Love is the Drug: Women in Harm Reduction

Love is the Drug (short film) told the story of Heather Edney’s drug user organizing which began in Santa Cruz, California, while she was caring for MyLeia Loya, a child who was born HIV positive. The film brought together a trove of archival materials: Edney’s appearances on television, photographs, zines, flyers, and community health education videos with more recent 16mm footage of Edney and Loya in Santa Cruz. Love is the Drug ultimately asserts that the archive is not a scene of redemption, but rather a cinematic apparatus that can teach us about durational love. Edney was one of the youngest voices in first wave harm reduction, in which she was mentored by pioneers like Lisa Moore, Joyce Rivera, Edith Springer, and Imani Woods. They met at the first Harm Reduction Working Group (HRWG), alongside other national leaders in needle exchange. Stephanie Comer, an early advocate and the first philanthropist to directly fund the purchase of syringes, gathered the group in San Francisco 1993. Over four days, the group created a mission for the working group and drafted a unified definition of harm reduction. HRWG evolved into the Harm Reduction Coalition (HRC).

Today, Edney provides strategic guidance and operational support to harm reduction organizations that support dignity, autonomy, and survival for people who use drugs. She continues to create safer use resources that update current harm reduction guidelines, taking into account an increased presence of fentanyl and fentanyl analogs in the drug supply. In 2025, Edney and Joy Rucker, co-founder of the Black Harm Reduction Network, have given several fireside chats on the history of harm reduction. Rucker and Edney are longtime friends, collaborators, and colleagues; their guidance anchors the history in the project.

The nonfiction feature film Love is the Drug: Women in Harm Reduction [working title] expands from the short film Love is the Drug using experimental film techniques to show the history and contemporary work of women who are thought leaders in the field. Women in Harm Reduction reveals the texture of the changing harm reduction landscape through the lives and work of under recognized women, speaking urgently to the problems arising from the mainstreaming of harm reduction. Many people feel that harm reduction has lost its way because of government involvement, opioid settlement money, and the tokenization of people who use drugs. This film is a testament to the women who got us here and keep us going, showing how harm reduction is a human right.