A constant threat to harm reductionists is that without clear legal protections, their lifesaving work can be criminalized. The recent arrest of a Tennessee researcher and outreach worker, who was engaged in drug checking, drives home the reality of that threat.
Dr. Paige Lemen is a recent PhD graduate in biomedical sciences at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and co-founder of 901 Harm Reduction, a Memphis-based group providing supplies and resources. She was arrested while transporting a 0.7-gram drug sample for laboratory testing, and now faces a series of charges—including possession with intent to sell, possession of drugs not prescribed, and driving under the influence of a controlled substance. The charges have troubling implications for future harm reduction work.
The arrest occurred on June 3 in Jackson, Tennessee, a small city near Memphis. Minutes earlier, Lemen had picked up the small drug sample for lab testing, something she had routinely done before. She believed at the time that the powdered sample was most likely to contain fentanyl.
Lemen reports that police began tailing her almost immediately after she picked up the sample.
While driving home, she experienced a sudden wave of nausea, a symptom she explained is linked to long-term complications from an Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection in 2017. Reaching for a box of crackers she keeps in her car to manage nausea, she briefly drifted over the white line twice.
“It’s very clear they don’t understand anything about drugs—they just immediately see something and then arrest you.”
A Jackson police officer immediately pulled her over for a field sobriety test, which she failed due to her inability to stand on one leg. The police report states that she declined a breathalyzer, urine test and blood draw. But Lemen insists that the brief field sobriety test was the only assessment she was offered prior to her arrest.
Additional officers searched her vehicle without her consent and seized several items linked to her harm reduction outreach and laboratory research, including the drug sample (which the police reported as fentanyl), diluted oxycodone solution for animal studies, rodent-sized syringes and other lab tools, as well as several medications she had been prescribed to manage her EBV complications.
Lemen said she repeatedly explained things to the officers, but that they laughed off her explanation, refusing to take her credentials seriously or ask for any supporting documentation.
“All of my training and credentials are very specific and detailed,” Lemen told Filter, listing off multiple forms of documentation, including from the university and her lab. “It’s very clear they don’t understand anything about drugs—they just immediately see something and then arrest you, and that’s about it.”
Dr. Paige Lemen. Photograph via 901 Harm Reduction/Facebook
According to Lemen, bodycam footage—which was released to her legal team but is not available for public viewing—shows that the police mocked her, celebrating the arrest as if they were “heroes.”
Lemen spent two nights in jail, where she slept on a mattress on the floor as the fifth woman in a four-person cell.
“They’re like, congratulating each other … and talking shit behind my back,” she said. “Like, ‘Look, check her for track marks!’ and stuff.”
Beyond this stigmatizing and unprofessional behavior, additional details raise red flags about potential police misconduct. When pulled over, Lemen openly acknowledged taking promethazine, a prescribed anti-nausea medication that is not a controlled substance. The officer insisted that constituted “driving on a controlled substance” and recorded it as such in his report. This is one of the three charges that Lemen is now facing in court.
The police report also claimed that one vial of her laboratory-grade diluted oxycodone solution tested positive for cocaine, a substance Lemen said she has never handled in her research or personal life. She questioned the accuracy of the field test, noting their known unreliability and the lack of a subsequent confirmatory analysis.
The Jackson Police Department did not respond to Filter’s request for comment on the accuracy of Dr. Lemen’s account.
“The entire rest of June, beginning of July, nobody was able to get supplies from us … People didn’t feel comfortable ‘cause there were police surrounding us … very clearly surveilling us.”
Lemen spent two nights in jail, where she slept on a mattress on the floor as the fifth woman in a four-person cell. Nurses refused to provide her the medications needed to manage her chronic illness. She was released on the evening of June 5 after a local harm reduction organization, DeCarcerate Memphis, paid her $10,000 bond.
Despite the personal costs of her arrest, Lemen is most concerned about its effects on her community. Heightened police surveillance at events has inhibited 901 Harm Reduction’s outreach work, she said, and several clients have reported being harassed by the police about whether Lemen had “sold them drugs.”
“The entire rest of June, beginning of July, nobody was able to get supplies from us at all,” she said. “People didn’t feel comfortable coming up ‘cause there were constantly security and police surrounding us … very clearly surveilling us.”
Photograph via 901 Harm Reduction/Facebook
Lemen said she has also observed unmarked police cars regularly parking near her home and taking photos of her property since her arrest.
In addition to the impacts on the immediate community, the case will likely set a precedent for how judges in Tennessee, and possibly far beyond, deal with future cases involving drug checking.
“Drug checking has those really gray-area laws, similar to syringe service programs,” Lemen explained. Even where it’s legal to operate registered drug checking programs, “There’s still those gray areas … What about the people working there bringing supplies in their car, and what happens if they get pulled over while they’re on the way?”
In advance of her court hearing, Lemen plans to continue gathering documentation that will prove her authorization to possess the confiscated supplies.
These legal gray areas worry harm reduction practitioners, who have consistently advocated for policy reforms that explicitly permit drug checking, syringe programs, naloxone distribution and other harm reduction interventions. Lemen’s arrest suggests that their fears are well-founded, and she’s acutely aware of the importance of her case.
“That’s gonna make me, like, probably the first person in Tennessee to get charged with drug checking,” she said. “If the only case to go off of is my case … that means they’re probably just gonna revert to my case outcome.”
In advance of her September 16 court hearing, Lemen plans to continue gathering documentation that will prove her authorization to possess the confiscated supplies. She is also searching for legal allies who understand laboratory research and drug checking and can articulate their legality to the judge.
She hopes that her case can make a positive impact, but she worries that even with the appropriate documentation, the judge will be unwilling to hear her perspective.
“People just don’t understand anything and aren’t willing to try,” she said.
Top photograph via Pickpik