Citrus Pride Center, in conjunction with the Pomona Pride Center, taught students, faculty and staff safe social setting behaviors on Sept. 13 at the Campus Center.
Edgar Jacuinde-Torres, the outreach and harm reduction specialist for the Pomona Pride Center, taught attendees tools and techniques for practicing harm reduction.
Jacuinde-Torres emphasized harm reduction in different social settings, such as nightlife and parties, and how to stay safe. He provided various harm reduction tools, such as:
- Knowing how to determine if one’s food is spiked
- knowing how to use fentanyl testing strips effectively
- Being aware of one’s surroundings
- Knowing how to lessen risky behavior through the use of naloxone
Anastasia Arnestad, the Pride Center coordinator at Citrus, said bringing a harm reduction workshop to Citrus is important because she wants her students to know that in the different social settings they are going to find themselves in, there exists various ways to reduce harm to oneself and others.
She said she has a realistic expectation of what students could do in their free time, such as attending music festivals, bars and parties.
“Instead of discouraging students from attending festivals, I would rather provide them with the resources to enjoy those festivals in the safest way possible,” Arnestad said.
Jacuinde-Torres said harm reduction works for people who use drugs and that harm reduction involves providing people with access to naloxone – an opioid overdose reversal drug.
He said other harm reduction activities include providing people with sterile supplies to prevent the spread of HIV and hepatitis.
Jacuinde-Torres said people being more aware of the different resources that exist and how to access them is essential to successful harm reduction practices. An example of these resources includes giving people who use drugs access to supervised injection facilities to provide life-saving interventions in the event of an overdose.
He also said people need to be aware of the chocolate cookie effect – that people who test food for fentanyl should be mindful that drug testing one side of food is not enough, as other portions of the food may contain fentanyl particles.
Jacuinde-Torres said fentanyl is 80 to 100 times more potent than morphine, as such small doses could lead to a potential overdose.
Jacuinde-Torres also mentioned the dangers of peer pressure and how it introduces people to harmful behaviors. He said to effectively escape peer pressure, people should have a clear view of their goals and identify their positive support system. He said having an exit strategy and knowing when and how to say no is important.
Jacuinde-Torrres said having this workshop at a college campus was important to break the stigma of drug use. As a former college student, Jacuinde-Torres said he would have loved to have had more resources and information just to keep people safe.
“It is OK to have these resources because there is a crisis out there, and we just want them to know and make sure that they are safe,” Jacuinde-Torres said.
Arnestad said she brought Jacuinde-Torres, who specifically works with harm reduction, to provide training and actual resources for students to take home.
After the workshop, Jennie Vorhis, a child development major at Citrus, said she felt more empowered to help her community.
Vorhis said the harm reduction workshop was interesting and is happy to know she can get supplies from the Pomona Pride Center.
This post was edited on Sept. 20 at 6:08 a.m.
