Dear Friends:

For the 6th National Harm Reduction Conference -- “Drug User Health: The Politics and the Personal” -- we have returned to Oakland, one of our home bases and the site of our first national conference, held in 1996.

Many of us are still in the struggle for drug user health and justice. New people have joined since our first event, and we hope many more will join this conference and our movement for the first time. We have grown from a small group of activists who adopted harm reduction as an HIV prevention strategy to see harm reduction widely embraced in cities and states throughout the nation in HIV prevention and treatment, housing, mental health, overdose prevention, viral hepatitis, and many other venues and disciplines. Our conference brings us together to share our experiences, challenge ourselves to reflect critically on our work, and find solutions to improve the health and lives of drug users.

Drug policy can be viewed as comprising four elements: drug treatment, criminal justice, drug use prevention and harm reduction. Although all four weave through our work, this conference is about harm reduction and how it intersects with the other elements. Harm reduction is still in its infancy in its integration into local, regional and national policy. The conference allows us to network, learn from each other and to ground our field in both science and practice so that we can have a stronger hand in setting national agendas.

Beyond harm reduction, the larger political terrain is evolving rapidly. U.S. involvement in the Middle East and its neglect of its neighbors in Central and South America are altering global alliances. Domestic repercussions – the funding shortages for health and social services and the attacks on civil liberties driven by the “war on terror” – are taking a toll. The President will be heading into his lame duck period, and crucial midterm elections for the House and Senate will occur shortly before our conference. These changing and uncertain times herald a period of opportunity.

As intellectually bankrupt policies and morally corrupt politicians are done away with, harm reduction strategies will take center stage. There are always conferences to attend, but there is only one national harm reduction conference. This may be the only place that researchers, scientists, activists, advocates, medical professionals, social workers, drug users and law enforcement mingle so productively. The 6th National Harm Reduction Conference, “Drug User Health: The Politics and the Personal,” is going to be a humdinger. This is our venue for creating change and setting the agenda. It’s going to be fun, innovative and smart.

See you there.

Allan Clear
Executive Director

Conference Highlights

1. Principles of harm reduction: what defines harm reduction in your agency or in your advocacy?
2. Harm reduction efforts in Latino and African American communities
3. Successful service program models: including urban and rural/non-urban settings, culturally specific services, cross-modalities, log-term program survival etc.
4. User to user interventions, education, organizing and advocacy
5. History: changing the dialog around harm reduction, identifying future strategies
6. Practical interventions for methamphetamine and crack cocaine users
7. Community dynamics: the shifting roles of community based organizations, faith based groups, health departments, funding and public policy
8. New research on drug use, HIV, AIDS, hepatitis C, syringe exchange and harm reduction
9. Methadone information and methadone advocacy
10. Spanish language workshops
11. Social marketing: targeting drug users and communities with vital information
12. Community impact of drug law incarcerations and prison issues for drug users and people living with AIDS
13. Redefining the user: advocacy and programs that combat stigma and remove barriers that create harm
14. How to start and maintain a syringe exchange program
15. Mental health counseling
16. Women and substance use - its impact on families
17. Opiate overdose prevention and response
18. Criminal justice involvement and its impact in communities of color
19. Incorporating harm reduction practices in the coordination of mental health services