Harm reduction is a set of practical strategies and ideas aimed at reducing negative consequences associated with drug use. It is an evidence-based approach that is critical to engaging with people who use drugs and equipping them with life-saving tools and information to live healthy, self-directed, and purpose-filled lives. Harm reduction is grounded in justice and human rights and focuses on positive change and working with people without judgment, coercion, discrimination, or requiring that people stop using drugs as a precondition of support.

Harm reduction incorporates a spectrum of strategies that includes safer use, managed use, abstinence, meeting people who use drugs “where they’re at,” and addressing conditions of use along with the use itself. It encompasses a range of health and social services and practices that apply to drugs, including but not limited to information on safer drug use, drug consumption rooms, and naloxone distribution programs.

The following principles are central to harm reduction practice:

• Accepts, for better or worse, that licit and illicit drug use is part of our world and chooses to work to minimize its harmful effects rather than simply ignore or condemn them.
• Affirms people who use drugs (PWUD) themselves as the primary agents of reducing the harms of their drug use and seeks to empower PWUD to share information and support each other in strategies that meet their actual conditions of use.
• Recognizes that the realities of poverty, class, racism, social isolation, past trauma, sex-based discrimination, and other social inequalities affect both people’s vulnerability to and capacity for effectively dealing with drug-related harm.
• Does not attempt to minimize or ignore the real and tragic harm and danger associated with licit and illicit drug use.
• Offers pragmatic strategies, techniques, and interventions to reduce drug-related harm.
• Is grounded in public health and human rights.
• Is a movement for social justice built on a belief in, and respect for, the rights of people who use drugs.

Harm reduction services save lives by being available and accessible in a manner that emphasizes the need for humility and compassion toward people who use drugs. Harm reduction plays a significant role in preventing drug-related deaths and increasing access to healthcare, social services, and treatment. Harm reduction is for anyone who wants to reduce the risks associated with drug use.