Movements that Intersect with Harm Reduction
The work of Harm Reduction sits at the intersection of various movements. These issues are near and dear to our hearts though we can’t possibly adequately speak to all of them.
Thankfully, there are many passionate teams creating great resources to serve the needs of misrepresented communities who stand to benefit from evidence-based harm reduction strategies.
Resources We Love and Groups We Respect
These are among the topics we believe to be most important. Below you will find a collection of groups and resources that focus on these issues.
Racial Equity and Harm Reduction
Racial equity is at the core of all work that claims to value justice. The imbalance caused by white supremacy costs us all, and the racist war on drugs harms Black folks at a disparate rate.
Juneteenth is a day that honors Black freedom and Black resistance and centers Black people’s unique contribution to the struggle for justice in the U.S. This Juneteenth is a rare moment for our communities to proclaim in one voice that Black Lives Matter and that we won’t tolerate anything less than justice for all our people.
Conversations that Matter by City Match
A how-to guide for hosting conversations about race, racism, and public health
Race and the Drug War by Drug Policy
Alliance
People of color experience discrimination at every stage of the criminal justice system. The drug war has produced profoundly unequal outcomes across racial groups, manifested through racial discrimination by law enforcement and disproportionate drug war misery suffered by communities of color.
Racial Equity Tools is designed to support individuals and groups working to achieve racial equity. This site offers tools, research, tips, curricula, and ideas for people who want to increase their own understanding and to help those working toward justice at every level – in systems, organizations, communities, and the culture at large.
Code Switch is the fearless conversations about race that you’ve been waiting for. Hosted by journalists of color, the podcast tackles the subject of race head-on. It explores how it impacts every part of society – from politics and pop culture to history, sports, and everything in between. This podcast makes all of us part of the conversation – because we’re all part of the story.
The Drug War is the New Jim Crow
by the ACLU
Pervasive racial targeting provides a peculiar U.S. stamp to the drug war. We are incarcerating African-American men at a rate approximately four times the rate of incarceration of Black men in South Africa under apartheid.
Decarceration and Harm Reduction
We support the abolitionist call from activists around the country to defund, disarm, and disband the police and redirect resources to Black communities. The harms caused by the failed War on Drugs negatively affect families for generations and cost people their lives. Decarceration is a crucial step in healing.
Reclaim the Block organizes Minneapolis community and city council members to move money from the police department into other areas of the city’s budget that truly promote community health and safety.
Decarceration by The Marshall Project
The Marshall Project curates some of the best criminal justice reporting from around the web.
Every one of us has a role to play in the great rising across the nation in defense of Black lives and to demand justice for the victims of police and vigilante violence. Defending Black Lives offers ways to come together, share, and take action.
To build an abolitionist world that prioritizes the lives of Black people, we have drawn upon decades of abolitionists’ work to compile this list of demands targeted toward city and municipal powers.
LGB/TGNC+ and Harm Reduction
Black Trans Lives Matter. Connecting with our LGB/TGNC+ siblings to transform resources and create/decentralize care practices is critical to reducing harm in our communities.
Erin’s Informed Consent HRT Map of the US
Nationwide listing of organizations and agencies that provide gender-affirming care. Please note that this list is sourced from the community, so we encourage you to contact the site in question to ensure all information is accurate. Credit: Erin Reed (@ErinInTheMorn)
TGNCIQ Justice by Make the Road
New York
Building networks of support for TGNCIQ (transgender, gender nonconforming, intersex, and queer) New Yorkers, and working to end homophobia and transphobia.
Transgender Health Injection Guide by
Fenway Health
This guide provides tips and best practices to safely administer hormone injections.
Queer Detainee Empowerment Project
The Queer Detainee Empowerment Project (QDEP) assists folks coming out of immigration detention in securing structural, health/wellness, educational, legal, and emotional support and services.
Safer Hormone Injection Kit by the
Corner Project
This resource demystifies common myths about hormone injections and provides an easy-to-use dosage table for different types of hormones.
Housing and Harm Reduction
People who use drugs do not lose their human rights, and housing is a human right. Ensuring that everyone in our communities has a safe place to call home is critical to the safety and well-being of people we care about.
Moms 4 Housing is a collective of homeless and marginally housed mothers. They are uniting mothers, neighbors, and friends to reclaim housing for the Oakland community from the big banks and real estate speculators.
Housing Justice by the Praxis Project
The Praxis Project is a national non-profit organization that works in partnership with national, regional, state, and local partners to achieve health equity and justice for all communities.
Fighting to transform housing from a vehicle for individuals’ profit into a collective, socially controlled good
Healthcare and Harm Reduction
Healthcare for all. Access to culturally responsive, stigma-free care is necessary if we hope to affect positive change for people affected by racialized drug policies.
Universal Health Care Action
Network (UHCAN)
UHCAN’s mission is to connect and support state and national organizations and leaders to achieve affordable, quality health care for all.
The Health Justice Commons works at the intersections of racial, economic, gender, disability, and environmental justice to support marginalized communities to re-imagine and re-design healthcare and healing for our times.
American Public Health Association
APHA champions the health of all people and communities. It is the only organization that combines a nearly 150-year perspective, a broad-based member community, and the ability to influence policy to improve the public’s health.
Sex Work and Harm Reduction
People who do sex work protect each other and teach our movements so much about mutual-aid and reducing harm through community care. Decriminalizing sex work and advocating for legislation that protects sex workers rights is central to our mission at NHRC.
Sex Worker Outreach Project (SWOP)
Resource Center
This national social justice network is dedicated to the fundamental human rights of people involved in the sex trade and their communities, focusing on ending violence and stigma through education and advocacy.
DECRIMNOW is a campaign and movement to decriminalize sex work and to promote the well-being and safety of people in the sex trade.
St. James Infirmary is a peer-based occupational health and safety clinic for sex workers and their families.
Whose Corner Is It Anyway is a Western MA mutual aid, harm reduction, political education, and organizing group led by stimulant- and opioid-using low-income, survival, or street-based sex workers.
What this Male Sex Worker Wants You
to Know by Now This News
RJ Thompson is a lawyer and an escort – and he wants to dispel the myth that all sex workers are “victims.”
Meaningful Work: Transgender
Experiences in the Sex Trade
This report shares statistics of unemployment rates trans folks experience amongst different races and other gender-identifying sex workers.
SWOP Behind Bars supports the full decriminalization of adult consensual sex work, and we are close allies to those fighting for the end of cash bail.
HIPS promotes the health, rights, and dignity of individuals and communities impacted by sexual exchange and/or drug use due to choice, coercion, or circumstance.
DecrimNY advocates and organizes to shape New York City and state policy and public opinion around people in the sex trades.
This fact sheet reviews the differences between criminalization and legalization, what harm reduction looks like in practice, and policy recommendations to support the health and dignity of people who engage in sex work.
Third Wave Fund and Sex Worker
Giving Circle
The Sex Worker Giving Circle is the first sex worker-led fund housed at a U.S. foundation with the dual goal of funding a diverse range of sex worker-led groups throughout the country and bringing current and former sex workers to the philanthropic decision-making table.
The Laws that Sex Workers Really
Want on Ted Talks
Activist Juno Mac explains four legal models that are being used around the world and shows us the model that she believes will work best to keep sex workers safe and offer greater self-determination.
HRI: When Sex Work and Drug Use
Overlap
This report provides a snapshot of available evidence on the factors that contribute to vulnerability among people who sell sex and use drugs. It draws on experience from harm reduction and sex work communities to explore implications for practice.
Reproductive Justice and Harm Reduction
SisterSong defines Reproductive Justice as the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities. Building communities that meet the conditions of reproductive justice is of critical importance to the Harm Reduction movement.
Provide is a nonprofit that partners with health and social service workers to build a healthcare system that’s equipped to respond to unintended pregnancy and abortion.
PLAN C: A Safe abortion with pills
Plan C is a campaign to ensure everyone knows about abortion pills: what they are, how they’re used, and how people are accessing them in the U.S. for a safe self-managed abortion.
ReproJobs believes that organizations within the reproductive health, rights, and justice movements can lead the movement by providing healthy, supportive, and empowering workplace environments that include inclusive cultures, generous policies, and thriving wages.
National Network of Abortion Funds
The National Network of Abortion Funds builds power with members to remove financial and logistical barriers to abortion access by centering people who have abortions and organizing at the intersections of racial, economic, and reproductive justice.
Repro Legal Helpline by If When How
Contact the Repro Legal Helpline to reach a free, confidential helpline where you can get information about your legal rights regarding self-managed abortion.
URGE | Unite for Reproductive &
Gender Equity
URGE is driven by young leaders. URGE builds infrastructure through campus chapters and Community Activist Networks, where they invite individuals to discover their own power and transform it into action.
Young People and Harm Reduction
Youth organizers are creating change and shaping our movement. Listening to and honoring their direction as we organize for change is harm reduction.
Point Source Youth works to scale effective solutions to end the youth homeless crisis.
Building a Pipeline for Justice by The
Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing
This paper explores how youth organizing is an effective entry point for a more sustainable, long-term, progressive social justice movement.
The Alliance for Youth Organizing grows progressive people power across America by empowering local young people’s organizations to strengthen our democracy, fix our economy, and correct injustices through on-the-ground organizing.