Harm Reduction Does Nothing to Prevent or Treat Drug Addiction

A drug addict using clean needles can still be killed by the heroin inside.

Proponents of the harm reduction approach to drug addiction believe that teaching addicts how to use drugs safely is the best approach to curb the negative effects of drug abuse. However, it seems unlikely that persons in the throes of addiction, and frequently high, will be the best of students.

In fact, in a growing problem among harm reduction clinics many staff members are using drugs. Several deaths have marked this type of approach to drug treatment.

“Because harm-reduction programs don’t force their clients to quit, making employees do so would be “completely hypocritical,” said Ms. McQuie, the West Coast director of the Harm Reduction Coalition.

This approach to drug treatment does not effectively stop drug addiction; it only relieves the symptoms of its use. The programs have been successful in stopping the spread of disease from intravenous drug use. The person might have lost everything – family, job, belongings, etc, but at least when he is on the streets getting dope the needles will be clean.

Obviously, anything short of getting clean and staying clean is a big bandage over wounds, that really could heal, were they allowed.

It would make more sense to put this funding into drug treatment program and return drug addicts back to society, productive and clean.

Harm reduction programs do nothing to change the way drug addicts behave. Methadone is a prime example. Methadone clinics operate as a business; they receive incentives from the drug manufactures as well as income from their clients.

The clients are chained like a ball and chain to the clinic – if they miss their daily visit they are beset with withdrawal. It is hardly a life worth living for some, yet this is part of our “risk reduction.”

The best solutions to drug addiction would most likely come from families who have either lost a loved one to addiction or families who have gotten the family member back from addiction and back into life.

These are people who have been through it and will care. They should be included in any serious studies that are actually looking for solutions.

It is going to take some compassion to really address the suffering extant in this country because of drug addiction.

A risk reduction view of this problem is like trying to perceive details of the world through thick and dark lenses – risk reduction is a shadowy view of a situation with many details, most of them not too pleasant.