I have recently had several discussions with some close friends and family about policies of harm minimisation. As a result of these discussions I have been compelled to blog about these issues to clear a few things up!
If you don’t know what harm minimisation is then you are at the right place, if you have strong views about harm minimisation then you are at the right place, if you honestly couldn’t care less than I think the Simpsons may be on somewhere.
Harm minimisation is an approach that acknowledges that people will engage in unsafe, destructive behaviour even if you make it illegal and punish it. Therefore the most loving thing to do is to acknowledge that they will do it anyway and try and make it safer for them. The two classic examples of harm minimisation policies are:
1/ Legal drug injection rooms/giving clean needles to drug addicts.
2/ Teaching safe sex and giving out condoms/contraception to underage teenagers at school.
I want to talk about both these things, but I will do it in two separate posts. We will begin today with harm minimisation policies around drug addiction.
Kings Cross
If you walk along the main drag of Kings Cross you will see lots of bright lights, strip bars, prostitutes and McDonalds. It isn’t the nicest place in town. Right in the middle of it, however, you will see a shop front that doesn’t fit with the rest of the scene. It is very plain, simple frosted glass with the street number out the front and a front door. No advertising, no neon, no signage.
Inside this shop front is the legal drug injection clinic. It is a place where, if you want to take drugs you can go and do it legally, supervised by a registered nurse, and with somewhere to experience the effects.
Why do we have a place like this? Isn’t taking drugs illegal? Doesn’t this just support their habits? Why don’t we just put them in gaol – won’t that break their habit?
These are all good questions and I hope to answer them below.
The first thing that you need to understand about drug addiction is that it is psychological, social and physiological. When you continually take a drug your body becomes dependent on it to function, your body rebels against the withdrawal of the drug and you get headaches, nausea, vomiting, fever, even strokes and heart attacks! It isn’t just a habit, like playing squash, its an addiction – its classed as disease! This makes it very, very hard to stop taking drugs. It means that if someone is addicted to drugs they will continue to take the drugs whether it is illegal or not, it means they will engage in unsafe practices to ensure that they get the ‘hit’. Moreover the fact that it is illegal means that people will take drugs where other people can’t see them doing it – or put another way, where people can’t supervise them to ensure that they are safe.
Needles are often left in public places
This mean that:
1/ Blood carried diseases such as HIV are spread extremely quickly as users share used needles.
2/ When drug users over dose they are by themselves and often die as there is no one to take them to hospital.
3/ Used needles are left in public places: schools, parks, sidewalks, church grounds, toilets, railway stations etc.
4/ People who are drug intoxicated and therefore unpredictable are in public.
A legal drug injection clinic means that these problems are solved in a safe way. Each user gets a clean needle that stops the spread of diseases, they are administered a safe amount and if they over dose they have access to medical attention, needles are disposed of safely and they are in a safe place to come down where they can’t hurt people or hurt themselves.
Moreover there are social workers who are at the clinic who can help people develop plans to get on to a methadone program to with the ultimate aim of stopping their use.
Why don’t we just put them in gaol? Won’t that break the habit?
I se the logic in this, however a ‘tough on drugs’ approach is about as successful as a ‘tough on asylum seekers’ approach. Good in theory, hopeless in practice. It simply isn’t a deterrent for drug users who are addicted. And although you may be able to lock up a significant amount you will never be able to lock up every drug user, the ones who are left will be forced to use unclean needles, shoot up in unsafe places, be unsupervised, leave needles around etc etc. PLUS addiction as I said earlier is a disease and your body rebels when you try and quit. It is actually dangerous to quit a drug addiction, people die every year from drug withdrawals. NEVER let someone just quit cold turkey, get they help through a detox program or the methadone program. If you just put people in gaol and deprive them of drug use you will simply be putting people in medically dangerous situations.
On a side note, the most dangerous drug to quit – alcohol! More people die each year from alcohol withdrawals than from any other drug. Not heaps relevant, just interesting.
Does harm minimisation even work?
The concept of harm reduction and minimisation for drug users was born in 1986 with the realisation that the HIV virus was being spread through the sharing of syringes amongst heroin injecting users. To reduce the risk of an increase in AIDS cases, Australia took the bold step and led the world in the availability and distribution of new syringes to injecting drug users. As a result Australia has the lowest incidence of HIV amongst injecting drug users in the world, less than 2% compared to figures up to 90% in some other countries.
Drug use and addiction is a reality in the world in which we live. We can’t simply wish it away, we need to deal with it. Although drug use should be illegal, we need to see the grey areas that exist and see people as people, and not simply as junkies. We don’t want to support the habit, we want to support the people, we want to minimise the harm that they can do to themselves and others. For drug users, the best way to do that is to provide clean needles and provide a safe legal place to do it.
I acknowledge that this is a very contentious issue – especially in Christian circles, so please feel free to comment and voice your thoughts. Th one thing we can’t do is simply bury our head in the sand.
Some other points that should be said:
If you see a used needle on the street, call this number:
Needle Clean Up Hotline: 1800 633 353
If you see someone who has overdosed, call an ambulance straight away!
1/ Oscar the Grouch lives in:
“MS is the most common disease of the central nervous system and affects more than 18,000 Australians.
