Support for harm reduction programs in the United States has never been more vital than is is right now. With  more than 100,000 Americans having lost their lives last year to overdose and injection drug use-related HIV and viral hepatitis transmission rising, we need a federal government that supports evidence based best practices and the wellbeing of people who use drugs. While the recent disingenuous, stigmatizing and racist attacks on harm reduction funding for safer smoking kits from some media and politicians was not terribly shocking, the reaction from the Biden Administration was. As an Administration that publicly supports harm reduction policies, we expect the Biden Administration to stand up to bad faith attacks on evidence based drug policy and to support people who use drugs and those who work with and love them.

This letter to HHS Secretary Becerra and ONDCP Director Gupta is an attempted summation of the feelings of the harm reduction community in the wake of this manufactured safer smoking kit scandal and the Biden Administration's response to it. It is also a blueprint for what the Biden Administration must do to show their commitment to harm reduction and protecting the health of people who use drugs. We urge your organization to sign on this letter and to share it with other organizations who are invested in ending the overdose epidemic in the United States. You can read the full letter at this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQKfyZKl-fE5A4MSpbS5J0rpjG2y8BArC3RAsO8q0tHI97U8F5prgVc-h0LfsQQZ2wNQVn0C7oERjsM/pub

We are asking that all sign ons be made by 12:00 PM EST on Friday, February 25th. We apologize for the quick turnaround but we would like to get this letter to the Administration by the State of the Union Speech on Tuesday.   If you have any questions, please reach out to William McColl, Chair of the Harm Reduction Working Group, at mccollbusiness@gmail.com, or Drew Gibson, Director of Advocacy at AIDS United, at dgibson@aidsunited.org