As the world continues to grapple with an unprecedented pandemic that has crippled countries, one of the many issues that has emerged is the gap that is our prison response—and how our shortcomings in this area may very well render the rest of our COVID-19 response useless.

Rarely do brilliance and kindness reside in the same person, and we’ve learned — and hope to keep on learning! — so much from him on drugs, and on life.

On May 5 and 6, 2017, eminent speakers and experts from all over the world were invited to participate in an academic forum that discussed the role of science, law enforcement, economics, human rights, and harm reduction in understanding and developing drug policy

At CND last March 2017, NoBox's Inez Feria and Dr. Lee Yarcia share their stories and experiences about their drug policy work and harm reduction advocacy in a side event hosted by Anyone's Child.

Like many, I grew up being told to stay away from drugs, and to stay away from people involved with drugs. So when a family member became involved with drugs, we didn’t know what to do. We knew there was such thing as rehab, so we called “rehab,”and back then, treatment was treatment.

Miguel is not his real name — but this is his real story. He had been in and out of rehabilitation centers both here in the Philippines and internationally. We interviewed him as someone who had gone through these experiences firsthand, as someone we’d worked with, and as a friend.

Realizing that simply telling people not to use drugs and arresting them when they do wouldn’t slow HIV infections, health workers advocated for a new approach: harm reduction.

The relationship between drugs and health, as we were taught, was: drug use, leads to problems, you go to treatment, and everything’s gonna be okay. If not okay, then it’s your fault. It is not that simple, or as linear.

Tonight we are celebrating stories, stories that may not necessarily be good or bad, for or against anything. It’s just about being honest and true and human. This can mean stories that may be sad, they may be funny, disturbing, stories that can make us angry, stories that inspire. It is a whole fascinating range.

For the longest time, we have, as a society, focused on drugs as the The Evil we need to free ourselves from. And getting rid of this evil has meant, to this day, doing so at all costs, and regardless of human costs.

The year is off to an interesting start for the future of Thailand’s drug policy. Last January 5, officials gathered for a two-day conference titled “Drug Education: Social Skills for Harm Reduction” to discuss lessons learned from their drug policies and how to move forward.

I’m a very firm believer that there is always a way to explain things to kids, no matter their age, that doesn’t involve lying, or sugarcoating, or The Stork. Our job as parents is just to figure out how to do the explaining — so they can navigate life instead of get blindsided by it.