President & Founder

Isaac Jackson, Ph.D.

Pronouns: He, Him, His

Isaac Jackson is a founding figure in two drug user organizations (San Francisco Drug Users Union in 2010 and the San Francisco branch of the Urban Survivors Union 2013). He has empowered people who use drugs to come together around the critical issues that impact their lives. A common thread in Issac's work with people who use drugs has been the demand to be treated with dignity and recognized as critical consumers of the products of the non-profit industrial complex. Too often, non-profits exclude the voice of drug users in the development programs designed to serve them. Drug users demand to be constructive partners in creating 'user-friendly' consumer products and processes.

Isaac has recognized the need for drug user connections throughout the pandemic and launched USU of SF's website at sfusu.org. It provides access to education, membership, links to services, and various ways to organize and get involved for people who use drugs.

Isaac Jackson graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a doctorate in media arts and sciences in 1992.

Isaac Jackson has been a volunteer, intern, and/or employee of local organizations that work directly with drug users. These include the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, Tenderloin Health, Hospitality House, the Dope Project, and the Speed Project.

Our Mission:

The Urban Survivor’s Union is a grassroots coalition of drug users (both former and active) dedicated to ensuring respect, dignity, and social justice for our community. We contest the dominant culture’s misguided attitudes and biases about drug use and drug users. USU stands for a new direction by centering our programs on putting the drug user first and foremost. We believe that efforts to advance our agenda must be guided by democratic principles and a dedication to diversity. All USU activities are directed and carried out by drug users (former and active) in order to ensure the integrity of our mission and that of the drug user’s movement.

• We Believe: Change is a process and sustaining any positive change is a victory.

• We Believe: Drug Users want to be healthy and have the capacity to be healthy given the education and the proper tools.

• We Believe: We are not powerless. We are the only ones with the power!

• We Believe: Education, Empowerment, and Access to sterile syringes and supplies are necessary for keeping people that use drugs healthy.

USU Foundational Ethics:

The ethics of Urban Survivor’s Union are defined by our own Principles of Collective Unity, statement of non-discrimination in addition USU, regional chapters, and affiliate groups are informed and bound by the Harm Reduction Coalition’s Principles of Harm Reduction and finally by the core competencies of Community Health Workers as described the American Public Health Association’s Community Health Worker track.

USU Statement of Non-Discrimination:

Urban Survivor’s Union does not discriminate on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, current or former drug use history, political affiliation, incarceration history, disability status, mental health history, HIV status, size or any other class.

USU Principles of Collective Unity:

The community of individuals and regional chapters collectively know as Urban Survivor’s Union and Urban Survivor’s Union members affirm our commitment to the following Principles of Collective Unity. This charter acts as the guiding foundation of all our decisions and may only be amended after changes have been announced at least a month in advance of a general meeting where those amendments will be discussed and only with the consensual and unanimous agreement of all USU members.

What Do We Do?

Direct Services: USU is a community organizing group. We only engage in direct services when programs are underground or newly forming. We do this because USU knows how important harm reduction services are and if no one else is providing the services then we must. Often when drug user services are newly formed they are not created with drug user input therefore another role of USU is to provide trainings and examples of how drug user services “should be operated”

USU chapters have 4 major components:

1. Leadership Development/ Training

2. Community Organizing/ Grassroots Campaigns

3. Civic Engagement

4. Direct Services for people who use drugs

We have a series of trainings that we use to teach effective leadership development. We accomplish leadership development through local and national trainings and retreats.

• Train the Trainer: How to engage effective people/ effective outreach/ recruitment.

• Media Trainings: How to talk to the media and create effective messages.

• Rogers Rules/ Effective Meetings: How to hold effective meetings and get results.

• From Anger to Apathy to Activism: How being an activist can change your life