Harm reduction caused by the drug usage Essay

The definition of harm reduction are the strategies that seek to decrease the dangers accompanying drug usage. An important factor of harm reduction is that although the ideal is to reduce the drug associated harms, they do not explicitly say that no drugs can be taken in to reduce the harms of other drugs. Strang (1993) explains this when he says "it is harm that should be our target alone, and support for certain plans should depend on the impact to harm" This is explained when a pharmacological approach to harm reduction is the use of methadone to replace the more deadly drug heroin. In this case, it is seen that the possible addiction to Methadone is still a reduction to the harm that may result from the addiction to Heroin. The harms of drug usage can range in many different stages including affects to the individual, their community, and society in general. For example, affects to the individual can include illness, depression and other mood disorders, organ failure, and overdose. Affects to the community can include an increase in child or spousal abuse due to the drug use of the abuser. Affects to society can include the overall increase in cost it takes to rehabilitate drug users. Harm Reduction has many different uses and possibilities and in this paper some of the major criticisms of this approach will be analyzed
There are many that criticize harm reduction saying that it is actually harming addicts, and not helping them. There are many levels to this analysis. For example, something as simple as a needle exchange programs can be used as harm reduction. A needle exchange is a place where addicts can go to get clean needles so that they can be better protected against the spread of certain diseases, including HIV, one of the most dangerous and fastest spreading diseases in the world. This is very important because "HIV can live in a used needle up to 42 days depending on temperature and other factors."( ). An advocate for harm reduction would say that because this is lowering the chance for HIV to spread, giving addicts clean needles is justified. Adversely opponents to harm reduction say that because you are giving clean needles to addicts, you are causing more harm because you will probably lead these individuals to increased drug risks. Since Harm Reduction looks at drug use from so many angles (individual, societal, etc.) it makes more sense to attempt to limit diseases such as HIV (with no cure, and large societal effects) than to limit to the individuals access to drugs.
Another major criticism to harm reduction is the use of drugs to wean addicts off more addictive substances. As mentioned in paragraph 1, the use of Methadone as a harm reduction technique to Heroin is one of the most utilized types of drug supplemental programs. In this case Methadone is used because of the similarities between the two drugs, and because of the ability for methadone