech companies.

Learn more about and purchase the book here.

Hosted by the LDI Substance Use, Overdose, and Harm Reduction Working Group.

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Speakers

Helen Redmond, LCSW, is a licensed clinical social worker and an expert in drug addiction and treatment. Redmond worked for over two decades with people who use drugs in both medical and community settings. She is a senior editor and a multimedia journalist at the online publication Filter and writes frequently about methadone. She has published pieces at Al Jazeera and Harpers.

Redmond co-directed Liquid Handcuffs: A Documentary to Free Methadone, which was an official selection of the Reel Recovery Film Festival in NYC and L.A.. and screened at events and conferences nationally and internationally. Redmond also co-directed Swallow THIS: A Documentary About Methadone and COVID-19. Redmond is an adjunct assistant professor at the New York University Silver School of Social Work.