ABOUT

Labor of Love: A Global Harm Reduction Oral History Project

In light of the ongoing global War on Drugs, a governmental and societal response that has subjected millions to incarceration, lifelong criminal records, economic and social despair, violence, and death, people who use and inject drugs have and continue to face demonization within mainstream media and public discourse, especially those who are marginalized on class, race, and/or gender lines. Labor of Love: A Global Harm Reduction Oral History Project aims to push against these prevailing, dehumanizing narratives by allowing people who use and inject drugs to tell their own stories.

The harm reduction movement has sprung up all across the globe in fierce resistance to the violence that has been brought upon us by the War on Drugs and prohibition. It is a movement built upon love, care, survival, community, and resistance to all oppressors and oppressive forces.

Labor of Love aims to document and preserve the histories of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous & People of Color), trans, queer, femme, and / or gender non-conforming people who use drugs across the globe, as these groups are disproportionately silenced, erased, ignored, and exploited, particularly in relation to their involvement with the harm reduction movement.

Images from Heather Edney’s True Stories from Girl Junkies

Labor of Love is founded by Aden McCracken and Max Freeburg–two proud drug users and drug user liberationists.

Aden studies Medical Anthropology at Stanford University. Her academics, professional, and personal efforts center on drug user advocacy, Opioid Maintenance Treatment-patient advocacy, and U.S. methadone treatment reform. Aden is a member of the International Working Group at Youth Rise–an organization dedicated to amplifying the needs of young people who use drugs and young people affected by drug policies across the globe. Aden has written for Filter Magazine about her personal experiences with the U.S. methadone treatment system. She has also been featured in the International Journal of Drug Policy for her research unveiling the effects of carceral and punitive practices on the bodily autonomy of womxn-patients within Opioid Treatment programs. Aden has worked and volunteered at several needle exchange programs and harm reduction organizations within and outside of the United States–including the Peer Network of New York, West Oakland Punks With Lunch, and Steps Greece.

Max is a multi-media artist, archivist, community-first responder, and community-based harm reduction worker. Max has worked at several safe consumptions sites and syringe service programs since they were 17 years old. Max centers the preservation of the stories, voices, and autonomy of people who use drugs in all of their work. Max is currently pursuing an ADN/DSN in nursing and an EMT certification, to continue to work in overdose prevention and reversal and crisis care for people who use drugs. Max wrote the foreword to Heather Edney’s novel Sucking Dick for Syringes. Max’s writing and narration was also featured in Love is The Drug, a film directed by Liz Roberts and commissioned by Visual AIDS in conjunction with exhibition Love Rules: The Harm Reduction Archives of Heather Edney and Richard Berkowitz at MOMA PS1.

Labor of Love is mentored by Heather Edney, producer of the acclaimed zine-series junkphood (1995) with Brooke Lober, co-author of Getting Off Right: A Safety Manual for Injection Drug Users with Rod Sorge and Synn Stern (1998), co-founder of the Santa Cruz Needle Exchange, and one of the founding members of the National Harm Reduction Coalition.

The project is volunteer based. It is built for and by drug users.

A special thanks to Ali Elbanna.

If you are interested in being interviewed or becoming a volunteer, please fill out the respective forms here.