COMMUNITY PROFILE MAGGIE SELDEEN, MEETING PEOPLE WHERE THEY ARE AT. COURTESY OF HIGH ROCKIES HARM REDUCTION REDUCING HARM IN RURAL COLORADO BY JACOB RICHARDS A SOUTHERN COLORADO ORGANIZATION says it kept 59,300 needles off the streets of Pueblo last year. Needle exchanges, like those offered by Southern Colorado Health Network and Southern Colorado Harm Reduction Association, are central to the harm reduction movement, which uses an evidence-based strategy that “meets people where they are at” to help reduce negative outcomes associated with drug use. But despite a meeting packed with supporters of the programs, Pueblo City Council voted in May to ban needle exchanges. Now, there is a fear among harm reduction activists that Pueblo’s needle exchange ban will be replicated in other communities across Colorado, even as they struggle to combat the stigma of reducing harm among drug users. Harm reduction looks different Junction-based organization Inman, director of the all-volunteer group. “We are the boots on the ground.” “As a former drug user, I wish I would have had this sort of service,” Inman said. “As the director of a nonprofit, I act as an ally and advocate ... but open ears are rare.” Solidarity Not Charity has found partner nonprofits “frown on distribution of safer smoking and snorting supplies,” Inman said, adding that “local government prohibits distribution of any safer use items on government-owned property, which means we are often distributing from the back of our automobiles, which does nothing to decrease stigma.” In the Roaring Fork Valley, Maggie Seldeen grew up “surrounded by drug and alcohol misuse as a child and adolescent.” As a former drug user, Seldeen saw many close friends contract Hepatitis C and has lost “countless friends to unnecessary overdose death.” “I also lost my mother to a heroin overdose in 2006,” she said. Armed with lived experience and a degree from Colorado in each community. There is no universal formula, and nowhere is that truer than in rural areas of western Colorado. Grand Solidarity Not Charity regularly does camp outreach and has served weekly meals since 2008. “We are in a unique position to provide safe access to DURANGO STREET MEDICS AT BUCKLEY PARK DURANGO. COURTESY OF DURANGO STREET MEDICS 8 DENVER VOICE June 2024 sterile syringes, safer smoking and snorting supplies, overdose prevention kits, fentanyl tests, and wound care/ hygiene supplies” to underserved populations, said Nicole Mesa University, Seldeen launched High Rockies Harm Reduction in 2020. The organization serves a huge geographic area of Garfield, Summit, Eagle, Pitkin, and Lake Counties. Offering a wide range of services to these five counties with just two paid employees is the biggest challenge Seldeen’s group faces. “Road and weather conditions make traveling across this region very difficult … while trying to bring mobile services to a historically underserved region,” Seldeen said. High Rockies Harm Reduction has received support from local law enforcement agencies, municipalities, and health departments, but Seldeen acknowledges that “there is still a lot of stigma associated with accessing these services in the first place.”
9 Publizr Home