The International journal on drug policy
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Int. J. Drug Policy · Mar 2007
EditorialTobacco harm reduction: how rational public policy could transform a pandemic.
Nicotine, at the dosage levels smokers seek, is a relatively innocuous drug commonly delivered by a highly harmful device, cigarette smoke. An intensifying pandemic of disease caused or exacerbated by smoking demands more effective policy responses than the current one: demanding that nicotine users abstain. ⋯ Yet, numerous alternative systems for nicotine delivery exist, many of them far safer than smoking. A pragmatic, public-health approach to tobacco control would recognize a continuum of risk and encourage nicotine users to move themselves down the risk spectrum by choosing safer alternatives to smoking--without demanding abstinence.
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Int. J. Drug Policy · Mar 2007
How the harm reduction movement contrasts itself against punitive prohibition.
On the basis of the harm reduction movement's founding texts from the beginning of the 1990s, this paper reflects the movement's self-understanding in contrasting itself with the system of punitive prohibition. Following this is a discussion of the implications for drug users of harm reduction claims-making. The paper concludes that the principles of the harm reduction movement resonate extremely well with the moral sensibilities of our contemporary societies, and but that the movement's claims for an amoral, rational, just, and emancipating approach to drug use are to be seen rather as a powerful rhetorical intervention in the highly moralised landscape of drug debate than something that would be achieved in practice.
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Int. J. Drug Policy · Jan 2007
Drug consumption rooms: an overdue extension to harm reduction policy in the UK?
This commentary examines the drug policy context of drug consumption rooms (DCRs) in the UK and describe the conclusions of an Independent Working Group (IWG) that was set up to evaluate the evidence of need in the UK, the international evaluation literature and legal, political and ethical concerns. Having considered this evidence, the IWG produced its report in May 2006, recommending a trial of DCRs in the UK, on the basis that DCRs offer a unique and promising way to work with problematic drug users in order to reduce the risk of overdose, improve their health and lessen the damage and costs to society. However, despite support for the idea from a number of quarters, the UK Government has rejected this recommendation, citing previously deployed arguments that do not appear to be carry much weight in 2007.