Use + Harm Reduction

Photo Essay: Inside Australia’s Safe Consumption Sites

While officials in the US—and the UK where I live—debate the introduction of safe consumption spaces (SCS), it's important to…

May 29, 2019

Why Drug Dealers Are an Under-Utilized Anti-Overdose Resource

Last year, a man in his 20s attending Electric Forest, a Michigan music festival, began to cry after discovering that…

May 28, 2019

Harm Reduction Is Growing in Scotland—But So Are Overdose Deaths

In November 2018, Scotland launched a revised national drug policy that prioritizes recovery resources, including enhancing harm reduction resources. But according…

May 23, 2019

I Chose Functional Heroin Use. Here’s How It Works for Me.

Recovery from addiction is different for everyone. In my case, abstinence from heroin didn’t work. Neither did medication. Anonymous meetings,…

May 23, 2019

What Happens When a Syringe Exchange Is Shut Down

HIV infections are surging in Cabell County, West Virginia. On April 4, 2019, the West Virginia Bureau for Public Health…

May 22, 2019

Childhood Development Issues and Adult Addiction Fit the Same Pattern

Behavioral-developmental challenges in childhood and addiction problems in adulthood are two sides of the same coin. Both constitute self-defeating patterns…

May 21, 2019

Three Takeaways From Filter’s Tobacco Harm Reduction and Health Justice Event

On May 17, Filter hosted a panel entitled "Tobacco Harm Reduction, Vulnerable Populations & Health Justice" at New York University, attended by…

May 21, 2019

Maine Legislators Choose Stigma Over Science in Shameful SCS Decision

On May 10, the members of the Health and Human Services Committee of Maine’s legislature debated LD949—a bill that would…

May 17, 2019

Innovative Canadian “Street Degree” Empowers Peer Harm Reduction Workers

In British Columbia, an entirely peer-taught overdose prevention "Street Degree" program has graduated its first batch of certificate recipients. They…

May 16, 2019

How Technology Is Rapidly Advancing Overdose-Resistant Bathrooms

As the US harm reduction community grapples with the legal, cultural and political challenges to implementing the nation’s first legal…

May 14, 2019