Harm Reduction And Zero Tolerance

Harm Reduction And Zero ToleranceIn this essay the antecedent lead explore and critically evaluate vituperate decrement in medicate rehabilitation versus zero tolerance antennaes, with reference to public form _or_ system of government issues in dose exercise. Drawing on available literature on the policy context, and on literature and evidence from the rehabilitation domain, the author will develop a discursive analysis of how accidental injury reduction cornerstone present a workable and dominancely valuable intervention final result in developing concrete policies which might efficiently address this promptly increasing societal bring.Harm reduction is a process by which those involved in the rehabilitation process with wicked do medicines pulmonary tuberculosisrs accession to crucify the risks of drug taking behaviour rather than trying to close out drug use altogether. In Australia, drug users have traditionally been communicate with a zero tolerance a pproach, in which the drug user is counselled towards distinguish abstinence from drug use (Wodak and Moore, 2002). Socio-politically this approach is two lauded and condemned and both for levelheaded reason. A reorientation away from legal and punitive, police enforcement approaches to controlling illegal drug trafficking and use and towards a health-oriented model of rehabilitation of drug users is flat taking place (Wodak and Moore, 2002), mimicking international trends based on research evidence. frankincense the policy context has been military issue to pressure to engage in bleak approaches to drug rehabilitation (Wodak and Moore, 2002). Thus policy responses to the moral model of drug use have been pecked as insufficient, and the disease model of drug use has grown in popularity in socio-political and healing(predicate) benas (Hamilton and Cape, 2002). Australia and New Zealand have both adopted this approach, which is both pragmatic and forward thinking (Hamilton and Cape, 2002). However, it could be pressd that this approach represents societies and their governments affording license to an immoral trade which has a significant negative personal, amicable and medical, not to mention economic, impact on society. This approach accepts that drug use is a common feature of human experience and recognises that abstinence whitethorn be the ultimate goal, but accepts that this may not be doable (or desirable) at least in the short-term (Hamilton and Cape, 2002, p 24). Thus social and political critics can view this as a tolerant post which fails to punish those who perpetrate the drug trade and cause significant woefulness amongst those who abuse illegal and injuryful drugs. All psychoactive drugs have the potential to cause some type of harm (Rumbold and Hamilton, 1998), and as such(prenominal), represent a risk to the individual and society.However, drug use is viewed by many as normal social behaviour (Rumbold and Hamilton, 1998), and the refore policies which totally outlaw drug use can be viewed as inappropriate.Harm reduction strategies in Australia as enshrined in the National Drug Strategy (Rumbold and Hamilton, 1998), and as such present a more cohesive approach to managing the multiple facets of the enigma or social phenomenon that is illicit drug use. Although law enforcement advocates argue that harm reduction strategies argon not as useful as their own, economically, interference and rehabilitation are actually much more cost effective in decreasing drug consumption (King, 1998). However, it is also possible to view legal, legislative and law enforcement approaches themselves as a form of harm reduction. Kutin (1998) shows how leglisative and law enforcement approaches have reduced violence associated with alcohol use. Harm reduction approaches, therefore, need not be viewed as diametrically opposed to the law enforcement approach, and this would argue that current policy orientations which report both approaches are actually the high-flown way in which to approach the ongoing social and public health drivers requiring an effective response from the policy level right down to the therapeutic level. According to Hella easily (1995 in Kutin, 1998, p 181)More realistic goals include attempting to reduce the frequency of sue, the quantity and toxicity of drugs consumed and to reduce harm to drug users and the familiarity generally. Harm reduction must be embraced. Police strategies must encompass all these elements.There is ample evidence that harm reduction strategies are beneficial to indvidual clients, and represent the opportunity for significant public health good (Ritter and Cameron, 2006). However, McKeganey (2006) shows that in relation to the growth of the prevalence of drug abuse, and the increase in occurrence of drug related harms, including drug related crime, it is now the clip to make drug prevention, rather than harm reduction, the focus of policy and practice. Fut terman et al (2005) suggest a therapeutic approach which combines effective therapies with harm reduction strategies, working on behaviours with an overall end point of reduction drug use. But the ongoing arguments both for and against harm reduction policies are subject to forces which relate to key features of harm reduction, including the primary goal being reducing harm rather than reducing drug use the acceptance that drugs are a part of social life and cannot be eradicated from this harm reduction is a comprehensive public health framework the priority is realizable and immediate goals and that harm reduction is based upon values of pragmatism and secular humanism (Ritter and Cameron, 2006).This means that while reducing harm may be an cash advance for the individual, and may be more realistic and achievable, there will ever be groups and individuals who do not believe that this is a sufficiently high-pressure approach, and while harm reduction produces individual benefi ts (Riley and OHare, 2000 Christie and Anderson, 2003), it does not prevent drug use or remove the threat, risk and harm associated with this practice, and it does not punish those who are effectively breaking the law. Ultimately, many will always reject a humanistic approach which is so pragmatic as to offer law breaking and the potential causing of harm to others, as well as to the self (Christie et al, 2008). Yet the evidence remains clear that harm reduction strategies can impact on drug use rates, on risk-associated behaviour such as needle sharing, and on transmission of blood-borne diseases and reservation in rehabilitaton (Hunt, 2005 Stoltz et al, 2007 Strathdee et al, 1999). Therefore, public policies may be subject to an ethical shrill to address illegal drug use via every possible (and effective route), because the long term social costs of untreated drug dependence are of such significance (Wall et al, 2000). Therefore, it could be argued that the zero tolerance appro ach is, as already demonstrated, not sufficiently effective on its own, and that the harm reduction approach, as one element of a wider policy framework, is probably to bring benefits in the longer term.