Executive Director of Intercambios Puerto Rico, a harm reduction organization offering services and pro-drug-user advocacy in eastern Puerto Rico. Dr. Torruella currently holds positions in various board of directors of organizations related to HIV, harm reduction, and drug policy and he is part of the SAMHSA Harm Reduction Steering Committee.

As Harm Reduction is being co-opted by the United States Federal Government, we analyze how colonial dynamics play an integral part in harm reduction services and funding across borders. We, as Mexican and Puerto Rican (colonial) subjects recount how, within our contexts, harm reduction is being fomented in some instances and limited in others by our colonial relationships with the United States. "So far from god and so close to the US" encapsulates the complicated relationship that relates to drug policy, migrations, and service provision in these two US borders - one in the south of the US and another in the Caribbean. In this presentation we will address drug markets and drug use behaviors in both borderlands and the harm reduction responses that accompany them. These responses are conceptualized as both colonial symptoms and acts of resistance. In Puerto Rico the colony tracs closer to its metropolis - US Federal Opiate Overdose Response and Saturation Plans and Opioid Settlement funds - while in Mexico the current governments (re)acts in its own prohibitionist forms - banning vaping and demonizing drugs users.