it is part of the appeal of harm reduction. Rather than condemn, the field seeks to understand. merely The underground world ruled by its own laws was a very appealing part of drugs for me, mused Johanna Castilla. For many, this Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries is a space for agency, a space to navigate outside of models of social con trol, work, protestant morality, and aspects of the normal order of things. I encountered different kinds of people, different ways of relating to one another that seemed spontaneous, mysterious, risky, and unfamiliar, fas cinating and seductive. For many, the tightrope walk between self expression and risk is a fertile space. To court pain, loss, or even death itself, this is a place for desire and agency. Sometimes we feel most alive when we are looking down at an abyss. The appeal of such experience is hard to contain.

But so is the loss when we stumble. As the AIDS and harm reduction years continued, many would die, leaving workers, activists and those remaining left to pick up the pieces and wonder why they had sur vived while friends and colleagues had not. My first super visor in New York died in the fall of 2005, years after losing his lover to HIV. I always thought he died of Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries a broken heart. Many people have. Reactions to these feelings of loss take any number of forms, including panic, self blame, anxiety, fear, guilt, numbness, Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries longing, helplessness, for getfulness, and slowed thinking. These feelings change people. Grief will make a new person of you, noted Stephanie Erickson, if it doesnt kill you in the making. Yet we still do not know enough about what this does to those who work with loss every day.

The last time I presented at the National Harm Reduc tion Conference was in the fall of 2010 in Austin, Tx. I was presenting on the topic of pleasure in harm reduc tion. While the topic involved Eros, its doppel ganger, Thanatos lingered in the air. Shortly before the conference Jon Paul Hammond, one of the founders of Prevention Point Philadelphia, Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries a seminal syringe ex change program, and a long time board member of the Harm Reduction Coalition, died of an overdose. His death loomed over the conference, a stark reminder of Morses death three years prior. It was a precarious all too familiar feeling which rears its head for those in this movement. People cope with this work in multiple ways, including self medicating with alcohol and drugs.

The question is when is this too much And when is it time to support those we know who are using with questions about safety One of my friends used to say, My harm reduc tion from Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries heroin is abstinence. Certainly, harm reduc tion recoils at the idea of the Carrie Nation, who destroyed barrels of beer during the Temperance days, or Nancy Reagan types, who beseeched everyone to just say no while their desires are suppressed. selleck compound Harm reduc tionists recognize the danger in such forms of prohib ition.