Event Details:
December 4th, 2012
7:30-8:30
Harm Reduction and HIV
In honor of World AIDS Week, a group of panelists gathered to discuss harm reduction and HIV. The event was sponsored by FACE AIDS and Students For a Sensible Drug Policy and focused on how federal policy affects HIV/AIDS prevention, especially with regards to harm reduction techniques. The discussion revolved around how drug policy and law intersect with HIV and overdose risk. “Harm reduction” is a theory surrounding HIV prevention that started underground in the late 1980s. Panelist Gary Langis of the Education Development Center was a large part of early harm reduction programs, including overdose prevention and syringe exchange. The idea surrounding the controversial harm reduction theory is to reduce the consequences of drug use without attempting to get drug users into treatment. Harm reduction is meant to reduce the number of drug users in jail and “meet people where they’re at” by allowing them to reduce health and social consequences of drug abuse, which allows them to seek treatment on their own. According to Langis, harm reduction has “expanded to increase mainstream discussion of health disparities, overdose, and incarceration.”
The largest challenge surrounding harm reduction strategies is the legal policy stance and the federal ban on harm reduction programs. The current blossoming of syringe exchange programs is happening despite federal policy. Leo Beletsky, Assistant Professor of Law & Health Sciences at Northeastern University, compared this surge to the civil disobedience practiced by Mohandas Ghandi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “People went to jail for doing syringe exchange. But they knew it was the right thing to do.” Over the past few years, small steps have been made toward harm reduction policies. Massachusetts is leading the way in harm reduction principles by passing laws. Syringes were decriminalized, and people are now able to enter any pharmacy and get clean needles. The Good Samaritan Law is another important policy in harm reduction techniques; this law allows people to call 9-1-1 if someone is having an overdose without fear of arrest. Federal policy has strong influence on funding for harm reduction programs, but non-profit organizations are still determined to continue their work with syringe exchanges and HIV prevention.
Internationally, harm reduction is a strong and well-established method of HIV prevention. When harm reduction strategies were introduced to the United Kingdom under Margaret Thatcher, she realized the cost to the National Health Service was going to be exorbitant if clean needles were not made readily available. In Berlin, needle-dispensing machines are available in every major city. Leo Beletsky, well versed in international harm reduction practices, outlined a case study in Zurich, Switzerland in which a harm reduction facility was established because of a surge of disease related to heroin addiction. In the next ten years, the incidence of heroin addiction in Zurich had decreased 4% each year. However well established harm reduction policy is international, Langis is not optimistic about United States policy: “Drug policy is so ingrained in this country. Our answer is to build more prisons, but there are other ways.”
Beletsky showed concern about American policy regarding harm reduction and the importance of overcoming stigma: “There is an important intersection between law, policy, and stigma. Sometimes policy is a way to reinforce stigma.” However, Erin Cheek, a Northeastern alumni and current Needle Exchange Program Coordinator, is optimistic about the future: “The end is in sight. But we have to follow through with it.”
Lindsey Sampson
