Councilwoman Nithya Raman hosted a panel addressing homelessness and the methamphetamine epidemic in Los Angeles on Aug. 19, but some residents are critical of the panel’s “harm reduction” policies and say it only encourages more drug use.
Methamphetamines are long-acting stimulants to the nervous system that release more dopamine in the brain than other substances. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated there were 70,630 drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2019, while in that same year, two million Americans reported having used methamphetamine in the previous year.
