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Principles of Harm Reduction

These principles were developed over a period of about four years in the 1990s amid much debate among early harm reductionists, who came to consensus on these enduring principles of harm reduction:

  • Accepts, for better and for 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.
  • Understands drug use as a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon that encompasses a continuum of behaviors from severe abuse to total abstinence, and acknowledges that some ways of using drugs are clearly safer than others.
  • Establishes quality of individual and community life and well-being—not necessarily cessation of all drug use—as the criteria for successful interventions and policies.
  • Calls for the non-judgmental, non-coercive provision of services and resources to people who use drugs and the communities in which they live in order to assist them in reducing attendant harm.
  • Ensures that drug users and those with a history of drug use routinely have a real voice in the creation of programs and policies designed to serve them.
  • Affirms drug users themselves as the primary agents of reducing the harms of their drug use and seeks to empower users to share information and support each other in strategies which 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.

Harm Reduction Working Group, published 1997

Featured Hacks

These featured hacks highlight creative, practical solutions from harm reduction leaders on the ground. From DIY tools to clever workarounds, each one reflects the ingenuity, care, and real-world experience that keeps this movement alive. 

Generally, it’s important to use “person first language” when describing people who are marginalized due to some part of their identity being stigmatized, such as folks struggling with their substance use, people who do sex work, and folks living outside.
Harm reduction immediately resonated for Edie, who was herself a former drug user and methadone patient. Faced with the devastation of HIV’s impact on drug-using communities, Edie fully embraced harm reduction and trained hundreds of harm reduction workers who have carried her legacy with them. She developed these worker stances in 1996 and they have been shared among many of us in the harm reduction community for generations.