Next Harm Reduction Contact: Jamie Favaro www.nextdistro.org jamie@nextdistro.org 917-828-0203 The mission of Next Harm Reduction is to support people who use drugs through an online and mailbased harm reduction platform that ensures access to education, resources, and supplies. We believe that every U.S. household should be stocked with naloxone and that all people who uses drugs should have access to the tools and supplies they need to keep themselves healthy and well–as they define it. Next Harm Reduction (“Next”) is the fulcrum of this access. Our platform combines the convenience and ease of telehealth with the pragmatic, successful approach of in-person harm reduction. While problematic drug use has always existed in rural and suburban communities across the United States, injection drug use, drug-related medical problems, and opioid overdose deaths have become commonplace; accidental drug overdose is now the leading cause of death for U.S. residents under the age of 50. Furthermore, the health crisis is an economic crisis; the cost of the opioid crisis in the U.S. is one trillion dollars and growing. In fact, taxpayers can expect to spend 500 billion dollars on the opioid crisis between 2016 and 2020. Currently, 93% of U.S. counties have no syringe access program. For individuals in these areas, distance and stigma are barriers to engagement and care. At Next we believe that in-person services are fundamentally the best option. However, given the geographic scope of need, Next has expanded harm reduction strategies and supplies to an online and mail-based platform to meet the needs of people who use drugs in rural and suburban communities. An online and mail-based harm reduction platform provides the most potential to 1) connect with people actively using drugs across the U.S., especially young people who use drugs and people who use drugs that are living far from syringe exchange programs, treatment centers, and other facilities, 2) provide people who use drugs with life-saving supplies and support, and 3) aggregate health surveillance data around drug use. Furthermore, an online and mail-based harm reduction platform explicitly addresses some of the most significant pillars of health inequity for people who use drugs: ● Access to resources is impacted by where people live: rural and suburban people who use drugs may not have access to syringe exchange programs. By shifting harm reduction education and supply distribution to an online and mail-based model, we enable people who use drugs to receive resources regardless of their location. ● Access to resources is tied to economics: rural and suburban people who use drugs are limited by how far they can travel to secure harm reduction supplies, as they often live hours away from the nearest syringe exchange program. Next delivers supplies to their door. ● Limited technical literacy is a barrier to accessing internet-based resources: to navigate the current scattered landscape of web-based harm reduction health resources, individuals are 1
required to have a high level of technological literacy. Next tools will be consolidated within one platform that showcases both text and video-based education. ● To develop targeted health solutions, we need a more accurate and relevant connection to people who use drugs. The relationship Next will build with populations who use drugs across the U.S. will enable us to assess needs, design resources, and provide a new version of harm reduction service that is technology-based. Currently, Next has two branches of service. “Next Distro” is the syringe, naloxone, and harm reduction supply distribution program specifically for people who use drugs in rural and suburban communities. “Next Naloxone” is the Opioid Overdose Prevention Program (OOPP) registered in New York State that enables individuals who may or may not be drug users to receive NYS certification as an opioid overdose responder and receive naloxone in the mail.
Americans are witnessing the deleterious effects of limited access to harm reduction resources: a serious medical, social, and economic catastrophe. The Next platform is the only emerging strategy that is focused on a harm reduction approach utilizing the internet to tackle the opioid overdose epidemic throughout the entire United States. Next inspires a new vision for the healthcare system: a holistic, empowering, consumer-centered model of care that addresses the complex concerns of people who use drugs. The Next platform will modernize the field of harm reduction and accelerate the availability of resources and education for geographically isolated people who use drugs across the country.
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