STILL HARM REDUCTION?

Harm reduction is a medical approach designed in the 20th century to circumvent the damages inherent to drug use, having been adopted in many countries as an alternative to prohibitionism. Nevertheless, after decades of development, there is scarce scientific knowledge about how law and policy implement the approach today. A documentary analysis of nine pieces of legislation of the Netherlands and Brazil was done, thus, to assess whether they incorporate harm reduction according to three premises: respect for the individual freedom of choice; reduction of health and social harms, embracing users’ human rights; and prevention, rehabilitation and low-threshold programmes as favoured instruments of drug-related interventions. The results show that none of the selected documents adopt all three premises, but those that better align with the fundamentals of harm reduction are passed by health ministries. The Netherlands are mostly silent regarding the mentality underlying their drug policy whilst Brazil offers contradictory stances. In that sense, the two countries seem to incorporate the approach in their medical domain but not in their judicial systems, which renders it a precarious legal support. The reticence of Dutch and Brazilian Legislatives in addressing users through the lens of harm reduction might stem from international pressure, therefore immediate change appears unlikely. Law and policy leave the responsibility, rather, to law enforcement. As such, future research should focus on the law-in-action, and the adoption of ‘on-the-ground’ practices, to uncover how harm reduction is currently implemented by the nations, and whether it still is an alternative to prohibitionism.