Harm reduction is exactly what it sounds like: policies, programs, and practices working to reduce the negative physical, social, and legal impacts associated with drug use, drug policies, and drug laws. Harm reduction is evidence-based. Harm reduction services are lifesaving.
Harm reduction is grounded in justice and human rights. Harm reduction programs work with people without judgement, coercion, discrimination, or requiring that someone stops using drugs to get support. Harm reduction uplifts people who use drugs as agents of change and leaders of the movement.
“[Harm reduction] accepts, for better or worse, that licit and illicit drug use is part of our world and chooses to work to minimize its harmful effects rather than simply ignore or condemn them.”
National Harm Reduction Coalition
source: Harm Reduction Principles | National Harm Reduction Coalition
Harm reduction encompasses a range of services and strategies, including: safer consumption sites, syringe service programs, non-abstinence-based housing and employment initiatives, medical assisted treatment (MAT), drug checking, naloxone access and trainings, mental health support, and accessible information on safer drug use.
However, harm reduction isn’t just for substance use! Safer sex supplies like condoms are a form of harm reduction. Seatbelts, sunscreen, hunter’s orange, and helmets are all everyday examples of harm reduction.
A common misconception about harm reduction is that it is in opposition to abstinence. This is false. Harm reduction meets people where they are at and serves each person with specific tools to help them reach their own goals. If an individual’s goal is to abstain from drug use, harm reduction programs provide that person with services and supports for that goal.
It is important to differentiate between a person’s own goal of abstinence and abstinence as a requirement to access services, even services unrelated to substance use like housing or healthcare. Harm reduction recognizes abstinence is not the only positive path forward and mandating abstinence for everyone harms people who use drugs.
Learn more:
“What is Harm Reduction?” from Harm Reduction International
“Principles of Harm Reduction” from National Harm Reduction Coalition
“Drug related stigma and the language we use” from NEXT distro