Safer use
The things that actually change the odds — most of them free, none of them complicated. No lecture, no conditions, and nothing here asks you to stop.
Most overdose deaths come down to a short list: alone, a supply that wasn't what it was supposed to be, tolerance that dropped during a break, or two depressants at once. Everything below is aimed at that list.
We hand out the supplies for all of this free — see what we have — and we don't ask why you want them.
Eight things that change the odds
Try not to use alone
Almost everyone who dies of an overdose was alone when it started. Nothing else on this page matters as much as somebody being there.
If you can, stagger it — use at different times so one person is always able to respond. Leave the door unlocked, have naloxone out in the open where a stranger could find it, and tell someone which room you're in.
If nobody can be there, call the Never Use Alone line at 1‑800‑484‑3731 first. It is free, 24/7, and you do not have to give your real name — you give them an address, they stay on the line, and they send help if you stop responding.
Check your supply
Fentanyl turns up in things that were never supposed to have it — pressed pills, coke, meth, ketamine. Xylazine ("tranq") increasingly shows up alongside it, and naloxone doesn't touch xylazine.
Test strips are free from us and legal to have in Ohio. The steps are below, and the strips take about five minutes.
A positive result is not a reason to throw everything away and it is not a reason to panic — it is information. It tells you to use less, use slower, not use alone, and have naloxone within arm's reach.
Go slow — especially after any break
Tolerance falls fast. A couple of days without opioids is enough — a stint in jail, a hospital stay, detox, treatment, or just a quiet week. The dose that was normal before the break can be fatal after it.
This is the single most predictable overdose risk there is. Coming out of jail or off a hospital ward is the most dangerous week many people will have.
Take a smaller amount than you think you need, wait, and see how it lands before taking more. A test dose costs you a few minutes.
Mixing downers is what kills
Opioids, benzodiazepines, and alcohol all slow breathing. Together they do it far more than either would alone, and most fatal overdoses involve more than one substance.
If you're going to mix, use much less of each, space them out, and make sure the person with you knows what's in play — it changes what EMS needs to hear.
Naloxone still helps in a mixed overdose because it reverses the opioid part. Give it, and call 911.
Nothing gets shared — not just needles
Hepatitis C survives outside the body for weeks and takes only a trace of blood. Syringes are the obvious risk, but cookers, cottons, water, tourniquets, pipes, stems, mouthpieces, and snorting straws all carry it too.
That is the whole reason we hand out supplies in quantity: nobody should have to reuse or borrow. Ask for as many as you need, and come back for more.
Your own straw, your own mouthpiece, your own cooker. Label them if you share a space.
How you take it changes the risk
Snorting or smoking comes on more gradually than injecting, which leaves more room to notice something is wrong. Switching route, even sometimes, lowers overdose risk and gives veins a rest.
Snorting: your own straw, crush it finely, rinse your nose with saline afterwards, and swap nostrils. Rolled-up bills, keys, and pens carry other people's germs and shred the inside of your nose.
Smoking: your own mouthpiece and stem. A hot or cracked pipe causes the burns and sores that make sharing dangerous in the first place.
If you inject
A new syringe every single time. Points get blunt fast, and a blunt point does more damage to the vein with every use.
Sterile water — ours, or an unopened bottle. Your own cooker and a clean cotton filter, never a cigarette filter. Wash your hands, then wipe the site with an alcohol pad and let it dry.
Arms and the backs of hands are the safest places. Rotate sites so they get time to heal, avoid anywhere with poor circulation like fingers and toes, and never inject into a wound.
Look after wounds early
Xylazine-related wounds are showing up more, and they can appear away from where someone injects. Caught early they often settle down on their own; left alone they become abscesses and ulcers that need a hospital.
Clean with warm water and soap or saline. Cover it with a clean non-stick dressing — not a sleeve, not left open to air — and change it regularly. Petroleum ointment around the edges helps keep it from spreading.
Skip alcohol and hydrogen peroxide: they dry the wound out and slow healing. And do not inject into or near it.
Get it looked at as soon as it starts, not once it's bad. We can point you to somewhere that won't lecture you.
How to use a test strip
Five minutes, and legal to carry in Ohio. Ask us for as many as you want.
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Put a little of it in water
Roughly ½ teaspoon of water for every 10 mg — about a match-head — of most drugs. Residue left in the bag, cooker, or on the surface works fine.
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Meth and MDMA need more water
A full teaspoon per 10 mg, or more. Those two throw false positives when the mix is too strong, so err toward more water.
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Dip the wavy end for about 15 seconds
Hold the strip in the liquid — don't submerge past the top line.
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Lay it flat and wait up to 5 minutes
Flat surface, not held in your hand. Read it inside those five minutes.
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One line means positive
One line = fentanyl detected. Two lines = not detected. No lines at all, or no control line, means the strip failed — use a new one.
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Treat a negative as "probably, not certainly"
Strips can't tell you how much is in there, they can miss some analogs, and one corner of a bag can differ from another. A negative is a reason to still go slow, not a reason to relax.
Xylazine needs its own strip. A fentanyl strip says nothing about xylazine, and naloxone won't reverse it — so if tranq is around, rescue breathing and staying with someone matter even more. Ask us for both kinds.
What Ohio law actually says
Are test strips legal to have in Ohio?
Yes. Fentanyl test strips were removed from Ohio's drug paraphernalia definition in 2023, and in October 2025 the Board of Pharmacy extended that to reagent kits and to strips for xylazine, medetomidine, nitazenes, and benzodiazepines. You can carry them.
Will I be charged if I call 911 for an overdose?
Ohio's Good Samaritan law gives limited immunity from minor drug possession charges to people who seek medical help in good faith — the caller and the person overdosing both. There are conditions: it covers misdemeanours and fifth-degree felonies, you need to get a screening and treatment referral within 30 days, nobody can use it more than twice, and it doesn't apply on parole or probation. It is not unlimited, but it exists so that fear doesn't stop the call. Call anyway.
What about carrying syringes?
Ohio law protects participants of an approved syringe program from prosecution for possessing a needle near the program site, and shields program staff and volunteers from paraphernalia liability. If you use a syringe program, ask them about a participant card — it exists for exactly this reason.
Do you report anything to anyone?
No. We don't ask why you want supplies, we don't keep records beyond what's needed to get them to you, and we don't share who asked with police, landlords, employers, or family. Mailed packages carry nothing on the outside.
Plain-language summaries of public information, not legal advice. If you're facing a charge, talk to a lawyer.
Free supplies, no questions
Naloxone, test strips, sterile injection supplies, safer smoking and snorting supplies, and wound care — all free, all from us, and you never have to explain what they're for or how much you need.
Where to read more
- Never Use Alone — 1‑800‑484‑3731, free & confidential, 24/7
- Find naloxone & support near you (Ohio Dept. of Health)
- Free naloxone in Ohio (Dept. of Behavioral Health)
- Project DAWN sites — Ohio’s naloxone distribution network
- Ohio syringe programs, county by county (Harm Reduction Ohio)
- How to test your drugs with fentanyl test strips (Ohio Board of Pharmacy)
- Ohio pharmacies that dispense naloxone without a prescription
- Ohio's Good Samaritan law — “call no matter what”
- Responding to an overdose (National Harm Reduction Coalition)
- Getting Off Right — safer injection manual (National Harm Reduction Coalition)
- Safer snorting (CATIE)
- SAMHSA National Helpline — 1‑800‑662‑4357, free & confidential, 24/7
- Find treatment — findtreatment.gov
About this guidance. Drawn from public health and harm reduction guidance from SAMHSA, NIDA/NIH, the Ohio Department of Health, the Ohio Board of Pharmacy, the National Harm Reduction Coalition, and CATIE. Last reviewed July 2026. This is community harm reduction information, not medical or legal advice, and it isn't a substitute for care — in an emergency, call 911. If something here is out of date or wrong, please tell us and we'll fix it fast.