Pubdate: Wed, 08 Mar 2006
Source: Jasper Booster (CN AB)
Copyright: 2006 The Jasper Booster
Contact:  http://www.jasperbooster.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/788
Author: Patrick Mooney
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)

Let's Talk - Community Outreach Services

HARM REDUCTION: HELPING ADDICTS FEEL HUMAN

In a drug-user context harm reduction can be explained by this 
definition, one of many to be found; "It is any program or policy 
designed to reduce drug-related harm without requiring the cessation 
of drug use."

Further to this, and found on a web page out of the UK, another 
author states that "it does not focus on abstinence: although harm 
reduction supports those who seek to moderate or reduce their drug 
use, it neither excludes nor presumes a treatment goal of abstinence.

Harm reduction approaches recognize that short-term abstinence 
oriented treatments have low success rates, and, for opiate users, 
high post-treatment overdose rates.

In my own words, I see the practice more as a philosophy and far less 
a science.

I recently attended a harm reduction conference in Lethbridge. I was 
already quite familiar with the term, and some of the practices, of 
harm reduction. Or at least I thought I was. I wanted to take to the 
conference my own notion of harm reduction and have that honed to 
current beliefs and philosophies regarding the practice by the 
experts themselves.

As it turned out, I came away from the conference wiser than I was 
upon arriving, but, at the same time, knowing less about harm 
reduction than I had anticipated. To imply I am wiser about knowing 
less is, at a glance, a paradoxical statement, but true nonetheless.

 From the information presented I was able to drop some serious 
misconceptions that I had harboured for some time. In a sense, this 
was like carrying something heavy unnecessarily. I came away with a 
lightness of being and a clearer mind-set as a result of the conference.

The fact of the matter is this; little is known about harm reduction 
and research is scarce. I didn't really know this before attending 
and I was disappointed in realizing that I would come away from the 
conference with fewer answers than anticipated.

We love to measure and label practices and not being able to do so 
with harm reduction, we fail to see the value in enacting such a 
practice. In time, we will.

The most current example of harm reduction practices are safe 
injection sites like the one in the East Hastings neighbourhood of 
Vancouver. The goal there, in one respect, is to reduce the spread of 
HIV by providing clean needles and a safe environment for drug users 
to inject. But, as of today, the evidence of it working is still unclear.

Statistics take time to tell a story. But there is a whole other 
avenue to explore with such a practice and that is the sociological 
one. It tends to be ignored because it can't be counted.

One may clap their hands upon finding out that one person avoided 
infection by using the safe site but something far more significant 
might have occurred. (Anyone talk to him lately? No, we'll just wait 
for the stats to tell the story.)When that drug-user came in to use 
safely, the safe site not only gave him a clean needle, but it 
allowed him to feel like a person again - that he wasn't evil, that 
he wasn't just a drug-addicted scum of a criminal. The safe site 
opened the door for him to come in from the cold, to be accepted 
without judgement.

You must bear in mind how marginalized this segment of our society 
has become. They are on the outside of everything. Failures. Not only 
in their own minds, but in the minds of their community as well. 
Awarding the respect and dignity the drug-user deserves as a person 
might be the key to the success of the harm reduction approach.

The safe site doesn't call for you to quit using, passes no moral 
judgement on your lifestyle and respects your right to make choices. 
In doing so, the program creates an environment that may lead to 
saner thinking and eventual abstinence, but on the users own terms.

Harm reduction comes from a place of respect, dignity and acceptance 
of the fact that despite the 'war on drugs' (which has been a dismal 
failure), and the criminalization of substances, society will always 
be faced with a population of drug-users. It is morally imperative 
for our community to embrace the struggle of the afflicted and make 
that struggle our own.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman