Harm Reduction In My Heart
After three years of Covid-connected delay, the 13th National Harm Reduction Conference was held Oct. 13-16 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Of approximately 2,400 attendees, around a dozen came from Western North Carolina to the northeastern part of Puerto Rico, where recent hurricanes did not cause much damage.
By Michael Harney –
In a short column, there is no way to describe four days of amazing presentations, research results, discussion topics, networking, or the film festival, let alone the capital investment needs of Puerto Rico itself, and the struggles of the puertorriqueños—or borinqueños.
Presentations, pertaining mostly to the United States, included syringe services programs, drug laws, overdose prevention centers, reproductive and personal health issues, sex work, incarceration, LGBTQ+ concerns, and infectious diseases.
One addition to the nationwide concern of fentanyl and fentanyl-tainted substances is xylazine in the drug supply. It’s a horse tranquilizer, but no joke: Humans are ingesting it and experiencing severe physical and medical complications. Learn more at khn.org/news/article/xylazine-tranq-drugs-dangerous.
As the AIDS Memorial Quilt reminds us about those we have lost to HIV/AIDS over that epidemic’s 41 years, the National Overdose Memorial, an electronic online installation, will leave one’s heart grief-stricken. It’s worth viewing at www.OverdoseMemorial.org.
So many pioneers of harm reduction were missing at the conference, due to aging, medical issues, and even overdoses. Yet there is a new generation of vigorous advocates, many of them women, to take us through the next 25 years. These issues seem never to go away.
Want to chew on a tough one? Can we talk about actually legalizing—at a minimum—cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and a handful of other substances, to reduce the harm we are experiencing in society as our loved ones succumb to corrupt concoctions bought “on the streets” without accurate measurement of dosage or true knowledge of ingredients, causing overdoses and other medical emergencies?
Could our medical providers prescribe what we’re seeking, and perhaps believe we’re acquiring, in order to reduce death and destruction by non-pharmaceutical-grade substances? The conversation has begun; the subject is on the table, as it has been in other countries for years.
If you wish to discuss some of this over coffee, please contact me through The Urban News. And on that subject, much gratitude goes to The Urban News for all the great work it puts into informing us all year long. I am personally looking forward to the upcoming year and appreciate all who write for and support this paper.
Michael Harney is Prevention Educator for WNCAP (Western North Carolina AIDS Project) and a Spanish-language teacher.
