Helen Redmond

Helen Redmond is an expert in substance use. For two decades, she has worked as a licensed clinical social worker with people who use drugs in medical, community mental health settings, and in harm reduction-based, supportive housing.

Helen is the founder of Nicotine Harm Reduction Consultants and provides training and consultation on mental health, nicotine use, electronic cigarettes and the politics of vaping. She has facilitated tobacco harm reduction/vaping groups at New York Harm Reduction Educators in East Harlem, NY. In 2016, Helen organized and was a keynote speaker at the first Tobacco Harm Reduction Conference in the United States to focus on smoking among vulnerable populations.

Helen is a senior editor and a multimedia journalist for Filter, an online media website, and creates original video content. Helen has subject matter expertise in methadone and writes about the medication and the clinic system regularly. You can read her work here. Helen’s feature-length documentary, Liquid Handcuffs: A Documentary to Free Methadone, was an official selection of the Reel Recovery Film Festival in 2019 and has been screened nationally and internationally. Swallow This: A Documentary About Methadone and COVID-19 was released in 2022. Her documentary, Ezra Dowery: Life On Broadway was an official selection of the NYC Mental Health Film Festival 2016.

At New York University, Silver School of Social Work, Helen is adjunct faculty and teaches the course, The War on Drugs.

Follow her on Twitter @aftariak.