--- description: Find out why Sam Rivera is one of the 100 most influential people of 2023. title: Sam Rivera: The 100 Most Influential People of 2023 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc2d87af80ab0d240/698a3befb21a9ca258507280/Sam-Rivera-time-100-2023.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Apr 13, 2023 # Sam Rivera ## Video: TIME100 | The 100 Most Influential People of 2023 [Watch (HLS stream): TIME100 | The 100 Most Influential People of 2023](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/P6RIsapV.m3u8) (1:53)  _Published 2023-04-13. See all the people on Time's 2023 Time 100 list_ by Beth Macy  MANHATTAN, NEW YORK- AUGUST 2, 2022: OnPoint NYC's executive director Sam Rivera poses for a portrait in his office in Harlem. This facility is the home of a safe consumption room or overdose prevention center. MANHATTAN, NEW YORK- AUGUST 2, 2022: OnPoint NYC's executive director Sam Rivera poses for a portrait in his office in Harlem. This facility is the home of a safe consumption room or overdose prevention center.Hilary Swift In 2021, roughly 108,000 [Americans died of drug overdoses](https://time.com/6214811/overdose-deaths-opioid-prescriptions/ "undefined"). And yet only a slim fraction—roughly 11%—of people with opioid use disorder (OUD) managed to access evidence-based care in 2020\. If we were being graded, that’s an F. Sam Rivera has pioneered an approach to help, rather than abandon or simply jail—as we usually do—an estimated 7 million Americans with OUD. As executive director of OnPoint NYC, he meets drug users without judgment, instead offering support, clean needles, and critical connections to care that include providing medically supervised injection spaces at three sites in New York City. To turn our [declining life expectancy around](https://time.com/6270808/americas-life-expectancy-divide/ "undefined"), we must scale up Rivera’s harm-reduction approach, which means supporting people who use drugs, not stigmatizing them. Despite what the racist war on drugs told us growing up—and despite archaic abstinence-only models that too many 12-step programs still push—Rivera’s approach [actually works](https://time.com/5475905/harm-reduction-resources/ "undefined") to prevent death, hasten recovery, and restore humanity. _Macy is an author who wrote_ Dopesick _and most recently_ Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2023/6270018/sam-rivera/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2023/6270018/sam-rivera/"},"headline":"Sam Rivera","datePublished":"2023-04-13T10:32:59.000Z","dateModified":"2026-07-21T07:22:03.543Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2023/6270018/sam-rivera/","keywords":["TIME 100","franchise","sponsorshipblock","TIME100 2023","T100Pioneers2023"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc2d87af80ab0d240/698a3befb21a9ca258507280/Sam-Rivera-time-100-2023.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc2d87af80ab0d240/698a3befb21a9ca258507280/Sam-Rivera-time-100-2023.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2023/6270018/sam-rivera/","name":"Sam Rivera"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"TIME100 | The 100 Most Influential People of 2023","description":"See all the people on Time's 2023 Time 100 list","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/P6RIsapV/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2023-04-13T10:30:00.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/P6RIsapV.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2023/6270018/sam-rivera/","duration":"PT1M53S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2023/6270018/sam-rivera/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```