Action Items

Small group / three people + 

1. Research your denominational/larger body of spiritual practitioners policies and history related to drug use and sex work (PSG1)

2. Unless explicitly affirming, submit policy changes to the above body (PSG2)

3. Form a harm reduction coalition with other teams in your denomination/region (PSG3)

4. Become familiar with laws in your state that affect people who use drugs and people who do sex work (PSG4)

5. Create a document that you can share with others that communicates facts about drug policy in your state (PSG5)

6. Regularly petition your local and statewide representatives on matters related to harm reduction (PSG6)

7. Contact local district attorneys or prosecutors about to see where they stand about prosecuting death by distribution or drug induced homicide cases (PSG7)

8. Meet with members of state and local governments to express support for Harm Reduction policies such as Good Samaritan Laws, expanding Medicaid, overdose prevention centers, drug checking  and "Ban the Box” (PSG8)

Institution

Require all staff to be trained in use of naloxone upon hiring (PI1)

1. Re-asses all drug related policies in any employee handbook (PI2)

2. Become deeply familiar with any denominational policy related to drug use (PI3)

3. Unless explicitly affirming, submit policy changes to the above body (PI4)

4. Form a harm reduction coalition with other teams in your denomination/region (PI5)

5. Commit to not calling the police as policy in your community (PI6)

6. Host a phone/text bank or letter writing campaign to reach out to representatives about harm reduction laws and policies in your local and state region (PI7)

7. Create a policy committing to hosting at least one non-abstinence based support group if abstinence-only support groups are hosted on site (PI8)

Small group / three people +

1. Host an annual training on use of naloxone in your house, community, neighborhood, virtually, etc (MSG1)

2. Host a supply drive for your local SSP or harm reduction group for wound care supplies or other items. (MSG2)

3. Host a ministry to assist people with transportation needs (MSG3)

4. Provide childcare for people while attending treatment (MSG4)

5. Move from a small group to a whole institution by having the Institutional body vote on the foundations + supporting the team  (MSG5)

6. Donate books from our reading list to people who are incarcerated through “Books to Prisoners Programs.”

Institution

1. Host a needle exchange on your campus (MI1)

2. Host a harm reduction supplies free library with sharps containers, condoms, cottons, etc or make clear public access to any of these items (MI2)

3. Host public annual training on use of naloxone  (MI3)

4. Host internal training on use of naloxone  (MI4)

5. Host a fundraiser in order to send books from our reading list to people who are incarcerated through “Books to Prisoners Programs.” (MI5)

Small group / three people +

1. Study your sacred texts through the lens of harm reduction for six weeks.  (SSG1)

2. Each person write a prayer, spell, blessing, etc to submit to the Spirit of Harm Reduction Toolkit. (SSG2)

3. Hold a space once a month for prayer, meditation, theological conversation around harm reduction and your sense of the sacred. (SSG3)

4. Write a hymn, chant, or mantra together based on a theology of harm reduction.(SSG4)

5. Consider one common text, verse, idea, ethic, theology, etc in your spiritual community that is/could be used against people who do sex work or people who use drugs. Write or talk through your collective response. What is a faithful alternative view? (SSG5)

6. Make prayer/reflection beads and use them to pray through the values reflected in the Spirit of Harm Reduction toolkit. (SSG6)

7. Each person in your group: consider your own relationship to drug use - spend at least five hours over a chosen course of time to journal, reflect, and piece together the story in your own life. From whom have you inherited stories and morals? How do your current beliefs align or not with those inheritances? What questions do you hold for yourself and others? What is currently influencing your understanding of the concept of drugs? (SSG7)

8. Each person in your group: consider your own relationship to sex - spend at least five hours over a chosen course of time to journal, reflect, and piece together the story in your own life. From whom have you inherited stories and morals? How do your current beliefs align or not with those inheritances? What questions do you hold for yourself and others? What is currently influencing your understanding of the concepts of sexual encounters, work, safety, law, and relationship? (SSG8)

9. Create a ritual, practice, or written offering for other members of the alliance.(SSG9)

Institution

1. Invite a guest preacher/teacher to speak on harm reduction during your sacred gathering.  (SI1)

2. Build a worship/community service from Spirit of Harm Reduction toolkit. (SI2)

3. Make FIHR prayer cards available in your community.  (SI3)

4. Clergy commits to FIHR preaching guidelines.  (SI4)

5. Engage your community in exploring abolition from a spiritual/theological perspective for multiple weeks.  (SI5)

Small group / three people +

1. Have someone on the team write an op-ed in the local paper about why your faith supports harm reduction. (WSG1)

2. Extend an invitation to other local faith/spiritual communities to an interfaith potluck around harm reduction. (WSG2)

3. Host a speaker series or event with local harm reductionists. (WSG3)

Institution

1. Display ‘people who use drugs’ and/or ‘people who do sex work’ are beloved by God sign/banner. (WI1)

2. Create/host a publicly accessible memorial/alter for overdose awareness day. (WI2)

3. Bring in a harm reduction speaker and make the event community-wide. (WI3)

4. Commit to three ways of making publicly clear your support for people who use drugs and/or people who do sex work. (WI4)

5. Feature art that supports people who do sex work, people who use drugs, and/or abolition. (WI5)

Small group / three people +

1. Read or listen and discuss one or more of the below: (ESG1)

1. Race and the Drug War | Drug Policy Alliance

2. What is the Drug War? With Jay-Z & Molly Crabapple - YouTube

3. Report: Nixon aide says war on drugs targeted blacks, hippies | CNN Politics

4. 50-year war on drugs imprisoned millions of Black Americans | PBS NewsHour 

5. After 50 Years Of The War On Drugs, 'What Good Is It Doing For Us?' : NPR

6. No More Police: A Case for Abolition by Mariame KabaAndrea J. Ritchie

7. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander (study guide available)

8. Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers’ Rights: by Molly Smith & Juno Mac

9. The Crackdown Podcast

2. Focus a year of study and attention on an intersection between drug use or sex work, and one of the following: race, disability, class, queerness, trans people, colonization, gender, parenting (ESG2)

3. Study the history of the harm reduction movement (ESG3)

1. Bringing Harm Reduction to the Black Community by Imani Woods

2. Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York by Sarah Schulman

3. The Young Lords: A Radical History

4. Research the role of colonization in modern western relationships to drug use. (ESG4) Consider:

1. The erasure of certain uses of drugs as sacred medicine

2. How capitalism is shaping drug policy, who benefits, and whose criminalization continues under new policies

3. Whose drug use and what kind of drugs are considered ‘normal’ or medicinal and whose is criminalized or stigmatized?

5. Explore the relationship to drug use, altered states, psychedelics, sacred plants, etc in your religion, ancestry, or those indigenous to your region (ESG5)

6. Create a study guide or similar document for other members of the alliance in your area of expertise and its intersections with harm reduction(ESG6)

Institution

1. Host a panel on sex work led by people who do sex work in your community (EI1)

2. Host a screening of a related film for the wider community (EI2)

1. Love in the Time of Fentanyl

2. Dope is Death

3. Host a myth-busters conversation on drug use and sex work (EI3)

1. If no one in your properly community is equipped to lead this, pay a guest from your local harm reduction team

4. Dedicate a bulletin board or other public space within your community and/or website to harm reduction education (EI4)

5. Preach/teach/etc the principles of harm reduction (EI5)

Small group / three people +

1. Host a house party for those who are interested in learning more about harm reduction - invite your friends, family, colleagues, neighbors, etc (RSG1)

2. Each person: commit to 5 or more hours a month of volunteer work with your local harm reduction group (RSG2)

3. Host a fundraiser at your community or home to support the local harm reduction movement (RSG3)

4. Each person: make a regular donation to your local grassroots harm reduction team (RSG4)

5. Build relationships with your local harm reduction community by supporting them in both their work and their being – find out what they need: is it rest, is it labor, is it money, is it emotional support? How can you help prevent burnout? Ask them what they need. (RSG5)

Institution

1. Meet with your local harm reduction community to discern what needs your community can regularly meet (RI1)

2. Take a community-wide special offering that directly supports harm reduction in your local region (RI2)