Harmreduction.eu

📢 New Operational Guide from WHO on Needle and Syringe Programmes!

We’re excited to share a practical, evidence-based resource designed to help countries plan, implement, and scale up needle and syringe programmes for people who inject drugs — a key part of comprehensive harm reduction. 🌍

This guide turns WHO’s recommendations into clear, actionable steps for programme managers, implementers, donors and community-led organisations. It offers a structured framework covering:
✔ Assessment & planning
✔ Service delivery models
✔ Integration with broader health and social services
✔ Monitoring & sustainability

At its heart are principles of community leadership, human rights, and equitable access, with tools to adapt to local contexts — including in closed settings.

💡These resources will support faster, smarter implementation and contribute to global efforts to control HIV and eliminate viral hepatitis.

Read or download the full guide here: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240116214

How do we really prevent drug-related violence? 🤔

There’s an ongoing tension in how we respond to illicit drug use and interpersonal violence. On one hand, public health approaches are gaining traction. On the other, there’s still a strong belief that law enforcement and criminalisation are the main solutions.

Our latest work brings these perspectives together, asking a timely question: what does preventing drug-related interpersonal violence look like through a public health lens?

Focusing on Ireland, we explore what the evidence tells us about how this violence occurs, how different types of violence can be understood, and how frameworks like the WHO ecological model can inform prevention. Crucially, we look at ways Ireland could reimagine prevention strategies that reduce harm — without defaulting to criminalisation.

If we want safer communities, it may be time to think beyond punishment and invest more seriously in prevention.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955395926000083