This course approaches harm reduction as an act of resistance, survival, and collective care in the face of the drug war. Rather than treating drug use as a moral failure , we explore how criminalization, stigma, racism, ableism, and carceral systems actively produce and reinforce drug-related harm.
Students will learn how commonly used substances (including opioids, stimulants, depressants, and psychedelics) interact with the body, what increases overdose risk, and how the current drug supply leads to danger. We will cover practical overdose response strategies, including naloxone use, rescue breathing, recognizing overdose across different drug classes, and navigating emergency response when systems are not designed to protect us.
This class rejects abstinence as a prerequisite for care. We will explore safer use practices, tolerance, mixing risks, and survival strategies in the context that people who use drugs deserve life. Harm reduction principles such as autonomy, non-coercion, dignity, and mutual aid will be treated not as theory, but as practice that can be applied at any time in personal, professional, and community contexts.
This is a discussion-based, trauma-informed space that centers people who use drugs, formerly incarcerated people, and those directly impacted by the drug war. Lived experience is recognized as knowledge. The goal is not to “save” or “fix“ people, but to build skills and solidarity so that we can keep each other alive.
Intentions for class Outcomes:
After struggle with opioid dependency, watching friends pass and incarceration as a result of the war on drugs, I became very passionate about our advocating for the rights and safety of drug users and anyone affected by it. In a world of increasing criminalization, lack of resources and support for PWUD, I’m an anarchist, abolitionist, liberation-minded, who strongly believes in each person right to self-determination, that we take care of us, and we keep each other safe by teaching each other. I work in the field of harm reduction, with the syringe exchange and doing outreach but most of what I do is outside of work because I believe strongly in it.
Want to join? Fill out the application form below!