#Harm Reduction Coalition

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Coercing drug users to get sterilized, rounding them up into labor camps, and executing dealers are just some of the more extreme policy ideas being floated by politicians to address the U.S.’ overdose crisis.

But experts say the proposed solutions violate human rights and won’t solve the problem.

During a recent meeting with Mineral County residents, West Virginia state Sen. Randy Smith, a Republican, said he wants to draft a bill that would give people convicted of drug crimes the option to sterilize themselves in order to receive shortened prison sentences.

“If you get caught with drugs—and it’s all voluntary, you don’t have to—but if you want to lessen your prison sentence, if you’re a man, you can get a vasectomy so you can’t produce anymore,” Smith said, according to the Cumberland Times-News.

“If you’re a woman, then you get your tubes tied, so you don’t bring any more drug babies into the system. Now, you don’t have to. If you don’t you’re going to jail for a very long time. If you volunteer for the program, then you get a lesser sentence.”

More than 107,000 Americans died of a fatal overdose in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with fentanyl and other synthetic opioids claiming the lives of over 70,000 people. West Virginia has the highest fatal drug overdose rate in the U.S. with 81.4 deaths per 100,000 people.

Smith’s suggestion is a form of eugenics—a practice of controlling the human population by reproducing “desirable” traits and breeding out those considered undesirable, often based on racist and prejudiced assumptions. As VICE News previously reported, the non-profit Project Prevention gives drug users money to get sterilized. Government-funded sterilization programs have also taken aim at people with mental illness, poor people, incarcerated people, and people of color.

“This is part of a broader trend for some people to say that certain people aren't worthy of becoming parents and that they could pass on— genetically or environmentally—certain traits that are undesirable,” said Sheila Vakharia, deputy director of research and academic engagement at the Drug Policy Alliance.

Vakharia said a eugenics-based solution writes off people with addictions as having problems that they can never overcome. It also ignores the fact that people who use drugs can be good parents, she added.

However, she thinks Smith’s suggestion is mostly “political theater.”

“A lot of politicians are grasping at straws and want to look like they're doing something, but also want to look like they're proposing new solutions,” she said.

Hostility has also been ramping up toward drug dealers. Former President Donald Trump, for example, said he wants the death penalty for everyone caught selling drugs—a position shared by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. At a Nov. 7 rally, Trump also expressed admiration for the idea of having a “quick trial” for drug sellers, that he dubiously claimed came from China.

“If they’re guilty, they are executed,” he said. “The bullet is sent to their families… It’s pretty tough stuff. There’s no games. So they have no drug problem whatsoever.”

While there has been an increase in states passing drug-induced homicide laws, through which dealers are charged with murder if they sell drugs to someone who dies, there’s no evidence that those prosecutions make a dent in the overdose crisis.

In fact, media coverage about such cases have led to spikes in overdoses because people get scared to call the authorities if someone needs help, according to a 2021 report from the Health in Justice Action Lab at Northeastern University.

Vakharia said this is an example of “individualizing the problem,” rather than addressing systemic issues.

“Many people's analysis is that we’ve got to blame individual dealers, drug transporters, and distributors because that's what the problem is, rather than actually seeing that the reason why the drug supply is so unpredictable is because of broader social, structural, and policy factors, namely prohibition, which by its definition leads to an unregulated and adulterated drug supply,” she said.

Hiawatha Collins, community and capacity building manager at National Harm Reduction Coalition, said this rhetoric ignores the fact that a lot of drug dealers are selling drugs to manage their own addictions.

“Nobody's really making a whole lot of money and getting rich doing that,” said Collins, a former marine who has used heroin in the past.

“If people had jobs, if people had education, if people had good health care, if people were able to pay their rent If he was able to pay their rent and keep food on the table—nobody wants to sell drugs.”

As the pandemic has exacerbated societal inequities, large homeless encampments have become another political flashpoint in the War on Drugs. Some policymakers have even suggested forcibly removing them as a solution—or started the process.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams recently launched an initiative that directs city employees, including the police, to hospitalize mentally ill people who are in public against their will, “even when there is no recent dangerous act,” per state guidelines. In Spring, the mayor also directed the city to start clearing homeless encampments, and some people who refused to leave were arrested.

Many of the encampments are most visible on the West Coast. California had cleared more than 1,250 homeless encampments between September 2021 and August 2022, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office. In a recent op-ed in the California Globe, Edward Ring, founder of the conservative think tank California Policy Center, wrote that people addicted to drugs “could be removed to regional camps set up in inexpensive parts of California’s urban counties.”

“To help earn their keep, they could participate in conservation projects and other character building work, and recover their sobriety, their dignity, and eventually their freedom. The truly mentally ill would have to be placed, involuntarily, in psychiatric hospitals,” Ring said, which drew comparisons to concentration camps on Twitter.

Vakharia said sending people to far-off locations will likely make it harder for those who are overdosing to get medical attention. The appeal of these proposals is that people won’t have to come face to face with visible poverty, she said.

“A lot of this is because of out of sight, out of mind. Some people just don't understand how some people struggled and we don't want to see it.”

Leo Beletsky, a Northeastern University professor of law and health sciences who leads the Health in Justice Action Lab, said a lot of these “fringe ideas” have been previously discredited.

“First of all, they're ineffective. Second of all, there are human rights abuses and ethical issues and moral problems with these kinds of approaches.”

But he said they’re also an indictment of mainstream political leaders who have failed to get a grip on the overdose crisis by implementing more widespread treatment and harm reduction measures, including access to methadone and safe consumption sites.

He pointed to President Joe Biden’s administration backtracking on providing funding for crack pipes as one example. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, recently rejected the idea of using any of the $2 billion the state has received in opioid settlement money from pharmaceutical companies to fund safe injection sites after widespread condemnation from the right.

In Philadelphia, harm reductionists have been trying for years to open a safe injection site but they were sued by former U.S. Attorney William McSwain because the sites are federally illegal. The case has since escalated, with the Department of Justice asking for more time to come to a “possible amicable resolution to continue” earlier this month.

“The rhetoric goes, ‘Well, what we're doing isn't working like, the scientific and quote unquote humane approach, isn't working. We need something else,’” Beletsky said. “But we never tried it, really.”

#us politics #news #vice news #drug addiction #addiction therapy #decriminalize drugs #safe injection sites #Sen. Randy Smith #sterilization #genocide #eugenics #Project Prevention #Sheila Vakharia #Drug Policy Alliance #executions #death penalty #Health in Justice Action Lab #Northeastern University #National Harm Reduction Coalition #Hiawatha Collins #concentration camps #War on Drugs #mayor Eric Adams #Gov. Gavin Newsom #California Globe #Edward Ring #California Policy Center #Leo Beletsky #Gov. Kathy Hochul #William McSwain

[reportwire]

Pharmacist hopes to get life saving drug in every household in Adel community

Pharmacist hopes to get life saving drug in every household in Adel community

If there are a few things Sumpter Pharmacy owner Leslie Herron loves, it’s Adel and the people who live there. It’s part of why she’s hoping to get Narcan, which is used to treat narcotic overdoses during emergencies, into the homes of everyone throughout the community. The other reason is because she knows how life-saving it can be while waiting for first responders to arrive and help. When…

View On WordPress

#Iowa Harm Reduction Coalition #Leslie Herron #Narcan #Nasal Spray #Opioid #Overdose #Sumpter Pharmacy

[trans-axolotl]

US Harm Reduction Resources

continually updating, not a complete list. feel free to add on any resources you find helpful.

Free Safer Supplies:

Each organization will have different supplies, but generally, harm reduction orgs provide things like syringes, safer snorting + smoking kits, Narcan, condoms, lube, and wound care supplies. Each org has different policies for how to get supplies--some do deliveries, some have drop in centers, some only do one to one needle exchange, some are more flexible.

Next Distro: mail based syringe provider for certain states. Also mails free Narcan.

NASEN: national map of syringe providers

a lot of harm reduction collectives aren't going to have their information listed on big national websites--it's always worth searching "harm reduction in my area" and seeing what's around you. Even if you don't live in a big city, there might be a harm reduction organization in your state that can help you find someone closer to you. there's a lot of rad people doing underground work who want to be there to help you who aren't as easy to find online. If there's street medic collectives, mutual aid groups or groups like Food not Bombs in your area, you can ask people in them who might know where to find harm reduction services in your area!

Drug Users Unions:

Drug users unions are activist groups made for people who use drugs, by people who use drugs! Drug users unions do advocacy work to end criminalization, as well as providing vital community support. Many drug users unions are also inclusive of sex workers and work to decriminalize sex work as well. You can search for "drug users union" in your state.

Urban Survivors Union: National, has resources for creating drug users union

Chosen Few: Drug users union for Black drug users in DC

San Francisco Drug users union

Sex Work Advocacy Groups:

Organizations that do decrim advocacy and provide support for sex workers.

Sex Worker Outreach Project USA- National, has chapters in many states.

Black Sex Worker Collective

Sex Workers Project

How to Use Safely:

Guides, videos, toolkits for safer use!

Harm Reduction Coalition Resource Library

Getting Off Right: A Safety Manual for Injection Drug Users

Safer Crack Smoking

Safer Snorting

Safer Hormone Injection

Levels of Risk: Veins

Wound Care video w/ ASL

How to Use Fentanyl Test Strips

DanceSafe-testing kits, including reagent testing kits!

Erowid-shares experiences people have with different drugs, dosages, what things to expect

Bluelight- another forum for discussing experiences with drugs.

Drug Interactions Checker

Sex Work Resources:

Tricks of the Trade by L. Synn Stern: tips for street based sex work

A Quick and Dirty Sex Worker Safety Toolkit

Girls Do What they Have to Do To Survive by YWEP

Dis/Organizing: How We Build Collectives Beyond Institutions by Rachel Kuo & Lorelei Lee

Tryst Blog

Hotlines:

Never Use Alone: 877-696-1996. Overdose Prevention Hotline--Volunteers stay on the phone with you while you use and call emergency services if you overdose.

HIPS Hotline-​​​1 [phone]. Emotional support for drug users and sex workers. Does not work with cops.

feel free to add on more resources. love + lube <3

#personal #harm reduction #sw #sex work is work #safer use

[hollow-keys]

War Games and Under the Red Hood being right next to each other makes me lose my shit. There is no gap between these stories and Judd Winick even wrote part of War Games but he doesn't seem to realise how wild it is to follow that up with UTRH.

War Games is about Batman trying to gain control of Gotham's gangs as harm reduction, not stopping their activities but monitoring and controlling them via his ally, Orpheus, who is propped up to lead all the gangs in a coalition. He is unable to do this and it all ends in disaster.

5 seconds later, Jason returns to Gotham and gains control of most of the gangs real quick and then takes out his competitors. He does what Bruce was unable to do and for the same reason, to reduce harm.

But Bruce's actions are framed as heroic and Jason's aren't. Judd Winick himself said "Along with handing out his own brand of justice, he does believe that crime can be controlled. Batman had said it makes you a crime lord. Jason doesn't think it makes him a crime lord at all. He thinks it makes him a much more effective Batman."

I must ask how is it that this makes Jason a crime lord but Bruce wasn't one when he was trying to control the Gotham gangs five seconds ago. How is Bruce on his high horse like "Jason is a crime lord in denial"? What was he five seconds ago then?

And yeah, Jason is more violent than Bruce was of course, but instead of trying to work with him and get him to his side/to be less violent like he did with the other gang leaders, he immediately goes on the offensive.

Then Bruce slits Jason's throat to save Joker right after firing Stephanie because "We don't use potentially lethal force." What Steph did was markedly less dangerous than slicing someone's throat. The hypocrisy of it all.

#jason todd #bruce wayne #war games #under the red hood #dc comics #meta #📨

[fiercynn]

strongly urge any of the "voting is harm reduction" people to read this piece

from the intro:

At some point the left in the so-called U.S. realized that convincing people to rally behind a “lesser evil” was a losing strategy. The term “harm reduction” was appropriated to reframe efforts to justify their participation and coerce others to engage in the theater of what is called “democracy” in the U.S. Harm reduction was established in the 1980s as a public health strategy for people dealing with substance use issues who struggle with abstinence. According to the Harm Reduction Coalition (HRC) the principles of harm reduction establish that the identified behavior is “part of life” so they “choose not to ignore or condemn but to minimize harmful effects” and work towards breaking social stigmas towards “safer use.” The HRC also states that, “there is no universal definition of or formula for implementing harm reduction.” Overall, harm reduction focuses on reducing adverse impacts associated with harmful behaviors. The proposition of “harm reduction” in the context of voting means something entirely different from those organizing to address substance use issues. The assertion is that “since this political system isn’t going away, we’ll support politicians and laws that may do less harm.” The idea of a ballot being capable of reducing the harm in a system rooted in colonial domination and exploitation, white supremacy, hetero-patriarchy, and capitalism is an extraordinary exaggeration. There is no person whose lives aren’t impacted everyday by these systems of oppression, but instead of coded reformism and coercive “get out the vote” campaigns towards a “safer” form of settler colonialism, we’re asking “what is the real and tragic harm and danger associated with perpetuating colonial power and what can be done to end it?” [x]

(thanks to @mousieta for introducing me to this piece!)

#voting is not harm reduction #indigenous action #settler colonialism #indigenous justice #harm reduction

[probablyasocialecologist]

The U.S. political right wing does not have an answer to climate change. Neither does the technocratic and centrist net-zero discourse, which has failed to achieve adequate reductions, as will become increasingly apparent within just a few years. With no one else driving the agenda, the left needs to offer an alternative, sector-by-sector roadmap for decarbonization. We need to fill the voids in leadership, analysis, planning, organizing, and coalition-building. Rather than focusing on particular technologies, we need to be setting objectives for the areas in which these technologies could be used. If we put forward both best-use cases for CCS and alternatives to CCS, we are more likely to avoid bad CCS projects—and we can play a leading role rather than a defensive one. 

[...]

It’s true that we need a robust climate movement to block truly harmful projects that would lock in new fossil fuel infrastructure or violate Indigenous sovereignty, and it is critical to support communities in this work. But it would be a mistake to narrowly focus climate organizing on reenacting successful infrastructure-blocking tactics in ways that fail to discern useful industrial carbon projects from bad ones.  Such an approach puts the climate movement into a reactive role just when climate advocates need to be the ones who plan the energy transition. Taking a wider-strategy approach to CCS will take patience. It will require building broader coalitions and organizing in rural areas where a lot of decarbonization needs to happen. It will be challenging—but the cost of being absorbed by the CCS distraction is not one that the movement can afford.

#climate change #carbon capture #geoengineering #Carbon removal #Holly Jean Buck

[burnitalldowndarling]

https://www.tumblr.com/burnitalldowndarling/744870483940524032/whats-been-particularly-vile-to-me-is-this-group

#alladis#the left started to die when the white people took over#obama derangement syndrome hit them just as hard#they've just displaced their bigotry in more convoluted ways Really? How so? /genuine

Short on time so not a lot of links or theory, but I think a major example of what I'm talking about is the white leftist dismissal of "identity politics." What they mean by idpol is marginalized people taking pride in their identities or talking about bigotry, which white leftists typically frame as a distraction from more important issues. Thing is, the "more important" issues tend to be those of primary importance to white men, such as UBI or copyleft -- but it's not idpol when they do it. Another example is the embrace of class-centered (also called "class first" and "class reductionist") leftism. Addressing class disparities and economic justice does help marginalized groups as well, but do remember that the people who stand to gain the most from class uplift are those who were already well-off -- as white cis people tend to be, in America, thanks to historical and systemic bigotry. The rising tide floats all boats, but those who already had speed boats in the water are still going to do better than the folks surviving on inflatable rafts.

Identity-centric politics such as anti-racism have always addressed class and economic justice issues, but had the added benefit of centering the most vulnerable groups. The idea was that if you address the needs of/reduce harm to those groups first, everyone still benefits, but you save more lives. In their rejection of idpol, the American left now often ignores harm reduction, denigrates incremental improvements that benefit marginalized groups, and weakens the whole coalition by permitting established power hierarchies and bigotries to run rampant. See the "dirtbag left". See also Bernie Sanders' own 2016 campaign staff revolting because he failed to address racism, racial and gendered pay disparities, and sexual assault. How's he going to build a progressive national coalition when he can't even get his own house in order, progressively?

And I blame white leftists, along with white conservatives, for Trump's election in 2016. These are the people who kept pushing third-party voting, "boycotting" voting, and accelerationist nonsense like the idea that letting Trump get elected would hasten The Glorious Revolution -- never mind if it killed a few poor or brown people along the way. These are people who attacked and dismissed marginalized people online (especially Black and queer women) whenever they pointed out the dangers of a Trump win. They were absolutely vile in their sexism toward Hillary Clinton and anyone who supported her. In a lot of cases these were "leftist" influencers and such who embraced Gamergate and other harassment campaigns, and used the techniques of same against their fellow leftists -- and surprise, surprise, several years later a whole lot of the most prominent ones have come out as fascists. They got right-wing radicalized during the 2000s and 2010s same as white conservatives, in other words; they're just as racist, just as gender essentialist, just as anti-semitic and classist and so on. They just like UBI too. And they're better at using therapy-speak or communist-speak to hide their bigotry.

Tl;dr, while there are plenty of white leftists who are doing the work and doing it right, the most prominent face of leftism for the last 10 years has been the dirtbags, the brocialists, the accelerationists, etc -- people who IMO make the left weaker, and who are frequently dangerous to the very same vulnerable groups that the left should be centering. And way too many of them have become very wealthy from doing so, at which point a lot of them stop being progressive. Almost as if they were only ever in it to advance themselves, in the first place.

#anon ask #ranting #my fucking country

[bioethicists]

Hi! This might be a little out of your purview but do you have any bool recs for harm reduction related topics or know someone you could point me to who might know?

this is actually v much my purview! it's a huge focus of my academic work + informs my philosophy on almost everything

i highly recommend saving our own lives for an exploration of harm reduction as a truly liberatory practice (rather than another tool of biopolitics, as it often becomes)

the harm reduction coalition has a ton of useful info/zines on safer drug use + specific policy issues related to harm reduction

the icarus project created a harm reduction guide to coming off of psych meds

i cannot recall it right now but i've seen a book which includes tips on how to use a long list of recreational drugs safely, like drug user's bible or something?

elliott @trans-axolotl has posted a book before which serves as a harm reduction tool for self injury but i'm blanking on the name

my key tip would be looking for grassroots resources created by + for the ppl they are about (ppl who use drugs, sex workers, ppl w/ psychosis, etc). harm reduction which is done clinically with an explicit goal of trying to make people stop doing x "bad" behavior eventually or "getting them as close as possible" is antithetical to its values of bodily autonomy + respect. harm reduction is a way of thinking about human behavior and which centers autonomy + compassion, not a step in the process of controlling other people's behavior.

[sarenth]

Reflecting on some of the posts that I have made and seen in the last couple of weeks, both here on Tumblr and on TikTok, I am increasingly suspicious of anybody that insists that voting is a useless or misdirected effort of energy. Not only have I seen innumerable cases in my state where this is simply not the case, entire sections of the federal government are effectively locked into right-wing positions because Trump won his election. He has entire sections of the appeals system and federal government more broadly aligned with him precisely because of how many nominations he's successfully put forward. Now, this does not mean that Biden or even the Democratic party more generally is going to ride to the rescue, however it speaks to the power that voting results wield.

Not voting is not an effective protest. All you are doing by not voting is saying hey someone else make this decision for me. By not voting you are not actually saying to the system "Hey I'm protesting against you!" At that point you have given the government system cart blanche to fucking ignore you.

I don't know who told you that not voting was anything other than giving up what little power you have to influence your government and therefore how your tax money and society operates on an everyday level. They lied to you. After a certain point there's no nice way to put this.

If you choose not to vote, that is a choice. I view it as an incredibly poor one. I also look at voting third party outside of elections where you know the candidate has no honest to the Gods shot to be a waste of time. You can vote however you want. If you want your vote to be effective then you're going to have to play with the system we've got until we can make a better one. These things take time. If we are being realistic, it is likely more than a few election cycles.

Another thing I have found intensely distasteful this entire election cycle has been from some leftists to sneer at harm reduction, as though opposing Republicans with Democratic candidates is just caving to fascism. Democrats and my State backed up unions and secured a woman's right to choose and secured bodily autonomy not only for women but forLGBTQIA+ folks. Republicans have fought against that.

"Oh but Manchin-" "Oh, but Sinema-"

Are not the whole of the Democratic Party. They were conservative holdouts in a largely center to center right coalition party whose younger constituents are far more left that the old guard. They fucked up some excellent legislation (or at least excellent opportunities) to put us in far better positions through helping to kill the Democrats' Build Back Better Plan and similar legislation.

Trying to punish the Democrats retroactively for not pushing Roe v Wade into law or not fulfilling all their campaign promises, by withholding your vote come the elections is short sighted, retrograde, and ultimately, harmful. It hands power to the Republicans without a fight, and allows them to set the boards for zoning, schools, city council, and so much more. It actively shoots your fellow citizens in the foot so you can feel moral superiority.

It reminds me of folks saying "Well I'm not filing because I am not gonna pay my taxes!" Unless your income is entirely under the table or illegal, or you intentionally changed your contributions, chances are that you were paying taxes this entire time and the only thing you're doing by not filing is potentially fucking yourself.

I get being angry, desperate, and despairing at the state of things, whether the political system, the world more broadly, or whatever issue you hold most dear to your heart. I'm not saying don't be angry, sad, depressed, or raging. I'm saying use it well. If you cannot summon up the give-a-shit on your own case, do it for those around you. Every bit we can do helps, and voting can make a lot of difference in our neighborhoods, and from there, the greater world.

Whether you are reading the missives from various pulpits or you're looking at project 2025, Christofascism is here. Folks have been warning about this for quite a long time, and it is here and it is in full swing. We cannot afford for the Republicans to take over. Heathens, Pagans, magical folks, none of us can afford a Republican victory at this point. Republicans have shown a deep willingness to use the apparatus of the state to harm queer and non-Christian people. They have shown a disdain for the separation of church and state. If you are on the right in this country you should be concerned if you're in any marginalized group. You will not be spared because you're "one of the good ones ".

Did you not see how they treated the Log Cabin Republicans? Did you not see that? Voting red will not save you, it will not make you more palatable. If the Republicans take power and get what they really want through their Christofascism and Project 2025, it does not matter how long you've been a Republican; if you are queer or Pagan you may as well not exist.

Believe me, I am not for a moment stating that Democrats are our saviors. They are a coalition center right political party that we can influence through our lobbying and votes. We can influence them through a variety of other means, including direct action is some have done. Some of you have failed to notice that your direct actions actually were useful! Kamala Harris came right out and said that they were pushing for a ceasefire, after so long of just leaving it off the table entirely. It is not that the narrative cannot be pushed, it is not that we cannot be heard, but you all need to recognize when you are heard and act accordingly without moving the fucking goal posts.

You demanded the administration work on a ceasefire and now they are. That is a victory! However, the Democrats cannot make the Israeli government and the Palestinian government come to a ceasefire. There is also only so much that we can do given the treaties and the alliances that we have. Yes, I know that America has a history of breaking it's treaties and why couldn't we just break this one? Well, because we're just not going to because it's been policy for almost the last 80 years. I just fervently wish the left more generally understood the political process better than it does and realize that we are doing quite a lot to move things along from where they could have been.

If you think for a second that Trump presidency would be better on any of these things you're wrong. That there are some leftists want to sink this project of American democracy simply because they didn't get what they want reminds me a lot of screaming fucking children who want a toy and are going to scream and shout when they don't get it. There's a sincere lack of understanding of the political process that I am seeing right now, especially given what I saw during the primary elections, and is sincere lack of understanding the political process with regards to our position with Israel. Again, I am not saying for a fucking moment don't be angry and don't do everything that you can't tell lobby for the Palestinian people. Engage in whatever diversity of tactics appeals the most to you. Part of having a diversity of tactics is including voting and on the ground diplomatic work. It isn't fun, it isn't sexy, but it's absolutely necessary in the meantime to get us to a place where we can be more effective. I would rather be more effective than being morally pure. I would rather be more effective and do what is possible than see everything around me fucking burn because it isn't just right.

I really do not hold with deontology. As a heathen my ethics are more centered in consequentialism. I care about how the tapestry looks after it's been woven, more than I care about how it has been woven. I will take an imperfect way of getting to the end of a tapestry then the tapestry never getting finished or being finished poor due to constantly unraveling it. There is no way that burning everything down is going to be helpful or effective for most folks. In any case, burning everything down with nothing to replace it leaves folks like me who rely on regular medications like insulin completely fucked. To be sure, the system fucks me and those in my position. It fucks the poor, the disabled, the marginalized. However, not having anything to replace it and just burning everything down, having no complex systems in place to slot into place will do immense, untold amounts of damage. Reforms are not sexy, and but they are how we can continue to live while we do the work needed to make things more equitable, more fair, more just.

I want change. We need to change as a society to become more just, equitable, fair, and to survive in the face of the challenges that we are facing. However, stepping away from the system as a whole, as though you're not going to be wrapped up in it as things go forward, that, to me, is giving up. It's not revolutionary. I would far rather see leftists and left-leaning Heathens and Pagans to flex their vote and their activism locally, to make the changes on the ground that we can where we live, how we live, with the Ginnreginn we live alongside.

#polytheism #animism #polytheist #animist #heathen #politics #us #us politics

[angelnumber27]

Overdose awareness day was yesterday.. for those who didn’t know, I was addicted to OxyContin, heroin, and then fentanyl for about 3-4 years. I got clean in December and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It was the sickest I have ever been in my life, and lasted for months. To give you an idea, I did enough to kill probably 10 people who have no tolerance every hour of every day. Towards the end, I did it just to not get horribly ill. There were many many times that I did a line and then passed out and fell over and went unconscious for several minutes. I would wake up on the ground minutes later confused about why I was on the ground. I overdosed a LOT and never really even acknowledged it until I got clean. I could have died on any given day. And the saddest part is that I knew that and acknowledged it and even welcomed it. I truly did not care if I lived or died at that point. In my life I’ve lost too many people to overdoses and sometimes I feel a bad survivors guilt and a confusion as to why I survived so many times and others didn’t :( but I believe that I am meant to be here.

Anyways, if you are going to be using substances, please be safe. Please test your drugs before using them. You never know what is in these drugs off the street and it is worth it to test it. If you can access it, please keep Narcan on your person and also in your car, you never know when you may need it and it could save a life. When using, please remember that you can always do more but you cannot do less. Do small amounts and add more as needed if you really need to. If you are using deadly drugs, please don’t do it alone. Also, please take into account any mental health issues you struggle with and do not do things such as psychedelics that could make these problems much worse. From my own experience, doing drugs does not help. It is a temporary gratification, not a lasting happiness. It puts you in a place in which you feel stuck and unable to move forward. I have been using since the age of 14 (10 years) and it has done nothing but made things worse for me and my physical/mental health issues. Let yourself feel your emotions naturally instead of blocking them out or bottling them up.

https://harmreduction.org

#addiction #narcan #fentanyl addiction #drugs #drug addiction #harm reduction #overdose awareness

[trans-axolotl]

What is harm reduction outreach? I saw you mention it in a post.

Sure!

So I do outreach through an org in my city that provides harm reduction services to people who use drugs and sex workers. We have specific areas of the city that we go to on specific days, and also do deliveries. We also do at least one overnight shift a week to be able to better provide services to sex workers. For outreach, we hand out safer use supplies including needles, sharps bins, tourniquets, cookers, sterile water, stems, Narcan, fentanyl test strips, condoms, lube, bad date sheets, wound care supplies, food, water, etc. We also try to help provide people referrals to services like HIV and Hep C care, share what resources in the city are trans friendly and how to navigate social services with the least bullshit, and also provide peer support and harm reduction education to help people have all the information they need to make choices, and help reduce risk.

It's really important to us that we are not acting like exploitative nonprofits that come in, hoard resources, and expect people to be grateful. outreach is pretty much done entirely by people who are also drug users and sex workers. We are also really involved in local advocacy--we participate in a decriminalization campaign, a drug users union, and a sex work advocacy coalition. and i think nonprofits and government attempts to coopt harm reduction are so fucked up and actively harmful--you can't do harm reduction without also fighting to abolish the oppressive systems that are targeting drug users and sex workers. we have a lot of ties to the community that we're doing harm reduction in--for most of us it just is our community + neighborhoods lmao, and we make sure that we're always getting feedback, respecting autonomy and consent, and building mutual relationships. we've been around for a while and do have a lot of community trust, but we always want to be making sure we're respecting what people want and need instead of coming in with ideas about what services + supplies they want.

anyway. harm reduction is so fucking important to me and it's not just like, something i do to like, build my resume or to try to "save people." i'm a former sex worker and when i first started doing sex work, i didn't have any information, community, or access to anything that would have helped me to be able to work safer. it fucked me up pretty bad and i survived a lot of violence. i wish so fucking badly i had all those things, and it's super important to me to try to build community, care for each other, resist fucked up systems and protect each other.

#asks #harm reduction #can you tell how annoyed i am rn at like. people calling things 'harm reduction that isn't fucking harm reduction #gov and nonprofits are so into trying to like. coopt harm reduction and use harm reduction language #but are so fuckign coercive. so cruel. only into providing services on their terms #and not into actually meeting people where they're at. #i'm soooo fucking done with it! i'm done!!!! #sw #there's been a lot of people who want to get involved bc they come in with a mindset that they're saving people #and like that they're doing it for their career. or whatever. #and it has been happening more lately and i'm so annoyed #like i've met some ppl who are involved in harm reductiona nd don't have any lived experience who r great. who really listen and #we trust them! but so many ppl don't give enough of a fuck to learn first. and come in and expect to be treated like an expert

[cock-holliday]

hey LJ i have a question that i feel you might be able to help me with (if you'd like to answer ofc, no pressure) - i see a lot of "both candidates are bad, they will both commit atrocities so you shouldn't vote for either" and i get this in some ways, but i also see a lot of posts how there is no "harm reduction" or that it doesn't matter and this is where i get kind of lost. if candidate 'A' AND candidate 'B' are both going to harm groups 'x' 'y' and 'z', but candidate 'A' wants to also harm group 'm' and candidate 'B' does not, wouldn't it make sense to vote for candidate 'B'? or is this simply too utilitarian of me, or perhaps an oversimplification? (mostly i'm worried about Project 2025, which sounds very scary and worries me a lot as a usamerican, im not trying to minimize the damage either candidate would do, i'd rather neither of these totally hypothetical candidates be elected, but it seems likely that one of them will be)

Once again, we haven't yet even had a primary so 'which of these two as-yet-undecided opponents do we vote for' is jumping the gun...or reflective of how little faith people have in the presidential electoral system to allow people to choose someone outside the narrow party system, in which case, you're almost there.

Project 2025 is the "plan to reshape America" (into what it already is) spearheaded by The Heritage Foundation. For the uninitiated, THF is one of the largest if not the largest coalitions of far-right interests. They initially thought Trump was a big fucking clown, and refused to endorse him, then when he got elected in 2016 they thought he could potentially be a useful idiot, at least way more likely to support their cause than Clinton. Now with the 2024 election, they haven't officially endorsed anyone, but it seems to everyone that Trump would be their man for the plan.

Project 2025 is...well, disgusting and concerning, but the questions remain: Would Trump follow up on these if elected? Will he even be able to run? Would Ron DeSantis follow up on these? Would Biden combat these policies?

A number of the proposals are directly in opposition to Trump's ego, particularly with the focus of emboldening the FBI. A number of the members of THF's board are also not on good terms with Trump--whether that will hamper their ability to negotiate or his is unclear.

Trump currently can run for office but if convicted he cannot actually serve. The weasel has been successful at dodging accountability in the past, so who fucking knows if anything will actually stick.

David Dewhirst, Ron DeSantis' advisor has recently joined Project 2025 as an advisor, which doesn't sound promising. In all the hubbub forever and always about Trump, the DNC hasn't paid much attention to the risks DeSantis poses, as frankly he's a much more concerning opponent than Trump. What the DNC has done is respond smugly to DeSantis's run, insisting yeah he should run so he can further embarrass himself. (Hm, sounds like what they said in 2016 about Trump...). A lot of the DNC's critique of DeSantis is hypocritical when it comes to financial matters. They rightfully dunk on him for taking money and aid from constituents to fund corporations, but someone please fill me in again on how many Dems do the same? With one of the worst offenders being senator Joe Manchin of WV, the DNC's little "rogue", or the side-swapping governor of the same state Jim Justice.

So then we have to wonder, okay, if Biden is reelected, does that mean Project 2025 won't happen? Project 2025, while a genuine threat, is the exact boogeyman tactic the DNC delights in. This quote put it well: "Forget Trump. Project 2025 is the greatest threat to democracy we have seen in our country’s history." Every election is 'the most important election ever' as we are facing the newest 'greatest threat to democracy' and so you have to give your money to the dems to stop them. And then they don't.

I remember when Sarah Palin was going to be the cause of the 2012 End Times and goodbye democracy. But doomed democracy is always the carrot at the end of the stick urging you to vote in the Most Important Election Ever.

What do the dems in office to to insulate against these threats? Fuck all. One of the biggest fiascos with the carrot approach has been over Roe v. Wade. Dems had the opportunity to replace RBG with someone young who would weigh in on important issues for decades to come, and they didn't. Then her death allowed Republicans to replace her and overturn Roe v. Wade, one of the biggest carrots the dems have been dangling for decades! "Keep us in office to keep Roe v. Wade!" they said. Now look.

People are rightfully worried about the oil lobby influence in Project 2025, I'm worried about Biden's oil lobby interests. He has fast-tracked the Mountain Valley Pipeline (x2) in Appalachia after squeezing it into the debt ceiling talks and clearing addition obstacles which has emboldened the courts to decline halts to the project, he approved oil drilling in Alaska, and Biden has generally been invested in oil even more than Trump was, issuing more permits for drilling than Trump, and apparently now setting records for oil production.

There are plenty of other posts that tear into Biden way more in depth than I will right now, dealing with his horrific immigration policy, his debacle with student loans, his failure to make good on any drug decriminalization, his spending more on law enforcement and mass surveillance than Trump, the list goes on, without even touching his current atrocities in his support for Israel.

So what is to be done? I told the other anon about publicly witholding your vote until Biden meets literally any demands, making it known to his campaign team/doorknockers/pollworkers that this is your stance. If your vote is really important as they say, then leverage it.

Here is a great piece about Voting As Harm Reduction that dives into the issue with that sentiment better than I can.

The thing is ultimately while the Project 2025 blueprint is newly published, nothing in it is new strategy, it's just THF's strategy for the last 40 years packaged into one place. Yes, it is scary, but it is neither a guarantee to all happen under Trump nor an assurance that it won't happen under Biden.

The best insulation against any presidential bullshittery is, as always, grassroots organizing. Connect with orgs working to make abortion accessible, connect with groups working to make your place a sanctuary city, connect with groups insulating your local communities, and support those involved in direct action.

Under Biden's presidency, police are building an expensive and elaborate training ground for police in Atlanta, Georgia. This project has been referred to as Cop City. It is being protested, and resistance has been met with extreme brutality and harsh legal punishment. The land is being destroyed for this, making it a climate and indigenous issue; an indigenous protester was murdered by police over it, making it a police brutality and indigenous issue; Biden has been dumping money into law enforcement training; and this area is grounds for new repression tactics in the US.

It is crucial to build insulation to presidencies so that no matter who is president, local communities can resist disgusting policies and protect our people.

We can talk ourselves in circles and I won't tell you who to vote for or which president will fix these issues because I do not think any of them will, and each one will make individual bad situations worse.

I frankly do not care if you vote for Biden and if that vote makes you feel a bit more secure in your impending fears--the vote shouldn't be all you do.

And for what it's worth, I did not vote for Biden in 2020, so factor that into your analysis for how you see my advice in your decision.

#ask #anon ask #long post #voting

[footnoteinhistory]

Last February I had something a little more organized, talking about groups close to Phil’s heart and harm reduction orgs and how to support them, but this year I don’t quite have it in me to put together a whole thing all month, so here’s just a few words

Phil was a very kind and generous soul and we miss him so much. He was a proud partner of the DreamYard Project, which supports the arts and opportunities for kids in the Bronx, the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation for spinal cord and paralysis research and treatment, and his beloved LAByrinth Theater Company, his artistic home and family.

Harm reduction saves lives and it could’ve saved his.

NEXT Distro is a grassroots mail-based and online harm reduction organization that provides safe supplies and resources.

Trillium Health is a community health center in Rochester, Phil’s hometown, that offers harm reduction and LGBTQ+-inclusive health services for Western New Yorkers.

The National Harm Reduction Coalition is a leader in advocacy and offers a wealth of accessible resources.

BHRC is my local group and they work so hard to create change on every level, from passing legislation to community outreach on the streets.

If you’ve followed me for any amount of time, I hope you’ve learned at least a bit about what a sweet heart Phil had. He was so generous with his time and money and love, I feel like donating in his memory is something solid, tangible, real for me to hold onto when I’m drowning in this grief. Supporting or just learning more about any one of these organizations would mean a lot to me, and I’m sure to him, too.

Or go see a play at your local theater, put on your favorite movie, work hard at your art, watch the Super Bowl, eat a cheeseburger, tell someone you love them. Never use alone, always carry Narcan, hold onto your loved ones and let them hold you. Endless ways to #philtheworldwithlove

It’s been nine years and I miss you every day, Phil. I love you so much.

#holding you so close I hope you can feel all our love #there is so much of it #philtheworldwithlove #harm reduction

[beardedmrbean]

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — City councilors in West Virginia's Democrat-controlled capital city voted against a proposal from the state's long-time abortion provider to start a syringe service program in one of the country's most opioid-devastated areas.

The 17 to 9 vote on Monday came two years after the council and the Republican-controlled state Legislature passed regulations restricting the programs, which are supported by the Centers for Disease Control as scientifically-proven methods to curb drug use and prevent the spread of infections like hepatitis c and HIV. The opposition said they feared the program would bring increased drug use and crime into Charleston's west side, a low-income area that has suffered from redlining and historic disinvestment.

Supporters of the Women's Health Center of West Virginia said drug use is already prevalent and that a syringe service program would help more people get into recovery in the community, which has also historically seen the city’s highest percentage of emergency overdose calls.

The meeting was the latest development in a years-long, highly contentious battle for recognition of what is considered medical best practice for harm reduction in substance use disorder and its intersection with poverty, race, and economic equity in West Virginia’s capital city.

“Our city is dying — it's our responsibility to do something about it," said Republican Frank Annie, a sponsor of the proposal and a research scientist specializing in cardiovascular health at Charleston Area Medical Center Memorial Hospital.

Annie, who represents the more affluent South Hills and was working with a coalition of all-Democratic councilors, spoke about the high rates of hepatitis c, HIV and endocarditis from intravenous drug use that are “crippling” local healthcare systems.

Dr. Adina Elise Bowe, an addiction psychiatrist with Charleston Area Medical Center, asked councilors to put “emotions aside and look at the evidence" supported by three decades of medical research.

West Virginia is the U.S. state with the highest rate of opioid overdoses. In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared Charleston the scene of the country’s “most concerning HIV outbreak” due to intravenous drug use.

Women’s Health Center of West Virginia providers said their proposal was part of an effort to expand services for marginalized communities now that a near-total ban on abortion is in effect in the state.

Syringe service programs operate by allowing people to exchange dirty syringes used to inject drugs for clean, sterile ones. They are CDC-recommended methods to curb the spread of infection and typically offer a range of services, including referrals to counseling and substance use disorder treatment.

Such programs exist nationwide, but they are not without critics, who say they don’t do enough to prevent drug use. The city has one syringe service program now, located in the more affluent east end. A program run out of the Charleston-Kanawha Health Department was shuttered by the city in 2018.

West Virginia Republican Gov. Jim Justice signed a law in 2021 requiring syringe providers to be licensed with the state and recipients to show proof of residency and return each needle after use.

The Charleston City Council followed with an ordinance requiring programs to collect at least 90% of the syringes distributed. Exchange programs violating the restrictions can be charged with a misdemeanor criminal offense, adding fines of $500 to $1,000 per offense. The programs also must be approved by the council and county commission.

Christy Day, a Black west side resident who spoke against the proposal, said she's tired of coming to city council to talk about programs like syringe service without an equity plan focused on bringing other needed resources, like new families and businesses like grocery stores.

Larry Moore, the city council member representing the west side, said people in his community feel like they haven't always had a voice in decisions that are made in the city.

Kenny Matthews, a Black man in recovery from opioid use who lives on west side, said syringe service programs save lives by building trust with a hard-to-access community and connecting people to treatment while offering resources like fentanyl test strips and overdose-reversal drugs.

“What we’re asking to be done is to allow people to be surrounded by people that say, ‘You’re worth living. You have something to contribute, and you can be better,’” he said. “If we say that we don’t want harm reduction, then you’re saying that you don’t want people to live."

After the meeting, Democratic Mayor Amy Goodwin — who voted against the proposal — said she sees the benefit of syringe service programs and voted in support of the existing program run by a clinic for underinsured residents on the east end. But, she said more medical expert testimony and more time was needed to ask questions before being pushed to vote on this latest proposal. Women's Health Center providers said they reached out to Goodwin to talk about the program in June.

#nunyas news

[opinions-about-tiaras]

Thanks for standing up to the delusional non-voter crowd. Voting is harm reduction, and even if the options are Hitler and 50% Hitler, you vote for the lesser evil. Hell, if the options are Hitler vs 150% Hitler, you do the ethical thing and suck up your pride and vote for Hitler.

Luckily, this case is really more like Hitler (Trump) vs Kaiser (Biden). Just like the Kaiser, Biden is doing genocide abroad w/ some actually pretty decent domestic policies. But a genocide abroad is far less evil than a genocide abroad *and* at home! It’s delusional to think the world has moved beyond genocide; it’s just what it is.

I actually disagree with this.

There comes a point where option five, "Become a terrorist," is ethical, justified, and necessary.

A hypothetical matchup between Hitler and 150% Hitler, in a context where both of them are the standard bearers of numerically dominant political coalitions, means that your fellow citizens are basically comprehensively evil, and the time has come to fight them with car bombs and bushwhackings.

But if you're not at that point? Like, if you still regard your polity as being democratically legitimate enough to not be overthrown by force? Then you don't have any excuses really. Join a political coalition. Vote.

This is before you even get into relative specifics.

[songsofprotestpeacerevolution]

Allison Russell - Demons

As the fires of severe cellular intergenerational trauma and heart shattering cyclical violence rage, consuming so many of our children (all children, our children) & the polarization of our one human family has reached crisis levels— I rededicate myself to the mission and currency of art — empathy & connection.

We don’t have to hide from our history, we just have to face it. And walk through it together.

Our trauma can be the mother of empathy, of compassion, of equal human understanding, of Truth, Reconciliation, Reparation, Forgiveness, of loving coalition and harm reduction.

“Demons” is about looking our traumas, our fears, our pain — on the micro and macro levels in the face— and not letting them drive the bus. It’s a call to courage and coalition. Worlds within worlds. Imagine a world where our ideologies never subsume our equal and shared humanity…

“Freedom riders sing, freedom singers ride Lift us up to that good fight/ can we carry that song, that shield, that crown/ every last child in every last town”

Love is the Revolution X Allison Russell

#Youtube