SSP Info and General inquires (text first) 980-395-2199 | Mobile Outreach (text only) 980-395-9082
For more information regarding the legal protections granted to the QCHR and our participants, please visit:
NC Safer Syringe Initiative
People who use drugs can access so much more than just syringes
QCHR is a place for judgement free health care and offers:
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Free naloxone and overdose reversal and response training
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Free testing for HIV, Hepatitis C and more.
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And a wide variety of safer consumption supplies, safer sex supplies, wound care, and information on how to properly care for your body and veins
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Referrals and resources for people who use drugs
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​Legal protection for our participants. Syringes and other injection supplies, are protected by law (GSM 90-133.27 ) For more information, go to NC DHHS:Safer Syringe Initiative.
Not sure if you need Naloxone?
​Even if you are in recovery, we recommend having naloxone.
​Having a fire extinguisher doesn't increase your chances of having a fire! Carrying naloxone doesn't mean you're a user or going to use, it just means you're prepared for an emergency.
Who We Are
The philosophy of harm reduction values humanity at its core and employs radical acts of love and acceptance that meet people who use drugs where they are at with compassion, dignity, and respect. Queen City Harm Reduction (QCHR) is a program operated by people with living and lived experience that offer free and accessible support services to Mecklenburg County’s most vulnerable populations.
Through the provision of safer use supplies and Narcan/naloxone, safer sex supplies, HIV and Hepatitis C testing, linkage to healthcare and social services, and a safe space to simply exist as people are, we promote a sense of connection, improved health and wellness, and dignity. In this way, QCHR can prioritize full-circle and wraparound care for people who use drugs, people engaging in sex work, people experiencing homelessness, people with justice involvement, and other historically marginalized groups.
QCHR is always seeking support to sustain program operations & services.
If you would like to help, please contact Angela Allen of Center for Prevention Services or you can donate online following the directions on our Donation page.
The principles of harm reduction:
1. Accepts, for better or worse, that licit and illicit drug use is part of our world and chooses to work to minimize its harmful effects rather than simply ignore or condemn them.
2. Understands drug use as a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon that encompasses a continuum of behaviors from severe use to total abstinence, and acknowledges that some ways of using drugs are clearly safer than others.
3. Establishes quality of individual and community life and well-being — not necessarily cessation of all drug use — as the criteria for successful interventions and policies.
4. Calls for the non-judgmental, non-coercive provision of services and resources to people who use drugs and the communities in which they live in order to assist them in reducing attendant harm.
5. Ensures that people who use drugs and those with a history of drug use routinely have a real voice in the creation of programs and policies designed to serve them.
6. Affirms people who use drugs (PWUD) themselves as the primary agents of reducing the harms of their drug use and seeks to empower PWUD to share information and support each other in strategies which meet their actual conditions of use.
7. Recognizes that the realities of poverty, class, racism, social isolation, past trauma, sex-based discrimination, and other social inequalities affect both people’s vulnerability to and capacity for effectively dealing with drug-related harm.
8. Does not attempt to minimize or ignore the real and tragic harm and danger that can be associated with illicit drug use.
