Jonathan Kirkpatrick

Jonathan is a Filter tobacco harm reduction fellow. He’s incarcerated at Washington Corrections Center, where he’s a teacher’s assistant for re-entry workshops. He also works on harm reduction in prison, training peer educators around HIV and hepatitis C, though he no longer uses drugs himself. Jonathan’s writing has been published by the AppealTruthoutJewish Currents and the Seattle Journal of Social Justice. He also writes with Kastalia Medrano.

His Washington State Department of Corrections ID is #716850, and due to a 29-year-old paperwork error his name in Securus is “Jonathon.”

Jonathan’s fellowship is supported by an independently administered tobacco harm reduction scholarship from Knowledge-Action-Change, an organization that has separately provided restricted grants and donations to Filter.

To Bring Tobacco Harm Reduction to Prisons, We Need Outside Allies

Harm reduction efforts outside prison often involve lawyers and other experts identifying policy that is weak from more than one…

June 9, 2025

Remembering Long Hair Dave, Early Champion of Sterile Syringe Outreach

David Fawver (1956-2025) was a beloved activist in Olympia, Washington, known to everyone as Long Hair Dave. His street-based HIV-prevention…

May 1, 2025

When Harm Reduction Is Easy and Enjoyable, It’s More Effective

When I was young, I was living on the streets of Los Angeles at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic…

March 27, 2025

Smoking Killed His Family. He’ll Still Smoke When He Leaves Prison.

Cigarettes have been a part of Eric Barnett’s entire life. His mother smoked during his childhood, and he started at…

February 5, 2025

Time for a Concerted Push to Get Vapes in All Prisons

Tobacco harm reduction in the United States, like most other harm reduction, tends to ignore the prison-industrial complex and the…

December 13, 2024

How Prisoners Practice Tobacco Harm Reduction, With No Vapes

Harm reduction can always be practiced, regardless of whether you have government approval and specially designed products. I know this…

November 4, 2024

Banning Prison Visitors From Vaping Is Unjustified and Harmful

Washington State is one of only four in the nation to allow what are commonly called conjugal visits. These Extended…

October 7, 2024

Why Tobacco Harm Reduction? A First Question of Many

When I first heard the words “tobacco harm reduction,” as recently as 2022, I was a little surprised. What is…

September 16, 2024

How Prison Tobacco Bans Created a Drug Market No One Wanted

[Part 1 and Part 2 of this story were published earlier in July.] Back in 2004, right before tobacco was…

July 22, 2024

How Iron Law of Prohibition Works in Prisons, Where Everything’s Prohibited

[Read Part 1 of this story here] When I got off the chain bus at Washington State Penitentiary (Walla Walla)…

July 11, 2024