I'm new here. New to the Drug Policy Alliance, new to drug policy, period. And until recently, I was only vaguely familiar with the phrase "harm reduction." So I'm still learning. In my first few weeks on staff, I began a regular Q&A discussion forum, and one of the questions I selected inquired about harm reduction strategies. I directed the questioner to peruse the harm reduction section of our website, and pointed them to one of our partner organizations, the Harm Reduction Therapy Center.

The Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) is about advancing a sensible drug policy, based on human rights and science, and on compassion and justice. Sounds great, right? But as with any public policy, who would be writing it? Whose voices are heard, and matter, and who is doing the implementation?

You can read my post, along with a few pointed responses, here. While I resonate with many of the tenets of harm reduction as posted on the DPA page (Yes! - provide accessible, factual education, maximize the medical benefits of marijuana, and measure success in lives saved), a subsequent poster, rita, took issue with the very concept of harm reduction. And I think it is absolutely vital to the work of anyone wanting to reform (or abolish?) drug policy to listen to critical responses from folks directly affected by the drug war. So I took another look, and it's got me thinking.

Does incarceration address any of the harms related to drugs? I don't think so. Prisons - and the industrial complex supporting them - should be abolished, period. And how we could ever eliminate youth exposure to drugs, black market or otherwise?

In today's society, the reality is that many people, like rita, have been forced to enter drug treatment programs (which is fucked up). While that kind of forced intervention doesn't strike me as in the spirit of what we advocate in terms of harm reduction, it is the context in which we live. Should one favor treatment over incarceration, without also articulating the need for said treatment to be voluntary?

I think of harm reduction as one approach to help us get from where we are now (multi-billion-dollar drug war that does far more harm than drugs themselves) to where we want to be. What do you think?

Labels: drug treatment, harm reduction, power, public policy