The Current State of Harm Reduction Policy in the Middle East
In the late 1980s, Western governments began to adopt drug policies based on the strategy of “harm reduction” (HR), which concentrates on alleviating the negative effects of drug use rather than on reducing its prevalence. This policy shift, largely motivated by the recognition that injection drug use contributes to the spread of HIV/AIDS, soon paid off. Within a decade the countries that had adopted HR as their primary policy had managed to control the injection-related spread of HIV and other blood-borne infections such as hepatitis. The spread of HIV among substance users came almost to a halt in Australia and the Netherlands, which had implemented the strategy vigorously. HR was a victory for not only health systems, which had successfully controlled a viral infection with no known “infectious disease model” solution (that is, a vaccine or effective antiviral treatment), but also for society in that HR forestalled the adoption of ineffective strategies such as segregation, which instead marginalizes drug users and abandons them to their high-risk behaviors.
