SMART Policy Podcast
Podcast by the UT SMART Initiative. Host Jeremy Kourvelas speaks with experts from across the recovery ecosystem - representing healthcare, prevention, law enforcement and more - about local, state and federal drug policy to find out what is and isn't working to make this fight against addiction a little easier.
Episodes
43 episodes
What the Brain Disease Model of Addiction Gets Right — and What It Misses
Something really has changed over the past twenty years, especially in the last ten. Our culture has increasingly come to accept the idea that addiction is a chronic, treatable disease, not a moral failure. Secretary RFK Jr. of the Dept. of Health...
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1:28:11
When There's No License to Lose: How Tennessee Teens Are Still Buying Vapes
Ask just about any teacher or parent about what concerns them, and you’ll hear about vaping. According to the Tennessee Dept. of Health, 22% youth admit to vaping, which is a rate more than twice the national average. 22 counties across the state ...
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39:41
Equipping Communities for Recovery: Inside Tennessee’s Lifeline Peer Project
In our last episode, we heard from Andi and Tanner Clements from Uplift Appalachia that churches and communities want to help with recovery, but most don’t feel equipped to take on the challenge. There’s also the persistent fear that they might ge...
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37:31
Uplift Appalachia: Equipping and Empowering the Church to Support Recovery
This is the kind of dilemma that faces many people in Tennessee: staying in recovery while trying to rebuild a life, but resources are limited and local public transportation is not reliable or readily available. This has been identified in dozen...
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48:40
Funding Recovery Behind Bars: Bipartisan Solutions for Jail-Based Treatment
It is increasingly well understood that the criminal justice system is one of the most significant and valuable intervention points for getting people into recovery. When people are given access to the services they need to enter and maintain reco...
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39:56
Listen to the Front Lines: Why Drug Policy Needs to be Bold and Flexible
West Virginia has been often described as “ground zero” of the opioid epidemic, largely because of the explicit targeting of the state by Purdue Pharma for its aggressive marketing of OxyContin.First Responder Jan Rader, long-time champion in the ...
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39:54
The Recovery Navigator: Connecting ER Patients to Hope in Sumner County
When it comes to any large government program targeting health, social, and cultural issues, there are always concerns that the money won’t be spent well. The opioid settlements are no exception. So when a program involves multiple community part...
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51:04
Family, Recovery, and the Real Appalachia: A Conversation with Andi Marie Tillman & Trent Coffey
If you’ve ever worked in the field of recovery in East Tennessee, there’s a strong chance you’ve met Trent Coffey, executive director of the Schools Together Allowing No Drugs, or STAND, Coalition in Scott County, TN. And if are connected to Appal...
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1:24:29
Speaking Through Me: Using Compassion and Science to Talk to Teens About Cannabis, Social Media, and Brain Health
Cannabis, cannabinoids, and cannabimimetics like Delta-8 and THC-P and more are increasingly common across America, including in the state of Tennessee, where we have passed numerous regulations on the industry in recent years. And in states where...
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55:14
First on Scene, Still on Duty: How These EMTs-Turned-Mayors Tackle the Opioid Crisis
Small business owners, industry leaders, law enforcement officers, teachers, and even other elected offices like city councilperson - these are some of the most common professions that people have before becoming a county mayor in Tennessee. But ...
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34:18
Fathers Lost in the Overdose Crisis: Prevention, Mentorship, & Rebuilding Families
The group of people that are dying of overdoses at the highest rate, by far, are men in their 30s-50s. This group is also statistically less likely than others to ask for help. This is one of the biggest reasons why it can be difficult to implemen...
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39:56
Changing Healthcare Culture: The Billion Pill Pledge and Non-Opioid Pain Treatment
Despite significant changes at the federal and state level, the rate of opioid prescriptions remains startlingly high. The most recent data shows that Tennessee is still hovering around 60 prescriptions for every 100 people in the state. And agai...
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36:31
Finding Opportunities to Save Lives With Overdose Fatality Review Teams
Overdose Fatality Review, or OFR, is a fairly new and yet already proven strategy for identifying gaps in recovery ecosystems. In other words, you bring together people from healthcare, law enforcement, criminal justice, harm reduction services an...
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41:19
Maury County's Fiscally Conservative Approach Pays Off
Late last year, Maury County Commission approved the spending of $920,770 in opioid settlement funding, abating the opioid crisis in their community from multiple angles.But it’s more than just the broad and comprehensive approach that caught our ...
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45:32
From Busting Pill Mills to Battling at Home: An Officer's Daughter Finds Recovery
From 2001-2011, as the prescription opioid crisis spiraled out of control, Kim Harmon, then with Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, went undercover to bust pill mills, among other investigations into medical fraud. Shortly after she progressed up...
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49:59
Getting Naloxone on College Campuses and Other Interventions
The data is clear: 18-25 is a critical time for substance use and mental health interventions. This is why programs implemented on college campuses have significant impacts.But that isn’t to say these interventions are easy to launch.My guests thi...
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45:06
Saving Lives in Jail: Naloxone Vending Machines, MAT, and Mental Health at Davidson County
As we’ve discussed many times on this show, the criminal justice system has long since become the primary point of contact for substance use disorder, especially in Tennessee.My guest this month is Eric Bauder, Deputy Chief of Corrections for the ...
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32:55
If Opioid Prescriptions Are Down, Why Are Overdose Deaths Still So High?
There’s no question that over-prescribing of opioids kick-started the opioid crisis - the data is so overwhelming that nearly two dozen major companies have settled lawsuits to the tune of tens of billions of dollars because of that evidence.We’ve...
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1:05:43
Data, Compassion, and Leadership: How Police Can Prevent Overdose Deaths
When staff shortages and tight funding meet a rise in drug crime, you might not expect an overburdened police department to make extra work for themselves. Yet that is exactly what happened in Chattanooga in the mid 2010s, when calls to EMS start...
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42:00
Potency And Supply: Fentanyl, Meth, And The “Drugification” Of Culture (feat. Sam Quinones)
“How can anyone be doing drugs when we all know fentanyl is in everything?” We at UT SMART hear this question a lot from community leaders across the state. How is it that people keep risking their lives when we know for a fact that drugs are more...
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49:12
Leveraging The Right Partnerships At The Local Level
A cop, a guitar company, and a public health analyst walk into a bar…and mount an opioid overdose first aid kit to the wall. We have covered the Training and Empowering Musicians to Prevent Overdose, or TEMPO, project before, specifically the eff...
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40:17
How Health Insurance (or Lack Thereof) Affects Treatment Options In Tennessee
According to the most recent report from the Tennessee Department of Health, two-thirds of all overdose fatalities are men, most of whom are aged 25-54. According to independent research, this group is also far more likely to lack health insuranc...
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30:10
Recovery Community Centers Are Changing Everything
Naloxone. Access to treatment. Housing. Employment. Educational opportunities. We’re used to hearing about the need for these aspects of recovery. But what about community? A place to gather with others, especially those with similar experi...
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32:59
Nashville’s Overdose Co-Response Unit Brings Harm Reduction to Law Enforcement
As the drug overdose deaths continue to climb, we have heard more and more Sheriffs and law enforcement officers across the state say “we can’t arrest ourselves out of this problem.” That the criminal justice system plays an important role, but n...
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33:09
The Buprenorphine Waiver is Gone...Now What?
There have been huge changes at the federal level regarding the prescribing of medications for opioid use disorder, particularly regarding buprenorphine. For two decades since the DATA 2000 law, addiction clinicians had to get a specialized waive...
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34:41
