Harm Reduction Program

Harm Reduction Program
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Addictive behaviors mostly brought by substance abuse tends to make the community vulnerable to harm. As a public health approach, harm reduction programs help in saving people’s lives and minimizing any potential harm. These program work with the assumption that individuals who involve in substance abuse and risky behaviors are either unable or unwilling to abstain. They help people whose goal is to abstain from addictive behaviors, drugs, and alcohol. Harm reduction programs are beneficial to drug users. One benefit of these programs is:

Safe Injection Sites and Needle Exchange Programs
Most drug users share needles to inject drugs to their bodies. Sharing needles with infected people makes vulnerable to diseases such as HIV. Harm reduction programs advocate for the provision of clean needles to drug users for free even if it is illegal to inject drugs such as cocaine and heroin (Schipstal, 2016). Needle exchange programs do not promote substance use. Instead, they provide a ground where drug users can have easy access to addiction treatment services.
Safe injection sites provide a safe space where people can have access to injection equipment and clean needles and inject drugs under the supervision of experienced medical personnel (Logan, 2010). Needle injection programs help in achieving harm reduction goals. Also, it also minimizes the transmission of diseases such as hepatitis and HIV and other infections that are caused by sharing injection equipment with infected people.

With safe injection rooms, one can get immediate help in case there is an overdose. Providing a connection ground between the drug users and treatment services, these facilities play a part in saving people’s lives that would have been lost due to drug abuse.
References
Logan, D. E., & Marlatt, G. A. (2010). Harm reduction therapy: A practice-friendly review of research. Journal of Clinical Psychology. doi:10.1002/jclp.20669
Schipstal, I. V., Mishra, S., Berning, M., & Murray, H. (2016). Harm Reduction From Below. Contemporary Drug Problems, 43(3), 199-215. Doi: 10.1177/0091450916663248
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