“Punishing people for using drugs. First of all, it hasn’t worked.” That’s how Sam Rivera, Executive Director of OnPoint NYC, opens The Problem with Punishment: Addiction, a podcast about how our cultural obsession with punishment has led to painful failures to address some of the most pressing issues we face. The episode takes you inside our Harlem location, through the Drop-in Center, the Overdose Prevention Center, and the Health Clinic—where harm reduction informs everything we do.

“If you punish people who are using, they will hide. They’ll hide their usage. They’ll hide any needs that they may have, which can be dangerous,” says Denise Barkley, Lead Navigator at OnPoint NYC. “That’s how people end up overdosing.” Instead of punishment, we offer real options: warm meals, a shower, clean clothes, acupuncture, primary care, and a quiet place to rest. “People tend to forget that these are people,” Denise says. “They’re just like us at the end of the day.”

“All of our people have been to detox and treatment numerous times,” says Sam. “So then the system blames them. If they’re still using drugs, then they are the issue.” But the truth, as Jason Beltre, Director of Community Initiatives and Impact, notes, is that “you can’t go to treatment and come back into the same environment and expect different behavior.”

This episode also features Toni Smith, New York State Director at the Drug Policy Alliance: “A lot of the ways we think about the harms of substance use are actually a consequence of the harms of drug prohibition… All of those are impacts of drug prohibition that are often blamed as causes of the use itself—where it’s not.”

Harm reduction at OnPoint NYC means care without judgment. “We love on people,” Sam says. “And it’s a very different approach to healing.”

Listen now: The Problem with Punishment: Addiction