Added an extra meme to the end of this because it’s also relevant. Mad frauds and ops popping up in harm reduction these days, co-opting language and providing half-assed services/solutions with the underlying agenda of redirecting (re: forcing) people towards a recovery or abstinence pipeline and doing nothing to help the most at risk and most stigmatized PWUD. Yet these orgs and groups are the ones getting all kinds of priority and funding.

I recently heard about some 911 Good Samaritan Policy language basically saying you have to report the seller of said drugs related to the medical emergency to police. That is not the point. And I’m way too exhausted to expand on all the fuckery afoot.

Just going to reiterate narcan and test strips are the absolute bare minimum and hardly qualifies as “meeting people where they’re at”.

Read the motherfucking principles of harm reduction and get your shit together or move the fuck onto something else.

via @harmreductionservices

We’ve noticed lots of shelters calling themselves harm reduction shelters because they don’t explicitly ban PWUD from staying there, and keep a Narcan in the front office. But y€™’all that’s not what harm reduction means.

We’€™re tired of our participants reporting back that their shelter threw away their syringes, tired of people dying of 0v3rdose because their shelter wouldn’t allow them to have guests in their room, tired of people having to leave the only shelter available to them because of the way their use is policed and stigmatized.

Harm reduction is a whole philosophy! A commitment to unlearning stigma! A way of seeing the world!

It’s not a way to get funding or portray your organization as progressive or groundbreaking.