For this episode, we will be talking with Amy C. Sullivan,  an independent scholar and college professor. Her Ph.D. in U.S. History from the University of Illinois at Chicago focused on women’s history, children’s history, and the history of medicine. Specific research interests in these areas include the history of drugs, alcohol, addiction, and trauma studies. Her projects center life stories rooted in social change and healing through oral history, public history, and digital archives.

Dr. Sullivan has been a Visiting Assistant Professor in the History Department at Macalester College in St. Paul since 2015 and has worked as an independent researcher/writer for The Bakken Museum in Minneapolis and the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland.

Dr. Sullivan literally wrote the book regarding opioid stigma in Minnesota. The book is titled “Opioid Reckoning, Love, Loss and Redemption in the Rehab State” which she wrote after working on the Minnesota Opioid Project, where she spent years traveling the globe, interviewing people regarding opioid addiction, and stigma. Her main focus was on Minnesota, though she did visit other areas, including Zurich, where they have had Heroin Assisted Treatment for years. She spoke to how that is viewed there and how it is similar to a Safer Consumption Sites. She spoke to how there is stigma regarding drug use, and not wanting “those people” in one’s “back yard,” thus opening Safer Consumptions Sites is a big challenge. Amy explained how we need to keep people alive long enough, to hopefully decide to get sober, which these sites help accomplish.

References:

Barry, C. L., Sherman, S. G., Stone, E., Kennedy-Hendricks, A., Niederdeppe, J., Linden, S., & McGinty, E. E. (2019). Arguments supporting and opposing legalization of safe consumption sites in the U.S. International Journal of Drug Policy, 63, 18–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2018.10.008

Behrends, C. N., Paone, D., Nolan, M. L., Tuazon, E., Murphy, S. M., Kapadia, S. N., Jeng, P. J., Bayoumi, A. M., Kunins, H. V., & Schackman, B. R. (2019). Estimated impact of supervised injection facilities on overdose fatalities and healthcare costs in New York City. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 106, 79–88. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsat.2019.08.010

Mays, J. C., & Newman, A. (2021, November 30). Nation’s First Supervised Drug-Injection Sites Open in New York. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/nyregion/supervised-injection-sites-nyc.html

Mullins, L., & Hagan, A. (2021, December 16). New York City’s safe injection sites are a way to reduce drug overdose deaths, health official says. Wbur. https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/12/16/manhattan-overdose-prevention