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Supporting Any Positive Change: Harm Reduction as an Integral Pillar of Opioid Use Disorder Treatment

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Treating Opioid Use Disorder in General Medical Settings

Abstract

The concept of “harm reduction” acknowledges that substance use is a social fact and encourages safer use of substances while protecting people who use drugs from a myriad of medicolegal and social harms. As with a variety of behaviors that have possible harms (riding bicycles, not wearing seatbelts in cars, sexual activity), clinicians have an important role in providing education about decreasing risks associated with both the harms of substance use itself as well as the social harms incurred on people who use drugs. Many municipalities and countries around the world have adopted harm reduction into policies on substance use; for example, Vancouver, British Columbia, has pioneered a “four pillar” approach which includes harm reduction, treatment, law enforcement, and prevention. Heroin-assisted programs as well as overdose prevention sites or drug consumption rooms exist in many countries around the world. Clinicians can utilize this philosophy and framework of harm reduction when working with any patient with a substance use disorder. Acknowledging that there is a continuum of substance use, ranging from managed use and safer techniques as well as inclusive of abstinence, is a critical part of a practice of harm reduction.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Harm Reduction Coalition, New York, NY, USA

    Kimberly L. Sue

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  1. Kimberly L. Sue
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Correspondence to Kimberly L. Sue .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA

    Sarah E. Wakeman

  2. Brown University, The Miriam and Rhode Island Hospitals, Providence, RI, USA

    Josiah D. Rich

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Sue, K.L. (2021). Supporting Any Positive Change: Harm Reduction as an Integral Pillar of Opioid Use Disorder Treatment. In: Wakeman, S.E., Rich, J.D. (eds) Treating Opioid Use Disorder in General Medical Settings. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80818-1_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80818-1_10

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