https://quillette.com/2025/08/16/rethinking-harm-reduction-drug-addiction-san-francisco/






As someone who grew up in a rural area (as 'rural' as a place in Jersey can be lol) I was quite shocked when i went to a big city and saw individuals completely cracked out and everyone else just walking by them like it was normal and fine. San Francisco, the liberal paradise of the the US, seems to be moving away from, or at least significantly adjusting it's harm reduction policy to the point in which organizations which support the movement have begun to criticize the city.

I recall a lot of cheering for the harm reduction movement over the past few years. What's my fellow enlightened jspers thoughts of the movement today? Is the harm reduction still the right course of action? Are there better alternatives we ought to try?

Weve been trying alternatives for decades. Murdering and jailing every single drug user isnt working.

Hard reduction is just simply an attempt to reduce the frequency, intensity, and lethality of harm. It's not attempting to reduce drug use, and is meant to exist in a complimentary framework where rather than 'alternatives' there are additional services focused on attending to basic needs like healthcare, housing, food, substance use treatment, etc. The programs that would provide such services are much, much more costly than harm reduction services and can only assist so many people at any given time given the intensity and length of services that would typically be needed in order to help a person successfully transition to sober, independent living.

This can result in a gap of services, in which harm reduction is more prominent and available, but not these other services. Rates of overdose will continue to be high, but would be even higher if people used drugs in isolation. Rates of infection for injection drug use will continue to be high, but would be even higher without needle exchange services. Harm reduction sees the value in those marginal differences, and is actually in agreement with much of your position in acknowledging that it's not sufficient for addressing the issue at a much deeper level.

Would you say that the policy in SF is "working" though?

they should have tried Jesus, much more effective.

od's resulting in death were alot less common when many of these drug consolers went to school to learn about it they were probably taught that getting someone help right away would save them resulting in much less death but since fent really hit the streets thats no longer the case sadly since the main drug used to stop a heroin od does not work nearly as well with fent.

Did you see my post about gambling and smoking? They choose this path. Its better than being thrown in jail or shot by a cop for carrying an "illegal substance." They're adults let them do as they please. They've been shown a better way, and choose not to take it.

I suppose if you nailem to a cross that'd help them get cleaned up pretty quickly.

Labor camps on remote federal lands. Pay them in drug and food.

Careful there elite you don't want another suspension do you?