Our Dreams Are Possibilities
As I read The Gothamist article in this week’s email post about drug checking in NYC, I thought about the history of innovation amongst drug users and sex workers, lovers and friends, in this movement we call Harm Reduction. The Big Apple and its inhabitants, past and present, are no stranger to innovation, often driven by the stark necessity that bleeds out of the intersections where society’s discarded meet the churning gears of inequality. We saw this in NYC especially in the 1980’s-1990’s with an HIV epidemic that ran through communities of those discarded, ignored, and cast-off for what they did in the name of bodily autonomy, love, or for some money in their pocket.
It was this epidemic that cut the teeth and formed the hearts some of the pioneers of Harm Reduction, and also brought these folks to act and innovate, propelled by what was right and came from the heart, standing in the face of stigma, hatred, and oppression. Innovation at this point was ineffective drug regimens that laid waste to those who took them and gave most only a little more time; sterile works, or bleach kits when those weren’t available; methadone clinics; and that knowledge and information flow that was born of necessity in these communities - who’s got what, bad date info, and the like.
Fast-forward a few years to when I would find myself learning the Harm Reduction Innovations of my early years using drugs and tricking. By this time we had the miracle of Antiretroviral therapy, far better information, bupe was coming on the market, and Harm Reduction support and supplies available in my hometown of Minneapolis. I frequented Access Works, a little storefront 1 for 1 (+10) syringe exchange on a strip of 15th St between Loring Park and Nicolett Ave. My buddy who volunteered there with me sold 20’s of dope for some Chicago tough out of there, and Loring Park was a popular stroll for gay and trans sex workers. I had a little supportive world in my Southside radius, but thinking of those days now makes me both appalled and amazed at where we are today.
Now innovations in Harm Reduction have come so far - when I thought of NYC I thought of the first legal SIFs in the US, relatively well-funded HR services available across the city, and now drug-checking services. We have come so far, yet we currently face a new and more terrible landscape than I could have imagined when I began my journey in Harm Reduction over two decades ago. We saw AIDS deaths peak around 50,000/year in this country in the mid-1990’s. When I was a young heroin/cocaine injector in Minneapolis, national OD deaths were around 20,000/year. In 2021, we had around 107,000, and it’s only getting worse with adulterants like xylazine creating wound care issues that are a far cry from the abcesses and cellulitis cases I used to deal with. The need for innovation in our movement is greater now than it has ever been, but I know that what we dream can become reality - may we rise to meet the challenge at hand with love and compassion.