St. Ann’s Corner of Harm Reduction (SACHR) is a pioneering organization. When it started handing out sterile syringes to New Yorkers using drugs, during the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and ‘90s, it was illegal to do so.
Since 1990, SACHR has operated the longest continually-running syringe services program in the United States. Its participants are mostly on low incomes, and mostly Black or Latino. Having started out dispensing supplies from the trunk of a vehicle, SACHR now offers a wide range of programs in a spacious, brightly painted building in the South Bronx.
Its Drug User Health Hub provides access to buprenorphine, naloxone, sterile syringes and case management. Amid the ongoing overdose crisis, these services are lifesaving.
SACHR’s motto is: “Lead with Empathy, Practice Mercy, and Provide Safety.” In keeping with that mission, the organization demonstrated that its pioneering spirit lives on, when it invited me to facilitate a vaping group there for participants who smoke.
Offering tobacco harm reduction services at “drug” harm reduction locations is vital, because smoking rates among people who use banned drugs are extremely high.
At least half of people who smoke long-term die of smoking-related diseases. But vaping is a highly effective and accessible way to quit cigarettes, and switching will bring health benefits whenever you do it.
Access to safer nicotine products must be seen as part of people’s right to health, and harm reduction organizations are increasingly recognizing the need to integrate this into their other critical work.
“With the vape, I’m able to feel ‘normal’ without smoking cigarettes.”
Everyone in the group I worked with had experienced some of the harms of combustible tobacco, from chronic coughing to getting winded walking up stairs. Some group members had diagnoses of diabetes, asthma, HIV, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)—health problems that smoking greatly exacerbates.
They were ready to make the switch, and I was there to help them do that.
You can meet some of the participants, and hear about their experiences with vaping, in the Filter video above.
“With the vape, I’m able to feel ‘normal’ without smoking cigarettes,” said one Spanish-speaking man, who has lived with HIV since 2009. “It’s been an opportunity for me to change a behavior that has significantly improved the quality of my life.”
Participants noted numerous improvements to their health—and from doing something they enjoyed, using menthol, mango and watermelon vapes!
As one person said, “With vaping, you’ll get that bounce!”
Show Comments