OUR MOVEMENT IN MOTION
Aug. 31, 2023


SECTION 1: News and Announcements

+ NHRC OFFICIALLY NAMES LAURA GUZMAN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: The National Harm Reduction Coalition (NHRC) Board of Directors is excited to announce Laura Guzman, JD, has officially been named NHRC’s fifth executive director since its founding almost 30 years ago! Laura has been the acting executive director since earlier this year, and we are thrilled she has accepted the position permanently. Her engagement with NHRC started in 1999 as a trainer for NHRC, and she became a full-time employee in 2020 as a senior capacity building and community mobilization director. 

Laura’s passion for harm reduction began 28 years ago at the Ambassador Hotel, a single-room occupancy (SRO) hotel in San Francisco, where she worked as an outreach benefits counselor and served the hotel’s clientele with HIV/AIDS. Putting her law degree to use, she advocated for the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS, people who inject drugs, Black and Brown folks, lesbians, trans folks, and other queer folks. From 2001 until 2017, she continued to put harm reduction into action as the founder and director of the Mission Neighborhood Resource Center – one of the first harm reduction drop-in centers focusing on Brown and Black unhoused communities and SRO residents in the district. Her work centered a community model of healing, interdisciplinary services, and advocacy on behalf of – and with – people who use drugs, immigrants, trans and cis women, sex workers, and queer folks. Harm reduction was one of its key values.

Laura's work has always centered the dignity and respect for people who have been pushed to the margins, and she has fought tirelessly with and for those who have been marginalized. This rich work experience and commitment has informed her success at NHRC as the lead of the California office and as acting executive director.   

Laura is the right person at the right moment in time for NHRC and the broader movement. Her long history of activism for people who use drugs, insight, and judgment for just, inclusive, and transparent processes, natural leadership skills, and great vision will ensure NHRC continues to be a people-driven, movement-driven, and values-driven organization. As we stand at the dawn of NHRC’s fourth decade supporting a broader anti-colonial, racial justice, social justice, and human rights-focused harm reduction movement led by and for people who use drugs, we are excited and proud Laura has accepted the position as executive director.

+ NHRC WELCOMES NEW STAFF MEMBERS: We are thrilled to announce the NHRC team has grown! Now joining NHRC in our mission to work for the harm reduction movement are Senior Director of Finance, Soni Grover, Interim CHRI (California Harm Reduction Initiative) Data Manager Luka Bair, and Housing & Shelter Capacity Building Coordinator, Melissa Matheney. Learn more about our colleagues and the rest of the team here.

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+ INTERNATIONAL OVERDOSE AWARENESS DAY: One life lost to overdose is one too many, and every overdose death is a policy failure. Today is International Overdose Awareness Day, a day to memorialize all those we have lost and hold our grieving communities in our hearts while fiercely advocating for — and celebrating — needed change to prevent overdose and support the empowerment of people who use drugs.

We’ll be sharing updates about events, memorials, and more across our social media handles, and we invite you to join us as we uplift the many beloved people we have lost this year and in years past to overdose. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter/X for more. Not on social media? Information about events across the globe can be seen via The Penington Institute Initiative through this link. We vow to continue building a world where people who use drugs are treated with the respect and dignity they deserve, and have the resources and radical love needed to survive and thrive — today and every day.

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+ CONFERENCES AND EVENTS: 

-After much thoughtful discussion internally and externally, NHRC has decided to cancel our 2024 National Harm Reduction Conference. We will be dedicating 2024 to focus on our mission, vision, and values, and reimagine our biennial conference as part of our strategic planning process. We understand the importance of recognizing the limits of our capacity, and how crucial it is to pause, reflect, and plan for the future. We have learned a great deal from our last conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico, which was the largest event we have ever hosted with over 2,500 people in attendance. Over the coming months, we will be working with our partners at the Drug Policy Alliance and Harm Reduction International to collaborate closely on future conferences. We will also be exploring with our current partners and looking at opportunities to join and/or co-host regional conferences, events, and gatherings across the country to elevate harm reduction work and share space and best practices over the next two years. We appreciate your understanding and we look forward to a fabulous National Harm Reduction Conference in 2026! Please stay tuned for future updates from our team.

-The Oklahoma Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence is hosting its 9th conference on October 12, 2023, at the Metro Tech Conference Center in Oklahoma City, OK. This year’s theme is “Harm Reduction: A Transformative Approach to Recovery.” For more information about sponsorship, vendor registration, and more, contact:

OKATOD Conference Chairperson, Albert Rios  – [email protected]
OKATOD President, Ann Jamieson  – [email protected]
OKATOD Treasurer, Christian Threadgill  – [email protected]


-VOCAL-NY's 2023 Gala will be held on Tuesday, September 19, from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Threes Brewing in Gowanus, Brooklyn. For more information and to buy tickets, see details here.

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-NHRC is hosting our monthly national Peer Gathering Cohort after hearing the need for peers nationally to have a space to connect, talk, and network. The cohort and all sessions — which take place the first Monday of each month — are open to peers with lived/living experience only at no cost, and folks from around the U.S. are welcome to join. Together, we'll work to build a support system through the states. Come as you are, this will be a non-judgmental space! To join, visit this link.

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-The National Survivors Union will host "Liberating Methadone: Building a Roadmap and a Community for Change," a hybrid conference that will be held online and in-person in New York City Thursday, September 21, through Friday, September 22, 2023. Among the presenters is NHRC's Community and Capacity Building Manager, Hiawatha Collins. For early registration for people with lived/living experience of methadone treatment, click here to register.

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The International Drug Policy Reform Conference, hosted by the Drug Policy Alliance, is happening in Phoenix, AZ from Wednesday, Oct. 18, through Saturday, Oct. 21, 2023. Learn more about the conference here, and click this link to register.

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+ NEWS: Social media depicts Kensington as “Zombieland” — and it’s deadly — People who use drugs deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. As noted in this Filter piece, "'Language that cements people who use drugs as less than human upholds practices like tearing away their children, locking them in cages and killing them. The very humanity of people who use drugs is at stake when public discourse conflates them with monsters.' And visual depictions can be every bit as harmful as words."  

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+ NEWS: Politicians want cop crackdowns on drug dealers. Experts say tough tactics cost lives — People who use drugs must be centered in the conversations — and response to — overdoses across communities. "In several states, residents have lamented the lack of council members with first-hand knowledge of [drug use], who can direct settlement dollars based on personal experiences with the treatment and criminal justice systems. Instead, councils are saturated with treatment providers and health care organizations. And this, too, raises eyebrows. 'Service providers are going to have a monetary interest,' said Tracie M. Gardner, who leads policy advocacy at the New York-based Legal Action Center. Although most are good people running good treatment programs, they have an inherent conflict with the goal of making people well and stable, she said." Listen to the full online story from NPR here.

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+ NEWS: US FDA approves second over-the-counter opioid overdose reversal drug — The more widely available naloxone is, the more lives can be saved from overdose. This approval, including the 200,000 doses that will be made available for free by Harm Reduction Therapeutics, is a massive victory. While we believe naloxone should be free and accessible — something harm reductionists have been making possible for many years — this is another big step in the right direction. Read the full story as reported by Reuters here.

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+ NEWS: We Can Prevent Overdose Deaths if We Change How We Think About Them — "As someone who has lost well over three dozen people I loved and cared about to overdose deaths, I know how valuable these tools can be. Most of my friends died alone. Many of them were scorned because they returned to drug use. They weren’t offered compassion when they sought healthcare support. Some of them died after being released from jail on a simple possession charge. All of them would have benefitted from the wide availability of harm reduction services such as syringe exchange programs, free naloxone, drug checking equipment that screens for fentanyl analogues, and safer use spaces—without shame, and without judgment. Consistent data from Harvard’s Recovery Research Institute has shown that harm reduction works and is rooted in evidence." Every overdose death is a policy — and societal — failure. It doesn't have to be this way. Harm reduction works. Read the full story in TIME here.

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SECTION 2: The Policy Plug

+ NHRC STANDS IN SOLIDARITY WITH ONPOINT NYC'S OVERDOSE PREVENTION CENTERS: The data is clear: Overdose prevention centers (OPCs), like the operation run by OnPoint NYC, save lives - and so much more. Despite this, threats to these services that keep people alive have grown louder, potentially forcing the closure of OnPoint NYC's doors. To read our full statement, click here. For coverage by The New York Times, visit this link.

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+ NHRC CALLS ON SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES ADMINISTRATION (SAMHSA) TO MAKE LIFE-SAVING CHANGES TO "HARM REDUCTION FRAMEWORK": We applaud SAMHSA as the first federal agency to release a “Harm Reduction Framework” with requests for feedback, and call on SAMHSA to make necessary changes to save lives. To read our comments, visit our blog post here.

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+ DRUG POLICY SURVEY: You can strengthen the harm reduction movement and sensible drug policy reform by taking a minute to fill out this 2023 Drug Policy Reform Survey created by the Drug Policy Alliance.

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SECTION 3: Emergent and Exciting Work

-NHRC’s Executive Director, Laura Guzman, participated in the planning of — and served as a speaker for — the first Syndemic Solutions Summit in July, hosted by the University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC) Collaborative to Advance Health Services in Kansas City, MO. Laura joined key national partners in conversations with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), and SAMHSA, among other federal representatives. Laura participated in the National Partners Panel's fireside chat along with National Alliance of State & Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD), the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), and the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, and shared a presentation on syndemic best practices from the California Association of Syringe Services Programs (CASEP) organizing efforts that resulted in the recent allocation of $61 million in opioid settlement funding for California Syringe Services Programs (SSPs) over the next four years. For more information on the summit, click here.

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+ FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES:

-ED Syphilis/HIV/HCV Screening Program Requests for Applications — Bridge and the California Department of Public Health invite all California emergency departments (EDs) to apply for the ED Syphilis/HIV/HCV Screening Program (EDSP). This program will provide funding and technical assistance to EDs to establish or grow routine opt-out testing, treatment, and navigator linkage to care for syphilis, HIV, and hepatitis C virus (HCV). EDSP builds on Bridge’s health equity model of identifying and treating people where they are, and aims to reach those disproportionately impacted while reducing morbidity and mortality statewide. Hospitals funded under EDSP will receive a base amount of $375,000 over 2.5 years, and may qualify for supplemental navigator funding. Applications due Sept. 7, 11:59 p.m. PST. 

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Community Paramedicine Grants — The CARESTAR Foundation is offering grant funds to support the expansion of community paramedicine (CP) programs across California. Applications will be accepted through December 2023. For more information, visit this link.

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+ RESOURCES:

-Re-Queering Harm Reduction — Check out “Our Lives, Our Care: The Report & Recommendations of the Re-Queering Harm Reduction Project” from NHRC's Lighthouse Learning Collective and Sessi Kuwabara Blanchard — an appraisal of the state of care for queer and trans people who use drugs and/or do sex work (QT-PWUD/SW) in NYC. View the report as a flipbook by visiting this link, or read it as a PDF here.

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-Showing support for Maui comrades: The love and support of the harm reduction community knows no borders. Our friends at the Maui AIDS Foundation are still providing services, despite the devastation the wildfires have caused. Learn how you can join us in supporting them as they navigate through this natural disaster here, and help spread the word.

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-Why Integrated Harm Reduction? panel: NHRC’s Senior Director of Development and Business Strategy, Anthony Salandy, was featured as a panelist on the R Street Initiative’s panel focusing on how harm reduction can increase positive impacts for individuals and communities, various policy approaches, and how we can collectively drive adoption of harm reduction as a broader public health strategy, without diffusing its grounding in community. To watch the full video, click here.

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-NHRC requests organizations add or update their information on the Naloxone Finder map in an effort to ensure the resource is up-to-date. To add a new program, click here. To update existing program information on the map, please fill out this form. We appreciate your support in spreading the word about these life-saving materials!

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+ TRAININGS:

The Wyoming Harm Reduction Learning Collaborative is hosting a training series that will run through October 2023. This training opportunity is for participants from WY and other states in the Intermountain West region, and the collaborative will be prioritizing registration from folks from those areas.
Upcoming trainings are as follows, from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. MT:

Harm Reduction and Health Care for People Who Use Drugs, Sept. 6: Sign up here.
Harm Reduction for Stimulant Use, Sept. 13: Sign up here. 
Pregnancy, Substance Use, and Harm Reduction (nurses), Oct. 18: Sign up here. 

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-NHRC is thrilled to offer monthly Foundational Fridays training sessions, which focus on building basic knowledge about various intersectional public health issues. The free sessions, running from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. EST the last Friday of each month, are for providers, peers, and anyone in the harm reduction community as well as anyone looking to learn more about the field. To sign up for the next session happening on Sept. 29, Outreach 101, visit this link.  Stay tuned for more details about the trainings, happening through June of next year! For more information, contact Capacity Building and Hepatitis C Coordinator, Jose Martinez, at [email protected]. The rest of the training schedule dates are as follows, with registration links included in hyperlinks below:

Safer Injecting 101 - Oct. 27
Sex Work 101 - Nov. 24
Sexual & Reproductive Health 101 - December 22
Syringe Access 101 - Jan. 26
Dismantling Drug-Related Stigma 101 - Feb. 23 
MOUD 101 - March 29
HCV 101 - April 26
Drugs 101 - May 31
LGB/TGNC 101 - June 28

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-NHRC is excited to launch our new free online training modules for NYC residents, covering safer use, stimulants, and wound care for non-clinicians! For more information and to sign up for each of the modules, visit this link.

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-The CA Bridge Navigator Program Training Series provides education and resources to hospital teams implementing medication for addiction treatment (MAT) programs in the acute care setting. The Building and Strengthening Your Bridge Navigator Program, Los Angeles session, happening Oct. 2 from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. PST, will include plenary and breakout sessions designed to deepen your program connections and MAT knowledge. This training event is specifically for hospitals receiving funding through the Bridge Navigator Program. 

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If you support emergent and exciting work at National Harm Reduction Coalition, please join our community of monthly donors, the Harm Reduction Champions! Become a Harm Reduction Champion Today.

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SECTION 4: Work for the Movement

+ NHRC is hiring for several roles, including:
-DOPE Project Capacity Building Logistics Coordinator
-DOPE Project Capacity Building and Training Coordinator
-DOPE Project Manager, Bilingual
-Director of Capacity Building and Community Mobilization
-NYC Office Coordinator

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+ Bowery Residents Committee (BRC) is looking for a shelter-based Certified Peer Specialist (CRPA) for several locations in NYC.

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+ Project Renewal is hiring for several roles, including:
-Certified Peer Specialist (Washington Heights)
-Certified Peer Specialist) (East Williamsburg)

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+ Mount Sinai is hiring for a Health Educator - Emergency Medicine position.

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+ NASTAD is hiring a Manager, Finance and Accounting and Manager, Meetings and Travel

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Hiring? Send us a note about open positions in harm reduction to [email protected] to have a job post shared here.


National Harm Reduction Coalition
243 Fifth Avenue
Box 529
New York, NY 10016
United States

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