Harm Reduction in Substance Use and High-Risk Behaviour

Harm Reduction in Substance Use and High-Risk Behaviour offers a comprehensive exploration of the policy, practice and evidence base of harm reduction. Starting with a history of harm reduction, the book addresses key ethical and legal issues central to the debates and developments in the field.

Harm Reduction is a philosophy of public health intended as a progressive alternative to the prohibition of certain potentially dangerous lifestyle choices. Recognising that certain people always have and always will engage in behaviours which carry risks, the aim of harm reduction is to mitigate the potential dangers and health risks associated with those behaviours.

Harm Reduction in Substance Use and High-Risk Behaviour offers a comprehensive exploration of the policy, practice and evidence base of harm reduction. Starting with a history of harm reduction, the book addresses key ethical and legal issues central to the debates and developments in the field. It discusses the full range of psychoactive substances, behaviours and communities with chapters on injecting, dance drugs, stimulant use, tobacco harm reduction, alcohol use and sex work.

Written by an international team of contributors, this text provides an essential panorama of harm reduction in the 21st century for educators and researchers in addiction and public health, postgraduate students and policy makers.

Foreword ix
List of Figures and Tables xi
List of Contributors xii
Section I: Background 1
1 Introduction 3
Diane Riley and Richard Pates
2 A Brief History of Harm Reduction 5
Diane Riley, Richard Pates, Geoffrey Monaghan and Patrick O'Hare
3 Drug Education or Drug Propaganda? 17
Julian Cohen
Section II: Policy 31
4 Harm Reduction and International Law: Drug Control vs. Human Rights 33
Richard Elliott
5 A Brief, Personal History of Harm Reduction Advocacy 49
Dave Burrows
6 Harm Reduction and the Role of Police Services 59
Geoffrey Monaghan
7 Harm Reduction in Prisons and Other Places of Detention 77
Ralf Jurgens
8 International Security and the Global War on Drugs: The Tragic Irony of Drug Securitisation 101
Danny Kushlick
9 The Ethics of Harm Reduction 111
Adrian Carter, Peter G. Miller and Wayne Hall
10 Harm Reduction: Contribution to a Critical Appraisal from the Perspective of People Who Use Drugs 124
Eliot Ross Albert
Section III: Specific Interventions 133
11 Injecting 135
Richard Pates, Robert Heimer and Danny Morris
12 Recovery and Harm Reduction: Time for a Shared, Development-Oriented, Programmatic Approach? 155
Neil Hunt
13 Harm Reduction for Stimulants 171
Diane Riley and Richard Pates
14 Ecstasy and Related Drugs (ERDs) and Harm Reduction 184
Paul Dillon, Professor Jan Copeland and Edmund Silins
15 Alcohol: Harm Reduction 196
Tina Alwyn and Bev John
16 Tobacco Harm Reduction 213
Jonathan Foulds and Steven Branstetter
17 Drugs and Harm Reduction: Cannabis and the Cannabinoids 229
Stefan Brugger, Laurence J. Reed, James Stone and David J. Nutt
18 The Resurrection of Psychedelic Research 246
Amanda Fielding
19 Harm Reduction and Sex Workers: A New Zealand Response: Taking the Harm Out of the Law 252
Catherine Healy, Calum Bennachie and Raewyn Marshall
20 Harm Minimisation: Gambling 263
Sally Gainsbury and Alex Blaszczynski
21 Young People and Harm Reduction in the UK: A Community Perspective 279
Mags Maher
22 Making Tools for Harm Reduction: The Story of Exchange Supplies 289
Jon Derricott
Section IV: Regions 299
23 Harm Reduction in Central and Eastern Europe 301
Tomas Zabransky, Jean Paul Grund, Alisher Latypov, David Otiashvili, Raminta Stuikyte, Otilia Scutelniciuc and Pavlo Smyrnov
24 Harm Reduction in Western Europe 322
Richard Pates
25 Harm Reduction in Russia, South West and Central Asia 335
Tomas Zabransky, Alisher Latypov, Ivan Varentsov, David Otiashvili and Jean Paul Grund
26 Harm Reduction in South, South East and East Asia 354
Jimmy Dorabjee
27 History and Context of Harm Reduction in the United States 370
Lisa Moore and Allan Clear
28 Harm Reduction in Canada: The Many Faces of Regression 382
Walter Cavalierri and Diane Riley
29 Harm Reduction in Latin America and the Caribbean 395
Diana Rossi
30 Policy and Practice in Harm Reduction in Australasia 405
Alex Wodak, John Ryan, Patrick Griffiths, Ingrid van Beek, Monica J. Barratt, Simon Lenton, Kate Dolan, Ana Rodas, Geoffrey Noller and Michael Farrell
31 Harm Reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa 425
Bruce Trathen, Charles D. H. Parry and Neo K. Morojele
32 Overview of the Harm Reduction Situation in the Middle East and North Africa 444
Jallal Toufiq
Section V: Conclusions 455
33 Conclusions 457
Richard Pates and Diane Riley
Index 461