• by Les Luchter , Yesterday

With the Trump administration berating the use of such phrases as “harm reduction” and “never use alone” as “facilitating illegal drug use,” the annual “Save a Life Day” -- which promotes and provides free doses of naloxone, the opioid reversal drug -- has adopted “Elevate Harm Reduction” as this year’s theme.

“We’re trying to return some public health sanity to the conversation," says Joe Solomon, co-director of SOAR WV, the nonprofit that organizes Save A Life Day, in a statement.

The group has even commissioned the sticker shown above – showing a student forced to write “I won’t say ‘harm reduction’” over and over on a blackboard in a classroom filled with life-saving materials  -- as one of its marketing tools for this year’s local event promoters.

While Save a Life Day, which takes place Sept. 24, isn’t itself affected by any new federal funding rules, it does work with many local groups, who very well may be.

Now counting more than a thousand local events across the U.S. for this year’s edition, Save a Life Day has always been supported by local foundation grants and sponsors over its seven -year history.

Those sponsors now include naloxone marketers Harm Reduction Therapeutics, Padagis, Amneal Pharmaceuticals  and Emergent BioSolutions, as well as  Ayuda, which sells a wearable overdose alert system.  Approved by the FDA over 50 years ago, this naloxone became an over-the-counter medication in 2023.

Save a Life Day says the “Elevate Harm Reduction” events will “highlight and promote evidence-based strategies, such as syringe programs and drug testing, that save lives, mitigate disease transmission, and prevent deadly infections.”

Activities include the installation of naloxone vending boxes and emergency wall boxes.

Last year’s Save a Life Day distributed roughly 133,000 free naloxone doses.

Marketing materials available to local organizers include a variety of templates for flyers and social media, as well as yard signs, stickers and more.