Substance Use: Harm Reduction

Improving outcomes for people who use drugs in Wisconsin

Harm reduction is an approach that engages directly with people who use drugs to prevent overdoses and the spread of infectious diseases, like HIV and hepatitis C. It focuses on empowering people who use drugs to make safer choices to help prevent negative health outcomes.

People who use drugs face unique circumstances and challenges that greatly affect their mental and physical health. Harm reduction programs are committed to addressing discrimination, stigma, and ensuring that people who use drugs have access to essential health services. A set of key principles guide harm reduction approaches. People who practice harm reduction accept people who use drugs "as they are" and "where they are" in their lives without judgement.

Understanding drug overdoses

There is an overdose emergency in the United States. More than 100,000 lives are lost to overdose each year. Most overdose deaths involve opioids, but deaths involving other types of substances are increasing. Overdose does not distinguish among age, sex, or county lines. However, Black, Indigenous, and Latinx communities are being disproportionately affected due to the criminalization of drug use and the lack of harm reduction resources among communities of color.

The unstable and unpredictable drug supply has a direct impact on overdose rates and other health outcomes. Drugs can be mixed with other substances, like fentanyl or xylazine, P-03490 (PDF), to enhance their effects or increase street value. This can be life threatening and dangerous for people who use drugs.

Every overdose death is preventable, and communities do not need to experience the trauma associated with it. A harm reduction approach reduces death from overdose. To prevent harm, it is important for people who use drugs to have access to drug checking equipment to help them make informed choices.

What do harm reduction programs look like?

Harm reduction programs for people who use drugs aim to make drug use less risky, prevent poor outcomes, promote better health, and connect people to essential resources. They provide supplies, education, and tools to help reduce the risk of disease, infection, injury and death. Harm reduction and drug user health programs include a range of services and approaches, including:

• Overdose education and naloxone distribution
• Fentanyl test strips and drug checking
• Syringe service programs, P-03522 (PDF)
• Harm reduction mobile units

Harm reduction programs that provide services and supplies, such as naloxone, safe injection supplies, and drug checking tools save lives and connect people with addiction treatment services and medical care.

These programs create positive change by working directly with people who use drugs without judgement, coercion, or discrimination while recognizing people do not need to stop using drugs to receive support and care.

Syringe service programs

Syringe service programs use a harm reduction approach to reduce the risks associated with drug use. People who access syringe service programs are more likely to enter treatment for injection drug use than those who do not. They provide trainings on how to prevent, recognize, respond to, and reverse a drug overdose. They also distribute new syringes and provide safe disposal for used needles to keep neighborhoods safe. Use the map below to find out where you can find a syringe service program in Wisconsin or view a spreadsheet of all the locations (Excel).

Wisconsin Harm Reduction Response Team (HRRT)

There are critical gaps in access to harm reduction resources in Wisconsin. To reduce the rate of overdoses and the spread of infectious diseases associated with injection drug use, it is critical to expand harm reduction services throughout the state.

The HRRT seeks to enhance and expand harm reduction services in Wisconsin to reduce injection-related infections and opioid-related deaths.

Services offered by the HRRT

Mobile services

The mobile services the HRRT offers include linkage to community-based resources in high-risk communities, point-of-care testing and supplies at no cost such as:

• Sterile injection equipment
• Nasal NARCAN
• IM naloxone
• Fentanyl and xylazine test strips
• Safer sex supplies
• Hygiene and comfort items
• Rapid HIV and hepatitis C testing

Technical assistance

The HRRT also provides technical support and can refer clients to organizations offering mail order harm reduction services. For harm reduction programming support or training, contact Heidi Olson-Streed at Heidi.Olsonstreed@dhs.wisconsin.gov.

Distribution locations

The HRRT is currently offering services in a red dodge caravan in the parking lots of the following locations:

The HRRT is prioritizing establishing additional distribution locations in the following counties:

• Adams
• Washington

Email dhsdphharmreduction@dhs.wisconsin.gov if you are interested in the HRRT distributing supplies in your area!

Additional resources

Technical assistance

Drug User Health Coordinator
Heidi Olson-Streed
Heidi.Olsonstreed@dhs.wisconsin.gov

Trainings

Safety First - Comprehensive, Harm-Reduction Based, Drug Intervention Curriculum for high school students

Fact sheets

• Xylazine, P-03490 (PDF)
• Harm Reduction Response Team Flyer, P-03477 (PDF)
• Harm Reduction: Keeping Communities Healthy, P-03512 (PDF)
• Syringe Service Programs, P-03522 (PDF)
• Xylazine Test Strip Instructions, P-03534 (PDF)