Harm Reduction
A Disclaimer: This website covers My Team and myself
Harm reduction programs connect people who use drugs to supplies (e.g., new syringes, fentanyl test strips, and naloxone) that help prevent overdose deaths and the spread of infections. They also connect people to healthcare, medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD), HIV testing and HIV Peer Support.
While abstinence-only approaches to drug use focus on the cessation of all drug use, harm reduction prioritizes community wellbeing and quality-of-life. This may include abstinence for some people, based on what works best for them. But, because drug use is also about so much more than the substance itself, policies and programs to address drug use also have to be about much more than the drug in question. That’s where harm reduction comes in!
Harm reduction programs connect people who use drugs to supplies (e.g., new syringes, fentanyl test strips, and naloxone) that help prevent overdose deaths and the spread of infections. They also connect people to healthcare, medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD), HIV testing and HIV Peer Support.
Fundamentally, harm reduction is about bodily autonomy and unconditional support for people who use drugs. In Massachusetts and beyond, the harm reduction approach to drug use is rooted in liberation movements for racial, reproductive, health and autonomy
Decades of research show that harm reduction increases public health and wellbeing, without increasing drug use, violence, or crime. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, people with access to a harm reduction program that includes new, sterile syringes are:
Five times more likely to enter treatment for their drug use than those without access
Three times more likely to stop drug use that is impeding their quality of life
50 percent less likely to contract HIV and Hepatitis
More likely to survive a drug-related overdose