RCL3: Changing the Perspectives Regarding Harm Reduction

Harm reduction policies are an effective approach to alleviating the societal effects of drug addiction.

American drug policy is hardly a beacon of light when compared to other countries. The hard-line, no-tolerance approach our country had adopted in previous decades oversaw hundreds of thousands of deaths as a result of drug abuse and millions of people arrested for violating drug law policies. On top of that, 19.7 million Americans battled a substance abuse disorder in 2017 alone. The War on Drugs has obviously failed.

That being said, drugs aren’t just a U.S. problem; the difference, though, is that while some countries have implemented hard-line policies in the past, they saw that they were not working and they implemented other policies. Many of these countries, like Canada, Brazil, the Netherlands, have implemented drug policies that have proven to be more successful than aggressive drug criminalization policies. I’ve been interested in harm reduction policies for a while, and I love getting the opportunity to express that interest in school whenever I can. A lot of people are effected by current policies; they are simply seen as common criminals as opposed to people who need help. While drug addiction is a complex issue that is hard to tackle, harm reduction policies are able to alleviate some of the effects our society, as well as the addicts, feels as a result of addiction.

The book I chose was Harm Reduction: National and International Perspectives. Each chapter tackles a different facet of harm reduction; whether it’s about the history, the different forms of it, or the different countries that have had harm reduction policy movements. From the very basics of the idea to the complexities of different policies that have worked or failed, it covers it all. Each chapter is written by a different person or set of people; depending on the topic, the authors are experienced clinical researchers that have researched drug abuse in the past, or well-versed sociologists that have studies the societal impacts of drug abuse. It’ll be a great book for being to explore the different pillars of harm reduction all in one place.

Because harm reduction is such a robust topic, it will be helpful to have some guiding questions:

1. Why are harm reduction policies often viewed as unfavorable to many people?
2. What are some of the different harm reduction policies the world has seen work in the past, and what are some of the different policies that have failed?
3.  What makes harm reduction policies the favorable choice in the long run (if, in fact, they are)?

I’m really excited to dive deeper into this issue. Even though I know quite a bit about drug policy and harm reduction, I feel like I am still just scratching the surface. I look forward to being about to go beyond the surface of harm reduction specifically.