Overview
The Portland People’s Outreach Project, or PPOP, is an all-volunteer peer-run organization in Portland that provides harm reduction supplies to people who use drugs. We distribute clean syringes, pipes, overdose-reversing naloxone (Narcan), and a variety of other harm reduction, wound care, and safer sex supplies. Unlike many needle exchanges, PPOP is need-based, not 1-for-1, meaning our users do NOT have to dispose of used syringes in order to receive new ones. Research demonstrates need-based exchanges are more effective at reducing the transmission of HIV and Hepatitis C than 1-for-1 distribution practices.
PPOP strives to serve the needs of the injection drug-using community by distributing vital harm-reduction supplies within a supportive, non-judgmental context. The supplies that PPOP provides to drug users include new syringes, sterile injection equipment (cookers, cottons, tourniquets, alcohol pads, paperclips ‘handles’ for the cookers), overdose reversal medication naloxone (Narcan), pipes and safer smoking kits, safer sex supplies (including emergency contraceptives), wound care supplies, and donated socks, warm clothes, and survival gear.
