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What is harm reduction?
How does SAMHSA define harm reduction?
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Is harm reduction the same as addiction treatment?
Feb 16, 2022 · Harm reduction is exactly what it sounds like: reducing the harm associated with using drugs through a variety of public health interventions. But the concept relies on more than these tools and begins, at the most fundamental level, with recognizing that all people deserve safety and dignity.
Harm reduction strategies are shown to substantially reduce HIV and hepatitis C infection among people who inject drugs, reduce overdose risk, enhance health and safety, and increase by five-fold the likelihood of a person who injects drugs to initiate substance use disorder treatment.
- ‘Any Positive Change’
- Meet People Where They Are
- ‘Nothing About Us Without Us’
- Drug Use Is Here to Stay
- Peoples’ Relationships to Drugs Are Numerous and Complex
- Your Mindset and Environment Are Important For Keeping You Safe
The point of this phrase is pretty simple: You decide exactly what needs to change in your life and when it happens. Maybe it’s consuming one bag of heroin per day instead of three. Or maybe it’s stopping consuming heroin altogether, which is the traditional change required by 12-step programs. Harm reduction differs from those programs not because...
Harm reduction doesn’t put conditions on who deserves health and safety. Instead, it seeks to provide judgment-free support for people at all points of the substance use spectrum. For example, someone doesn’t need to be working toward full abstinence or commit to specific goals to receive services.
The movement advancing harm reduction has long emphasized the importance of people who use drugs being meaningfully engaged and empowered to intervene in policy decisions affecting their lives. Unions for people using drugs have been a vehicle for consumers to demand representation and involvement, from the Dutch Junkiebond founded in 1981 and VAND...
Whether it’s crack cocaine, a double-shot cappuccino, or vodka, many people use psychoactive substances to find pleasure, relief, or energy — and that’s been the case for centuries, even millennia. This is evident in the United States’ “War on Drugs.” Despite trillionsof dollars being poured into this effort, the drug supply has only grown, not dec...
Simply consuming a drug, even on the daily, does not mean you’re addicted to it. Many factors help define what drugs mean for you in your life. Why, how often, and in which contexts are you consuming? How are your priorities in life changing as a result of your consumption? Would you be open to making changes if something bad happened as a result o...
The phrase “set and setting” was first usedin the early 1960s to talk about people’s varied experiences with psychedelic drugs. In the 1980s, psychiatrist Norman Zinberg revisited the phrase in the context of other drugs, including alcohol and cocaine. Zinberg presented it as a framework for considering the many factors that contribute to your rela...
Feb 20, 2024 · Harm reduction is a public health approach that aims to help people with substance use disorders or other high-risk habits in a nonjudgmental way. Rather than condone or condemn...
- Evan Starkman
Apr 24, 2023 · The SAMHSA Harm Reduction Framework is the first document to comprehensively outline harm reduction and its role within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The Framework will inform SAMHSA’s harm reduction activities moving forward, as well as related policies, programs, and practices.
May 7, 2024 · SAMHSA defines harm reduction as a practical and transformative approach that incorporates community-driven public health strategies — including prevention, risk reduction, and health promotion — to empower people who use drugs and their families with the choice to live healthier, self-directed, and purpose-filled lives.
A harm reduction approach promotes positive changes beyond abstinence, which may include reducing substance use and using safely to reduce disease acquisition and transmission, and emphasizes the avoidance of coercion, discrimination, and bias in the clinical care of people with SUDs.
