In late 2021, SOAR was successful in securing grant funding from the Mel Wolfe Foundation for a new pilot project, Unstuck Chuck. Unstuck Chuck is SOAR’s syringe pick-up and disposal crew that is implemented each month with the help and direction of peers from the community of Charleston. The idea Read more…
While the country is still wrestling with the COVID-19 pandemic, deaths from drug overdoses have been spiking — and are expected to top 100,000 for 2021. On Thursday, the White House released its plan to address the crisis. Amna Nawaz: While the country is still wrestling with the COVID-19 pandemic, Read more…
John Oliver discusses why overdoses in the U.S. have been on the rise and what we should, and shouldn’t, be doing to prevent them.
President Biden has made “harm reduction” a central pillar of his plan to fight a record number of drug-related deaths, but a conservative backlash is threatening the effort. by Sheryl Gay Stolberg | New York Times Read the Full Article
With homelessness increasing nationwide, John Oliver takes a look at the way we discuss the unhoused, what policy failures are making the problem worse, and how we can help.
Activists in Charleston called on Mayor Amy Goodwin to declare a public health emergency. Some health providers and church leaders say the city needs to better address a cluster of HIV cases as well as the rise in opioid overdose deaths. At the city’s riverfront park, Magic Island, kids laughed Read more…
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — For years, West Virginia has had the nation’s highest rate of opioid drug addictions and drug overdose deaths. Now the state is wrestling with another, not entirely unrelated health emergency: one of the nation’s highest spikes in HIV cases related to intravenous drug use. The surge, Read more…
EDIT: On April 19, 2021, Charleston City Council voted to criminalize needs based syringe exchange, going against CDC recommendations, despite the HIV outbreak. We are no longer distributing syringes.