D.E.I. Statement - Our Commitment to Belonging
Diversity, Equity, & Belonging
The IRA shifts resources and power to people who use drugs. We reduce both the individual and structural harms caused by racialized drug policy through direct action and advocacy to ensure belonging.
We educate participants and community members on the racialized nature of the war on drugs at every opportunity, event, and educational session. We aim to increase collaboration with groups engaging in racial justice work locally, and to hire professionals to engage IRA staff/volunteers in anti-racism and/or diversity training to better understand the intersection of our harm reduction work with marginalized groups.
Hoosier Harm Reduction Coalition's Values
Accepts, for better and or worse, that licit and illicit drug use is part of our world and chooses to work to minimize its harmful effects rather than simply ignore or condemn them.
Understands drug use as a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon that encompasses a continuum of behaviors from severe abuse to total abstinence, and acknowledges that some ways of using drugs are clearly safer than others.
Establishes quality of individual and community life and well-being–not necessarily cessation of all drug use–as the criteria for successful interventions and policies.
Calls for the non-judgmental, non-coercive provision of services and resources to people who use drugs and the communities in which they live in order to assist them in reducing attendant harm.
Ensures that drug users and those with a history of drug use routinely have a real voice in the creation of programs and policies designed to serve them.
Affirms drugs users themselves as the primary agents of reducing the harms of their drug use, and seeks to empower users to share information and support each other in strategies which meet their actual conditions of use.
Recognizes that the realities of poverty, class, racism, social isolation, past trauma, sex-based discrimination and other social inequalities affect both people’s vulnerability to and capacity for effectively dealing with drug-related harm.
Does not attempt to minimize or ignore the real and tragic harm and danger associated with licit and illicit drug use.
This means...
harm reduction incorporates certain ideas about drug user health and dignity, focuses on participant-centered services, encourages participant involvement, values participant autonomy, recognizes the importance of sociocultural factors and practices that are pragmatic and realistic.
Hoosier Harm Reduction Coalition Doesn't Stand For...
Harm reduction does not mean "anything goes."
Harm reduction does not enable drug use or high risk behaviors.
Harm reduction does not condone, endorse, or encourage drug use.
Harm reduction does not exclude or dismiss abstinence-based treatment models as viable options.