Piloting in St Joseph County, Indiana
What Is Drug Checking?
Drug checking is a form of harm reduction that involves chemically analyzing unregulated drugs or drug residue to understand what contaminants are in local drugs.
Why is There a Need for Drug Checking?
Like most communities across the U.S., St. Joseph County has seen the entrance of contaminants in the unregulated supply of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines, Adderall, Xanax and many other drugs. Street drugs are no longer what they appear to be. Those selling and using drugs are often unaware of what they are selling or using.
How Does the Project Work?
- People Who Use Drugs (PWUD) or people willing to educate PWUD come to a drug checking training.
- Participants receive take-home test kits. Test strips in the kit are used to test drugs for immediate results.
- The used test strips are then sent to Lieberman labs at the University of Notre Dame for a more in-depth analysis of approximately 17 other contaminants.
- Results from lab testing are released anonymously in the Naxos OD app for any community member to view.
How Does Drug Checking Help Our Community?
If we rely on the work of coroners, law enforcement, or medical professionals to check for new contaminants, we may never find them because the lab doesn’t test for them, or it may take many weeks or months to get the information. Research shows that people who use drugs are more likely to throw away drugs or choose safer behaviors when they learn what is in them and what it means for their health .
We can use drug checking information to:
- Reduce the harm caused to PWUD
- Educate medical providers about how to offer more appropriate care to PWUD
- Direct public health resources toward interventions that save lives such as public health alerts and overdose response plans
How Can I Participate?
Get trained and have access to entering your results into the Naxos OD app. Sign up below.
See the results as they are released and receive alerts related to overdose risks, download the app, Naxos OD.
If you would like a training at your site or are interested in partnering in some way, contact us at NaxosNeighbors@gmail.com
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