What is Harm Reduction?

H.R. focuses attention in engaging directly with PWUD to try preventing overdose, infectious diseases like viral hepatitis and HIV from spreading, along with offering low barrier options for accessing health care services that include mental health and Substance Use Disorder (SUD) treatment.

Organizations that use the H.R. practice may also serve as a pathway to additional health and social services, including prevention, treatment, and recovery services.

H.R. offers opportunities to reach out to those who aren't otherwise accessing healthcare services.

Some examples of services offered include offering FREE Naloxone (Narcan) to reverse overdose or helping connect people to other needed services like treatment. Treatment Services like medication for people with Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) could be co-located with H.R. services and offered as an option.

Potential connections to treatments are CRITICAL, as data shows that:

• Only about 1 of 10 people that suffer from SUD have received treatment.
• Nearly ALL people with SUD that didn't get treatment at a special facility did not think they needed it.

The U.S. is currently experiencing the MOST SIGNIFICANT substance abuse and overdose deaths it has ever faced. The epidemic is believed to be exacerbated by the recent COVID-19 worldwide pandemic and driven by the rapid increase of HIGHLY potent synthetic opioids (Fentanyl) and horse tranquilizers (Xylazine) into MANY types of drugs, like stimulants (Crack, Cocaine, and Methamphetamines) and counterfeit prescription pills.

In 2022, there were more than 100,000 overdose deaths.

H.R. services SAVE LIVES by being available and accessible in a way that promotes the need for humility and compassion towards people who suffer from addiction.

H.R. has many benefits to help PWUD stay safe. H.R. services have 8 principles that help prioritize giving love and care to PWUD, without judging or shunning them

1. Accepting, for better or worse, that illicit drug use is part of our world and choosing to work to minimize its harmful effects rather than simply ignore or condemn.
2. Understanding drug use as a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon that encompasses a continuum of behaviors from servere use to total abstinence, acknowledging that some ways of using drugs are clearly safer than others.
3. Establish quality of individual, community life and wellbeing – not necessarily cessation of all drug use – as criteria for successful intervention and policies.

4. Calling for the non-judgemental, non-coersive provision of services or resources to PWUD and the communities they live in order to assist them in reducing attendant harm.

5. Ensures that PWUD and those with a history of drug use routinely have a real voice in the creation of programs and policies designed to serve them.

6. Affirms PWUD themselves as the primary agent of reducing the harms of their drug use, seeking to empower PWUD to share information and support each other in strategies which meet their actual conditions of use.

7. Recognizing that the realities of poverty, class, racism, social isolation, past traumas, sex-based discrimination, and other social inequalities affect both people's vulnerability to and capacity for effectively dealing with drug related harm.

8. Does NOT attempt to minimize or ignore the real and tragic harm and danger that can be associated with illicit drug use.