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The current Mexican federal administration, elected in 2018, eliminated funding for community-based organizations’ harm reduction programs. Harm reduction, which is a set of strategies that aim to reduce the negative consequences associated with drug use, has a robust history in Mexico and, while imperfectly implemented as a national strategy, had demonstrated successes, especially in reducing new HIV infections.
As a result of this new federal stance, many nongovernmental organizations serving people who use drugs shut down. Rockefeller Institute researchers interviewed Jaime Arredondo, a professor in the Drug Policy Program at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), about how the shifts in federal policy affected nongovernmental organizations and the challenges they faced during the pandemic. Arredondo explains some of the strategies used by these organizations to adapt to limited funding, including reducing services, using surplus materials from previous years, and relying on donations from Canada and the United States.
“Like in the US, the urgency and immediacy of addressing COVID-19 in Mexico overshadowed a worsening drug epidemic,” said Laura Schultz, executive director of research at the Rockefeller Institute. “This interview summary brings back into the light the immense challenges facing workers and volunteers at community-based organizations that serve people who use drugs. It also points to specific policy suggestions to facilitate harm reduction.”
The interview summary covers how the Mexican government can adjust policy to address the problems nongovernmental organizations are facing, including by:
- putting in place legal mechanisms to allow supplies—like syringes and naloxone–to cross the border more seamlessly and free of taxes;
- providing the legal mechanisms to allow CBOs to give services, such as safe consumption sites and community drug checking, without fear of prosecution; and
- rescheduling naloxone to allow it to be dispensed without a prescription (as it is in the United States).