12.3 Safer Drug Use: Rules to Reduce Harm from Illicit Drug Use

Renegade Psych

In this series, Dr. Stephen Love, MD, and I discuss a vitally important aspect of substance use treatment that is not discussed enough as a society or in our medical training, educating users on how to reduce the harms associated with substance use. In this episode, we focus on HARM REDUCTION, and identify several rules of Safer Drug Use. Though abstinence is the only way to completely remove harm, we realize that is not desired or necessarily possible for everyone, so just as we would work to educate a severe diabetic with uncontrolled blood sugar on how to minimize their risks and do whatever we could to connect them to their internal motivations, we wish the field of addiction would operate similarly. IF someone wants abstinence, that's great and we would support them in that form of recovery, but if they preferred another form of treatment, or ANY form of treatment to reduce the associated harms, we should also be there for that. I hope you enjoy and tune in every Tuesday for a new release!

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