Please join me, local experts on the opioid crisis, and filmmakers, Helen Redmond and Marilena Marchetti, for a screening of the short film Swallow THIS: A Documentary about Methadone and COVID-19.

The screening and panel will take place in Contois Auditorium in City Hall on Wednesday, May 24 from 7:00 – 8:30 pm; the runtime of the film is approximately 30 minutes.

The panel discussion will focus on how the pandemic impacted the overdose crisis on a national level, and how our local partners can collaborate to improve public health in our communities.

Swallow THIS reveals the profound impact that the pandemic had on those who take methadone. Methadone clinics became superspreader sites for the coronavirus because hundreds of people travel to them six days a week to get medicated. In March 2020, federal agencies made an unprecedented decision - every patient was eligible for 14-or 28-day take-home bottles of methadone.

Directors Marilena Marchetti and Helen Redmond (Liquid Handcuffs: A Documentary to Free Methadone) traveled across the country to find out what happened. In bracingly honest interviews with patients in Greensboro, North Carolina to New York City to Knoxville, Tennessee to Boston, the new take-home policy was adopted inconsistently. Some experienced liberation from the clinic and others not at all.

Swallow THIS is a call to action to abolish methadone clinics and for pharmacy pick up of the medication.

The panel discussion will include:
- Dr. Heidi Melbostad, Chittenden Clinic Director, Howard Center
- Jess Kirby, Director of Client Services at Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform
- Helen Redmond, Co-Filmmaker of Swallow THIS
- Marilena Marchetti, Co-Filmmaker of Swallow THIS

Event Info

Jan 1, 2025, 3 to 5 PM

Jan 2, 2025, 4:15 to 6 PM

Jan 5, 2025, 3 to 5:30 PM