What Are Harm Reduction Advocates Doing Right?

My reason for posting this article on advocacy efforts for needle exchanges in N.J. is not to draw attention to this particular story, but to ask what harm reduction advocates are doing right. My inbox is filled every day with harm reduction stories and relatively few about treatment and recovery.

Why is it that, every day, all over the country, there are huge lines of people trying to get treatment at health departments like the Herman Keifer building in Detroit (this guy is camping out in Delaware in a line to wait for treatment), and no one seems to care? There have been more than 140 overdoses in Wayne County in the first 4 months of the year and no one appears to be demanding more access to treatment? Yet, every day there are several stories about the need for needle exchanges. How do they get this soapbox on a daily basis? What can we learn from these advocates? Are there harm reduction advocates that we can persuade to emphasize treatment access into their messages?