50211 - Community Responses to Drug Use: Grassroots Movements, Mutual Aid, and Harm Reduction

Description

This session will explore the vital role of community-based responses to drug use, focusing on grassroots movements, mutual aid networks, and harm reduction initiatives. Papers will analyze how communities are mobilizing to address drug-related challenges in the absence or failure of formal institutions. Topics may include the development of local harm reduction programs, peer-led overdose prevention efforts, the impact of community organizing on drug policy, and how mutual aid networks support people who use drugs. Papers that critically examine the intersections of race, class, and geography in community responses, or that highlight innovative, bottom-up approaches to harm reduction, will be discussed. This session seeks to highlight how community-driven efforts are reshaping the landscape of drug use and policy, offering new strategies for addressing structural inequalities and promoting health and well-being.

Sub Unit

• Section on Drugs and Society / Community Responses to Drug Use: Grassroots Movements, Mutual Aid, and Harm Reduction

Presider

• Anthony DiMario, University of California San Francisco

Individual Presentations

• Connective Labor Theory of Poverty Governance: Horizontality, Harm Reduction, and the Mending of the Safety net - Anthony DiMario, University of California San Francisco

• The Role of Social Networks in Harm Reduction Dissemination: Community-Driven Approach - Ihsan Kahveci, University of Oxford; McKenna Parnes, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington; Brittany Blanchard, University of Washington; Tyler McCormick, University of Washington

• Treatment or Punishment? Spatial Inequality in Opioid Use Disorder Treatment and Drug Policing - Michael Alden Carroll, Louisiana State University

Session Organizer

• Suzan Walters, New York University