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Harm reduction activists begin to establish needle exchange programs throughout the U.S.

1983

HR
DRUG
AIDS

Jon Stuen-Parker, a former heroin user and student at Yale University, begins distributing sterile needles to intravenous drug users in New Haven, Connecticut.

Early AIDS activists Kelly McGowan and Isabel Dawson also distribute clean syringes and information about how to use them in the East Village in New York City.

By 1986, Catlin Fullwood in Seattle, Washington and Women with a Vision in New Orleans, Louisiana will have become critical in organizing Black, lesbian, and trans people who use drugs in leading harm reduction projects.

Formal needle exchange programs began as early as the 1970s in the Netherlands, but remain illegal in the U.S. during this time period.