Save Ourselves: Drug Checking as a Tool for Empowerment
Thursday, November 3rd: 4:15 - 5:45 PM
Street drugs in the US have recently become treacherous and unpredictable. What if we could prevent harm and save lives by better understanding what’s actually in the drug supply?
When a community in Texas started experiencing overdoses, they designed a study to save themselves. By using a new mail-in drug analysis service provided by the University of North Carolina, they are gaining new insights into unregulated drugs and crafting tailored harm prevention messages. Come hear what new insights are possible when research is collaboratively developed with and centered on the needs of community members.
Join us on November 3rd (in person in room C03, CSSW or via Zoom) for a lively panel discussion covering drug checking, harm reduction, and community organizing. The panel will be moderated by Yarelix Estrada, Special Projects Coordinator with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Panelists include Dr. Nabarun Dasgupta, a scientist at the University of North Carolina; Aaron Ferguson, from the leadership team of the Urban Survivor’s Union; and Claire Zagorski, a PhD student and graduate research assistant in the Translational Science program at The University of Texas at Austin. Read more about the moderator and panelists below.
Co-sponsored by SIG, CHOSEN and HISTP.
Moderator
Yarelix Estrada, MSPH
Yarelix Estrada, MSPH, is a first-generation Central American, drug policy and harm reduction researcher, advocate, and community outreach worker. Yarelix works as the Special Projects Coordinator with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is currently largely focused on implementation of the first higher-technology drug checking research study in New York City with local syringe service programs and an overdose prevention center. Yarelix is a person who uses drugs and is passionate about supporting people throughout the full continuum of drug use, from use for pleasure and healing to overdose prevention. She is the director of the New York City Psychedelic Society, is on the Board of Directors for the Tennessee Recovery Alliance, the Board of Directors for the Source Research Foundation, on the Advisory Board of the psychedelic media group Psymposia and is an organizer with the Urban Survivors Union and the Alliance for Collaborative Drug Checking. She received her Master of Science in Public Health in Health Policy at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Speakers
Dr. Nabarun Dasgupta
Senior Scientist and Gillings Innovation Fellow, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Dr. Nabarun Dasgupta is a scientist at the University of North Carolina with 2 decades of experience in overdose epidemiology and prevention. His passion is telling true stories about health, with numbers. Centered in harm reduction, his multidisciplinary approach draws on large database analytics, qualitative field studies, laboratory investigations, randomized trials, and community-based interventions. Operating with an appreciation for the social determinants of health, he is committed to countering the impacts of racist drug policies. Through his work he aims to amplify community and patient voices in public health.
Aaron Ferguson
Urban Survivor’s Union Leadership Team; Methadone Liaison
Aaron is on the leadership team of the Urban Survivor’s Union, a national group of people that use drugs who are activists for drug user rights. As a hobby, Aaron co-produces a podcast called “Narcotica” about drugs and the people who use them. Aaron is a cult survivor, lover of science, drug user activist, and abolitionist who values humanism and creating social change from the ground up.
Claire Zagorski, MSc, LP
College of Pharmacy, The University of Texas at Austin
Claire Zagorski is a PhD student and graduate research assistant in the Translational Science program at The University of Texas at Austin, and is completing an MS in public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Before that, she earned an MS at University of North Texas Health Science Center. She has been a paramedic and harm reductionist for nine years, and brings her background in anthropology, organic chemistry, and emergency medical care to her work in harm reduction and drug supply epidemiology.
Sponsors
