#Fentanyl Test Strips

[transfloridaresources]

Urgent need for mutual aid! Due to the recent rash of overdoses happening in FL, there has been an increased demand for fentanyl test strips! We need to keep our supply up in order to meet the demand we're getting, so please consider donating and boosting this post! We have cash app and venmo @TeanKombatikon, please put 'FTS' in the notes! THANK YOU Source

[emonite666]

end overdose 🖤

[wausaupilot]

Public health providers across Wisconsin turn to vending machines to prevent fatal opioid overdoses

Wausau is among the communities installing vending machines to help prevent fatal opioid overdoses:

By Sarah Lehr | Wisconsin Public Radio Public health providers across Wisconsin are turning to vending machines to help prevent fatal opioid overdoses. The state’s health department is distributing nearly $1 million to 15 community centers, treatment providers and public health agencies as part of the latest round of grants through the federal Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block…

[recentupdates]

Testing Strips: A Quick and Easy Way to Test for Drugs and Alcohol

Testing strips have become increasingly popular in recent years as a quick and easy way to test for drugs and alcohol. These small strips are designed to provide accurate results in just a few minutes, making them ideal for use in a variety of settings, including at home, in the workplace, and in healthcare facilities. In this article, we'll take a closer look at testing strips and how they can be used to test for drugs and alcohol.

Fentanyl Test Strips

Fentanyl is a potent synthetic opioid that has become a significant contributor to the opioid crisis in the United States. Fentanyl is so powerful that even a small amount can be deadly, making it crucial to detect and prevent overdoses. Fentanyl test strips are a simple and effective way to test for the presence of fentanyl in drugs such as heroin and cocaine. These strips work by detecting the presence of fentanyl metabolites in a sample, providing a result in just a few minutes. Using fentanyl test strips can help prevent accidental overdoses and save lives.

Alcohol Test Strips

Alcohol test strips are designed to test the blood alcohol content (BAC) of an individual quickly and easily. These strips work by detecting the presence of ethanol in a sample, providing a semi-quantitative result that indicates the individual's BAC. Alcohol test strips can be used at home, in the workplace, or by law enforcement officials to determine if an individual is under the influence of alcohol. These strips are simple to use and can provide accurate results in just a few minutes.

Drug Test Strips: Detect a Wide Range of Drugs

Drug test strips are designed to test for a wide range of drugs, including marijuana, cocaine, opioids, and amphetamines. These strips work by detecting the presence of drug metabolites in a sample, providing a semi-quantitative result that indicates the individual's drug use. Drug test strips are used in a variety of settings, including at home, in the workplace, and in healthcare facilities. These strips are simple to use and can provide accurate results in just a few minutes.

Alcohol Urine Test Strips: Test for Alcohol in Urine

Alcohol urine test strips are designed to test for the presence of alcohol in urine quickly and easily. These strips work by detecting the presence of ethanol metabolites in a sample, providing a semi-quantitative result that indicates the individual's alcohol use. Alcohol urine test strips can be used at home or in healthcare facilities to determine if an individual has been drinking alcohol. These strips are simple to use and can provide accurate results in just a few minutes.

Kratom Drug Test

Kratom is a tropical tree native to Southeast Asia that has gained popularity in the United States as a natural alternative to prescription painkillers. Kratom contains alkaloids that can produce opiate-like effects, making it an attractive option for those looking to manage pain or withdrawal symptoms. Kratom drug tests are designed to test for the presence of kratom alkaloids in a sample, providing a semi-quantitative result that indicates the individual's kratom use. These tests can be used at home or in healthcare facilities to determine if an individual has been using kratom. Source Url: https://drug-test-cups-kits-cards-strips.blogspot.com/2023/04/testing-strips-Test-for-drugs-and-alcohol.html

[underwhelmingalchemist]

My local art festival was giving out free narcan and lessons on how to use it/recognize the signs of overdose, as well as fentanyl test strips!!

[trans-axolotl]

got so much free narcan today also which was really nice 👍i thought they were just sending me two boxes but they sent me two cases!! going to start leaving them in a few places for people to take for free

[angelnumber27]

People who sell other people pills without testing them first or people who knowingly sell people pills with fentanyl in them should be arrested and charged with manslaughter.

[vagueforms]

[ableism]

I know i’m functionally a gay DARE officer at this point but I do in fact feel some sort of way about Cocaine being back in vogue. Surely I sound like a square + narc and I’ll concede ok do whatever you want, nobody can materially stop another person from using drugs if they really want to 🤷🏻 I don’t really care that it’s hip to do party drugs, moreso I want to articulate a general level of caution and concern that I never see a sidecar of harm reduction and safe using practices along with the commonplace clips of people straight up snorting coke I’ve seen for “brat summer!!!1!!”

You 🫵 are not immune to ingesting fentanyl or any number of other additives. Do you think drugs at the gay club are different than the drugs people are taking under bridges and in gutters? I promise they’re not! So if you want to use drugs and continue being alive, do your part to be safe. Protecting yourself protects others and your community.

Do not accept drugs from strangers. Test your drugs with fentanyl test strips. Carry narcan and know how to administer it. Never use alone. Have an exit strategy if you’re using drugs in a public space. Know the contact information for your local harm reduction groups, overdose emergency hotline, and if you need/want it, addiction treatment orgs. This is all the bare minimum for community care if you intend to be out in the world using drugs. Mainly I encourage you all to be buzzkills if it means you don’t have to die of an accidental overdose. Overdose is the leading cause of death for Americans under 40. I have a whole lot of social workers in my network and however bad you think the synthetic opioid crisis is, it’s worse. The war stories I’ve heard from my people on the ground are… The shit of nightmares. Don’t let it be you or anybody you love.

If you live in the state of Georgia, DM me for a longer list of resources.

Fentanyl information (harm reduction.org)

Get Narcan

How to use fentanyl test strips

Call 311 to find out where to get Narcan in your community at no cost to you

[acabspocky]

K!ll your local fentanyl dealer

[just-a-gal-with-a-boomerang]

My local queer bookstore is being threatened with eviction over their free narcan and fentanyl test strips, free store for the unhoused, and free narcan trainings.

Bluestockings is an incredible worker-owned community space that has been apart of the Lower East Side for 25 years. But in the last couple years, they've faced increasing harassment from the wealthier neighbors moving in and complaining about the presence of unhoused people around their store front. Despite all their community work being allowed by their lease, the landlord is pushing for an eviction.

Please help support Bluestockings! Visit them (if you're local), order books online, donate! We need more queer and community-oriented spaces, not another overpriced coffee shop or chain franchise.

[vaspider]

Measure 110, or the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

So if y'all aren't local to Oregon, you may not have heard that the Oregon state legislature just voted to -- essentially -- gut Measure 110, the ballot measure which decriminalized all drug possession and use in the state. It turned all drug use into a citation instead, and the citation and fine could be waived by completing a health screening. The entire point of Measure 110 was replacing jail with health care and services to help people instead, and while I could probably write a very long side post on the imperfections of that approach, it was at the very least a move in the right direction after decades of the pathetic failure and absolutely racist mess that is the "War on Drugs."

You may hear this pointed to in coming years as a reason why we have to just throw people into jail for using drugs, because Measure 110 failed. And like... it did fail, kinda. Sorta. It failed in that it did not manage to fix everything immediately, and it created some new issues while also exposing older issues more sharply.

It also saved the state $40 million in court costs prosecuting low-level drug offenses, kept thousands of people whose literal only crime was putting a substance into the body of a consenting adult (themselves) out of jail, put at least one addiction services center in every county in the state, invested $300 million in addiction services, and an awful lot more. See the end of this post for more reading.

But where it failed, it failed because it wasn't supported. Police and advocacy groups both asked for specific tickets for this new class of offenses which had the phone number to call to go through the health screening and the information about how going through that health screening would make the ticket go away printed on it prominently - lawmakers declined to fund this. Governor Kotek budgeted $50K to train officers on how to handle these new citations and how to direct people to the treatment and housing supports, but lawmakers thought that training officers on this new law at all was a waste of money. Money moved extremely slowly out to the supports that were supposed to come into play to help people obtain treatment or get access to harm-reduction strategies. People freaked the fuck out about clean-needle outreach, fentanyl testing strip distribution, Narcan training, and other harm-reduction strategies.

And at the end of the day, Measure 110 gets called a failure because it wasn't a silver bullet. Never mind that thousands of people are not sitting in jail right now for basically no fucking reason. Never mind that people have gotten treatment, harm has been reduced, overdoses have been prevented...

So, yeah. You'll probably start hearing this trotted out as proof that, well, we triiiied decriminalizing drugs, but look what happened in Portland! Well, what happened in Oregon is that we got set up to fail, and still didn't fail, just didn't totally succeed.

Measure 110 highlights, quoted directly from Prison Policy Initiative:

The Oregon Health Authority reported a 298% increase in people seeking screening for substance use disorders.

More than 370,000 naloxone doses have been distributed since 2022, and community organizations report more than 7,500 opioid overdose reversals since 2020.

Although overdose rates have increased around the country as more fentanyl has entered the drug supply, Oregon’s increase in overdoses has been similar to other states’ and actually less than neighboring Washington’s. A peer-reviewed study comparing overdose rates in Oregon with the rest of the country after the law went into effect found no link between Measure 110 and increased overdose rates.

There is no evidence that drug use rates in Oregon have increased. A cross-sectional survey of people who use drugs across eight counties in Oregon found that most had been using drugs for years; only 1.5% reported having started after Measure 110 went into effect.

There has been no increase in 911 calls in Oregon cities after Measure 110.

Measure 110 saves Oregonians millions. Oregon is expected to save $37 million between 2023-2025 if Measure 110 continues. This is because it costs up to $35,217 to arrest, adjudicate, incarcerate, and supervise a person taken into custody for a drug misdemeanor — and upwards of $60,000 for a felony. In contrast, treatment costs an average of $9,000 per person. The money saved by Measure 110 goes directly to state funding for addiction and recovery services.

There is no evidence that Measure 110 was associated with a rise in crime. In fact, crime in Oregon was 14% lower in 2023 than it was in 2020.

Further reading/sources:

[rtoffanin]

Proponents say the ability to check drugs for the presence of lethal fentanyl may save lives. But critics say the strips enable drug use.

BY JAN HOFFMAN AND DESIREE RIOS | NYTimes Health | Disclosure

[trans-axolotl]

US Harm Reduction Resources

continually updating, not a complete list. feel free to add on any resources you find helpful.

Free Safer Supplies:

Each organization will have different supplies, but generally, harm reduction orgs provide things like syringes, safer snorting + smoking kits, Narcan, condoms, lube, and wound care supplies. Each org has different policies for how to get supplies--some do deliveries, some have drop in centers, some only do one to one needle exchange, some are more flexible.

Next Distro: mail based syringe provider for certain states. Also mails free Narcan.

NASEN: national map of syringe providers

a lot of harm reduction collectives aren't going to have their information listed on big national websites--it's always worth searching "harm reduction in my area" and seeing what's around you. Even if you don't live in a big city, there might be a harm reduction organization in your state that can help you find someone closer to you. there's a lot of rad people doing underground work who want to be there to help you who aren't as easy to find online. If there's street medic collectives, mutual aid groups or groups like Food not Bombs in your area, you can ask people in them who might know where to find harm reduction services in your area!

Drug Users Unions:

Drug users unions are activist groups made for people who use drugs, by people who use drugs! Drug users unions do advocacy work to end criminalization, as well as providing vital community support. Many drug users unions are also inclusive of sex workers and work to decriminalize sex work as well. You can search for "drug users union" in your state.

Urban Survivors Union: National, has resources for creating drug users union

Chosen Few: Drug users union for Black drug users in DC

San Francisco Drug users union

Sex Work Advocacy Groups:

Organizations that do decrim advocacy and provide support for sex workers.

Sex Worker Outreach Project USA- National, has chapters in many states.

Black Sex Worker Collective

Sex Workers Project

How to Use Safely:

Guides, videos, toolkits for safer use!

Harm Reduction Coalition Resource Library

Getting Off Right: A Safety Manual for Injection Drug Users

Safer Crack Smoking

Safer Snorting

Safer Hormone Injection

Levels of Risk: Veins

Wound Care video w/ ASL

How to Use Fentanyl Test Strips

DanceSafe-testing kits, including reagent testing kits!

Erowid-shares experiences people have with different drugs, dosages, what things to expect

Bluelight- another forum for discussing experiences with drugs.

Drug Interactions Checker

Sex Work Resources:

Tricks of the Trade by L. Synn Stern: tips for street based sex work

A Quick and Dirty Sex Worker Safety Toolkit

Girls Do What they Have to Do To Survive by YWEP

Dis/Organizing: How We Build Collectives Beyond Institutions by Rachel Kuo & Lorelei Lee

Tryst Blog

Hotlines:

Never Use Alone: 877-696-1996. Overdose Prevention Hotline--Volunteers stay on the phone with you while you use and call emergency services if you overdose.

HIPS Hotline-​​​1 (800) 676-4477. Emotional support for drug users and sex workers. Does not work with cops.

feel free to add on more resources. love + lube <3

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

This was towards the end of the night. Initially, all of the zines were on queer subjects. Also had free lube (those aren't condoms), stickers, Slingshot organizers, and fentanyl test strips available. As always, free.

[angelnumber27]

If you have friends or loved ones on opiates or even if you don’t and just care about addicts in general, please carry narcan!!! Preferably on your person as well as in your car if that applies. You can get narcan along with fentanyl test strips (to test your/ your loved ones’ pills if needed) online for free. I HIGHLY recommend doing this asap, especially if you’re somebody who is actively taking these substances or somebody close to someone who is.

As I said, it is important for even people who aren’t on these substances to carry narcan just in case. It’s free and could save lives, there is simply no reason not to.