Why are harm reduction policies controversial?
Harm Reduction philosophy has its roots in policy that tries to, not eliminate the problem but manage the problem because one has come to acknowledge that it’s not going to go away. The earliest forms of Harm Reduction was actually in colonial administration, one hundred years ago where the indigenous peoples were using some sort of drug and you had the choice, do you want to have some sort of legal access, a state monopoly or do you want to eradicate the access to that drug. That was the first harm reduction dilemma and different states went different ways and it’s very interesting to see that, for instance, the United States in the Phillipines opted for eradication of the problem it was Chinese using opium there. It was attempted to block all access on the supply side of that drug whereas, Holland and it’s colonies went for the other option which is lets try to manage it in the least harmful way and that was really the harm reduction dilemma in historical terms. It has continued to t
