Special Projects Coordinator/Methadone Liaison
North Carolina Survivors Union/National Survivors Union, North Carolina
Abby Coulter is the methadone liaison for National Survivors Union (NSU), the United States national drug users union, and a member of the NSU Methadone Reform & Advocacy working group. In 2011, she and her partner founded MAT Support & Awareness (MATSA), a mutual aid, support, advocacy, and educational organization by and for people on methadone and buprenorphine. She recently served on the planning committee for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Methadone Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder: Examining Federal Regulations and Laws workshop, an event co-sponsored by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. She is a co-author of “The methadone manifesto: treatment experiences and policy recommendations by methadone patient activists,” a 2022 editorial published in the American Journal of Public Health by NSU members in collaboration with their academic partners, as well as the co-author of a commentary published in the International Journal of Drug Policy by union members and collaborators in 2021 on community driven research led by people who use drugs. Abby herself is a person on methadone, who has been a methadone patient advocate and activist for 21 years, advocating for people on methadone in her home state of West Virginia, throughout the United States, and internationally. Her own lived experience as a pregnant person using drugs and a pregnant and parenting person in methadone treatment is what led her to life as a methadone advocate and drug user human rights activist.
Friday, April 14, 2023
1:15 PM – 2:30 PM
Sunday, April 16, 2023
8:30 AM – 9:45 AM