4
street roots
Nov. 23, 2012
Harm
reduction
for the
21st
century
D rug policy experts and
treatment specialists
converged on Portland to
talk about changing how
society deals with addiction
P H O T O B Y K R IS T IN A W R IG H T
BY ALEX ZIELINSKI
Needles collected for dispersal at the Syringe Exchange Program at Outside In
S T A F F W R IT E R
n Nov. 15, the Harm Reduction
Coalition’s national conference came
to Portland for the first time.
Covering topics from political shifts in drug
treatment to overcoming drug user stigma,
the conference touched on a variety of
issues related to national drug use. To get a
better grasp on the breadth of harm
reduction and its current role in the local
and national spheres, Street Roots spoke
with Allan Clear, who has been the director
of HRC since 1995.
O
A.C.: Drug injection sites (safe public
places for people to use drugs) remain
controversial in the U.S. While it’s
unauthorized in the country, there are many
illegal programs that do facilitate injections.
I think we’re moving in that direction, but it
will take a massive shift for this country to
do that.
A.Z.: Then what would you say the next big
•torrm pre vention technique or program in the
country will be?
Alex Zielinski: Can you define harm
reduction? It seems to encompass a wide
variety of areas, from health care to legal
policy.
A.C.: In Seattle, the police chief has
sworn to not put people in prison for drug
use. This is pretty big. It’s key that officials
are aware that we need to look at this issue
more extensively.
Allan Clear: Harm reduction, or at least
what we’ve done with it, is looking not at
drug prevention or treatment, but focusing
on people who are currently dealing with
drug-related effects.
the national level?
A.C.: We’ve seen a big and national
change in the federal government’s take on
harm reduction in the last four years.
Primarily in drug, public health and law
enforcement efforts. Under President
Obama, we’ve begun to see this change, and
we’re hoping it will continue now that he’s
re-elected. He’s put a big focus on overdose
prevention programs, which most leaders
won’t touch.
A.Z.: How does Portland play into harm
reduction practices from a national
perspective?
A.C.: While this is the first time our
national conference has come to Portland,
this city is ahead of the rest of the country
in a lot of ways. Specifically, the Syringe
Exchange Program, the easiest example of
harm reduction. It’s so exciting to be here,
the birthplace of the program in the
country.
A.Z.: What about drug injection sites and
programs, which have popped up across
Europe, Canada and Australia, but not in the
U.S.? Is that in the country’s future?
A.Z.: And how is harm reduction treated at
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A.Z.: Can you describe what you see as the
difference between the country’s institutional
attitude toward drug use and recovery and the
reality of it?
A.C.: Institutionally, we still treat drug
addiction as a criminal act, not a disease. We
have prevention programs, like DARE, and
treatment, where only 20 percent of people
succeed, and those in between get nothing
for their illness. As a country, we can
succeed best when we create a space where
people can actually survive in the
environment. We aren’t doing that now. It’s
a heavily stigmatized disease.
A.Z.: What do you think needs to be done in
the country to get past this stigma?
A.C.: Part of the issue is that you have
these epicenters of drug use in big cities. If
you tell an elected official in a small town in
Minnesota that they should create harm
reduction programs, they won’t care,
because they think it doesn’t affect their
constituents. But what we’re seeing is that
drug abuse is really the same in every state,
across the board, from heroin to over-the-
counter medicine. It will take leaders
making drug addiction a personal issue — by
realizing that their family, friends,
constituents are effected by it — to get to
real change. People need to realize that
drug addiction touches all states, all cities,
it’s not for some weird other people from
the Bronx or “The Wire.”
A.Z.: What role can people who are actually
using drugs play in fighting the spread of HIV
and even preventing drug abuse?
A.C.: Before this weekend’s conference,
we got drug users together around the
country to talk about how the stigma of drug
use affects their lives. That’s something
we’ve done a really bad job at in this
country, giving users a voice, an opinion.
Drug treatment could probably be real more
effective if we ask drug users what they
think about it. It’s time we give them a
major leadership role.
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