National Harm Reduction Coalition creates spaces for dialogue and action that help heal the harms caused by racialized drug policies. |
+ EVERY DAY IS INTERNATIONAL HARM REDUCTION DAY: For NHRC, harm reductionists, and people who use drugs across the globe, every day is International Harm Reduction Day. Each hour of every day, people who use drugs and other harm reductionists save a tremendous amount of lives, look out for one another, and support the empowerment of their communities. Long before health agencies started to adopt harm reduction approaches into their work, noting evidence-backed data and practices, people who use drugs and harm reductionists were providing life-saving support and care to the folks most impacted by drug use. To learn more about the history and principles of harm reduction, visit NHRC's main website.
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+ HEPCONNECT SUNSETS: Community is everything, and HepConnect is community connection personified. Over five years, NHRC's HepConnect team allocated over $10.2 million to 40 harm reduction programs in five states — Tennessee, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina — supporting evidence-based strategies and partnerships to combat rising hepatitis C (HCV) infections. Grantees collectively reached more than a half million individuals — over 650,000 people — distributed harm reduction supplies, and secured $16.4 million in additional funding, showcasing HepConnect's impact on sustainability, growth, and holistic community engagement in HCV prevention efforts.
While NHRC's HepConnect initiative sunset earlier this year, we know incredible, life-saving work will continue on the ground, and are filled with gratitude for NHRC staff and each grantee that made this possible through their commitment, passion, and invaluable contributions to our shared mission of combating hepatitis C and lifting up harm reduction.
As the HepConnect team noted in parting words to grantees, "Your innovative ideas, tireless efforts, and collaborative spirits have played a significant role in the success of the HepConnect initiative, and we are deeply grateful for the opportunity to have worked alongside you...we have no doubt that your passion for public health and dedication to serving underserved communities will continue to make a positive impact in the future. We wish you all the best. May your path be filled with success, fulfillment, and continued opportunities to make a difference in the lives of others. Thank you once again for your invaluable contributions to the HepConnect initiative. It has been an honor and a privilege to work with you, and we will always cherish the memories of our collaboration."
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+ SUPPORT LIFE-SAVING WORK: As spring brings renewed energy, we urge you to join us in supporting NHRC's vital work. Your donations fuel our efforts to improve the health and well-being of individuals and communities affected by the “War on Drugs,” more accurately described as a war on people. Our people.
With your support, we can expand our reach, providing essential supplies, trainings, and advocacy for better access to health care and services. Your generosity saves lives by ensuring access to naloxone and sterile syringes, preventing overdoses and the spread of life-threatening diseases like HIV and hepatitis C. Together, let's make a difference and create a healthier future for all. Donate today.
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+ FREE THE MAMAS: This past Mother's Day and always, we’re thinking about all the mamas who've been impacted by the carceral system. No mother should be held in prison for drugs, nor separated from loved ones because of the racist "War on Drugs," aka a war on people. For those grieving from the hole in their hearts left by the loss of their mother to overdose, know you are not alone.
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+ SHOWING UP FOR AAPI COMMUNITIES: It's our collective responsibility to ensure Asian and Pacific Islander communities are not overlooked and ignored, which happens far too often in health care settings and beyond. We must work to challenge racism and stigma on National Asian & Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day and every day beyond Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and ensure AAPI folks living with HIV/AIDS and all people have access to affirming, stigma-free health care and support.
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+ HATE HAS NO PLACE HERE: Hate has no place — anywhere. It was LGBTQIA+ folks who made harm reduction possible, long before these life-saving approaches were adopted by health departments and organizations across the globe. While anti-queer and anti-trans rhetoric and legislation continue to mount, we remained steadfast in doubling down on love this past International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia and always will. And as a reminder, these "phobias" are anything but — it is a choice to be anti-queer and anti-trans, not a diagnosis. The harm reduction movement must stand in unwavering solidarity with LGBTQIA+ folks and honor their life-saving, community-building work today and every day.
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+ CONFERENCES AND EVENTS: -
NHRC is hosting our monthly national Peer Gathering Cohort, PeerUp, after hearing the need for peers nationally to have a space to connect, talk, and network. The 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, contact Capacity Building + Hepatitis C Coordinator, Jose Martinez, at [email protected].
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+ NEWS: Pueblo City Council votes to ban syringe exchange programs — Syringe services programs (SSPs) save lives and connect people to life-saving, life-affirming health care and other basic needs they would otherwise not have — and so much more. Any time a city or town moves backward by banning evidence-backed health care, lives are even more at risk.
"'If we aren’t willing to listen to the experts and use data to make our decisions and instead make decisions based on our emotions or fear-mongering or just because we don’t like something, then I am fearful for the future of our community,'" one council member shared in this Colorado Public Radio coverage.
+ NEWS: Can Philadelphia Fix One of the Most Drug-Plagued Neighborhoods in the Country? — When life-saving harm reduction support like Syringe Services Programs (SSPs) are cut, people's lives are on the line and communities see spikes in the spread of life-threatening diseases like HIV and hepatitis. What Philadelphia is doing in slashing funding for evidence-backed health care is a deadly decision.
"The effort is heavy on ambition and light on specifics, particularly how the city will address the long-term needs of the hundreds of people suffering from addiction and now living on the sidewalks. Officials have told the City Council that they are creating a 'medium- to long-term system and structures for care, treatment, housing, jobs' — a system, they acknowledge, that does not currently exist," this piece in The New York Times notes.
+ NEWS: No Drug Education: The Rise and Fall of DARE — It's no surprise D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) was and continues to be a failure at best. People need and deserve accurate, stigma-free information about drugs to make their own decisions about their own bodies, and resources and support to stay safer and healthier.
This coverage in Filter notes, “There were clear, inherent problems with setting up cops as drug experts and educators, preaching abstinence-only and expanding the War on Drugs into the classroom. And much to the consternation of the police, independent researchers eventually showed DARE was not only ineffective by its own standards, but potentially counterproductive. Young people continued saying yes to drugs, despite the weekly DARE class that taught them to say no.”
+ NEWS: Editorial: Reclassifying marijuana is not decriminalization, but is a welcome step in that direction — The so-called "War On Drugs" is a war on people, particularly Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) individuals. As history and the present continues to show, prohibition leads to overdose deaths and communities that are less safe and healthy. Reclassifying marijuana is the latest in drug policy reform, though we know until all drugs are decriminalized, we will still face immense loss to overdose, the carceral system, and other harms that come from criminalizing people who use drugs.
As this Los Angeles Times editorial notes, “It’s still far too little. Americans have scoffed at marijuana prohibitions for decades, recognizing the race and class bigotry inherent in targeting the plant, and the scary nonsense spouted by government-promoted 'experts' about its supposedly demonic consequences ('Reefer Madness!') including, ostensibly, rape, kidnapping and murder."
+ NEWS: Edición Semanaria (Weekly Edition) — Este segmento, producido por Dennis Maxwell para Radio Bilingüe, incluye la historia de Priscilla, una voluntaria trans latine/x del Programa Latino de la Fundación del SIDA (SFAF), quien dejó su tierra natal de Guatemala y relata los impactos del abuso en su país, el rechazo familiar, y su consecuente desamparo y uso de drogas al llegar a San Francisco. El programa incluye entrevistas con nuestro colega Braunz Courtney, Director Ejecutivo de HEPPAC, y nuestra Directora Ejecutiva, Laura Guzman, quien comparte una breve historia de nuestro movimiento y organización y sobre el estudio realizado en el 2022 en colaboración con el Program Latino de SFAF y el Dr. Carlos Martinez, PhD, sobre las necesidades de nuestra diversa población y el requisito de proveer recursos para desarrollar necesarios proyectos de educación, prevención y servicios para usuarios de droga en el marco de la reducción de daños.
In the Spanish radio segment Radio Bilingüe, NHRC Executive Director Laura Guzman shared a brief history of the harm reduction movement and NHRC as well as a research study done in collaboration with the Latino Program of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation (SFAF) and Dr. Carlos Martinez focused on the needs of the community and required resources to offer bilingual and culturally-appropriate services for people who use drugs. The program includes an interview with HEPPAC Executive Director Braunz Courtney as well as the story of Priscilla, a trans Latinx volunteer for the Latino Program of SFAF, her journey from Guatemala to California, and the challenges she faced.
+ NEWS: Three labor unions back calls for Massachusetts to implement overdose prevention centers — Overdose deaths are preventable, and overdose prevention centers (OPCs) have a track record of saving lives. The reality is the longer it takes to open more OPCs, the more lives are at risk. The more people we will lose to overdose. Thankfully, many, including labor unions in Massachusetts, are joining the movement to save lives.
As noted in WAMC Northeast Public Radio, “'We're still finding people alone and dead, and that's why I've become such a strong advocate for harm reduction, and why I've been a vocal advocate for supervised consumption sites, because using alone is deadly...And we allow people, through this sort of stigmatized societal constraint, to feel like they have to do something alone and in the shadows, whereas if we looked at this like a disease like we look at all other sorts of medical diseases, where they need to be treated in a more open, caring, supportive environment, we would look at places like Portugal and we'd look at places like Canada and we'd say, wow, what they're doing here is saving lives, because people aren't using alone.'”
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+ IMPROVING HEALTH CONDITIONS FOR LATINX AND MIGRANT COMMUNITIES: NHRC Executive Director Laura Guzman participated in the National Hispanic/Latinx Health Leadership Summit in Washington D.C., where over 100 community leaders and public health experts from throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico gathered to work through federal health and social issues to design a federal health policy action agenda for the next four years. Laura co-facilitated a harm reduction and overdose issues workgroup, which created recommendations for the agenda.
The summit advanced the consolidation of the National Hispanic/Latinx Health Leadership Network, which works to promote health policy agendas at the federal, state, county, and citywide levels throughout the nation and U.S. territories.
NHRC thanks our partners at the Latino Commission on AIDS for all their work in implementing this summit and for inviting us to join these critical discussions to reduce the impact of HIV, HCV, STIs, and overdoses, and improve the social determinants of health that affect Latine/x and migrant communities. |
+ IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: NHRC’s Lighthouse Learning Collective developed the “Navigating Access to Gender Affirming Hormone Therapy” guide in collaboration with community partners, including the Alyssa Rodriguez Center for Gender Justice, Miss Jai Smith, Dana Fleetham, G Wallner, Sruti Mohan, Ray Stevens, and Han Hamel. The guide provides information on different types of Gender-Affirming Hormone Therapy medications and how to use them, how to vet and source medication, considerations for those going the do-it-yourself route, how to find support and tips to guide you whether you’re taking hormones or not, and how to lower your legal risk. Read the guide as a PDF here, and as a flip book here.
Lighthouse held a webinar earlier this month, where folks shared more about the guide from those who made it possible. Check out the recording here.
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+ NATIONAL SSP SURVEY RESPONSES NEEDED: Calling all Syringe Services Programs (SSPs), we need your feedback! NHRC, in collaboration with the North American Syringe Exchange Network (NASEN) and RTI International, launched the 2024 National Survey of Syringe Services Programs (NSSSP). Tracking SSP budgets and other data over time helps us advocate for more resources. Participating programs will be mailed a $125 check after completing the survey. Check your inbox for an email invitation from [email protected], and see FAQs for more info in English and Spanish. Respond today with your experiences!
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+ RESOURCES AND REPORTS:
NHRC’s Online Learning Center includes on-demand courses, including Foundations of Harm Reduction, Overdose Prevention and Response, Engaging People Who Use Drugs, and more. NHRC also offers free modules for NYC residents, in English and now Spanish, which cover safer use, stimulants 101, and wound care.
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+ TRAININGS AND WEBINARS:
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Are you in NYC? NHRC has a virtual training coming your way! Join us for an advanced Hepatitis C Patient Navigation two-part training on Friday, June 7, and Friday, June 14, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. EST. You can register for both sessions here. This three-hour training introduces navigators to NYC's Check Hep C Patient Navigation Program and assists attendees with utilizing NASTAD's Hepatitis C Community Toolkit and implementing it in their everyday work. This course is for folks in NYC interested in or currently navigating clients into HCV care.
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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, “Drugs 101,”
happening tomorrow, May 31, visit this link. Stay tuned for more details about the last training of this series, "LGB/TGNC 101," coming up on June 28! To sign up for the June session, click here. for For more information, contact Jose Martinez at [email protected].
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