Harm Reduction Case Study Essay

Many people do not understand why or how other people become addicted to drugs. Drug addiction is a complex chronic disease that causes impairment with the mind to express emotion, engage into physical activities and simply being one’s self. In fact, through scientific research, people understand more about how drugs work in the brain more than ever, and they also know that drug addiction can be successfully treated with some help from those who want change in the death rates amongst drug addict Americans. No one will ever truly understand why a person performs such deadly behaviors, but this is their way of crying out for help. It is time to take a stand and help those in need of escape from drugs and

Throughout our culture, stigma against people with drug addiction is present. Instead of being treated as people with mental illnesses, drug addicts are simply regarded as criminals. Addicts are often so overwhelmed with shame that they don’t seek treatment. These are just a few examples of how stigma perpetuates our culture and how it is detrimental to those who are addicted. It is imperative that we destigmatize addiction by treating it as what it truly is- a mental illness and allowing addicts to be open about their addiction and treatment.

According to the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control (BCDC, 2013), harm reduction aims to keep people safe and minimize death, disease, and injury from high risk behaviour. Harm reduction involves a variety of support services and strategies to improve the knowledge, skills and resources for individuals and their families to create a healthier and safer community (BCDC, 2013). This paper will discuss the applicability of community health standards to harm reduction practice, as well as the determinants of health which increase the incidence of harm to the targeted audience. COUNTERfit, a women’s harm reduction program will be discussed in terms of significance to the aggregate population and evaluated through an examination of epidemiological data, prevalence data, and best practice.

Harm reductions recognizes an individual’s willingness to make a change in their life, there is a wide range that these individuals may be along, from not thinking about change, to contemplating change, to taking action, to maintaining change and the other way around. The method of harm reduction first begins with focusing on what stage the individual is on with their drug use. As earlier stated the active participation of individuals who use drugs is at the heart of harm reduction. These individuals are the best source of information in terms of their own drug use and are determined with the help of other service agencies to determine the best form of intervention. There have been many success stories from having injection sites as a form

It should be noticed that in the recent few decades, the science developed at an astonishing pace, and the problem of substance abuse cause a huge public concern. Currently, substance abuse has already become a pandemic around the world. It costs individuals substantially, and it of their family as a whole. It is essential for the society to help those people who struggle with drug addiction to get rid of their pain and get back their health and balance life. Therefore, I understand the substance abuse is a tough area, and people who are struggling with addiction really need help. During the course of the interview, I

“Harm reduction is based on the premise that people are responsible for their behaviour, that they maker personal choices that affect their health and well-being, and that they can make safer and better decisions if given useful and honest information” (Mathre, 2002, p. 106). Harm reduction recognizes people’s unhealthy choices while also attempting to reduce the harmful effects that come from these unhealthy behaviours (Marlatt, 1998 as cited in Brown, Luna, Ramirez, Vail, and Williams, 2005). Using a harm reduction approach has a positive effect on drug users, as it helps to reduce the negative consequences that come from using drugs. Although harm reduction aims to reduce the harm from illegal drug using, it is viewed as

Substance abuse is a very widely known public epidemic in today's society. Many people are unfortunately plagued by this issue. According to Emedicinehealth.com (2012), “People abuse substances such as alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs for varied and complicated reasons, but it is clear that our society pays a significant cost,” (para. 1). People that are affected by substance abuse includes a very different range of people. Many that abuse the substances end up having health-related problems which in turn increases the need for health care. Other people that are affected by substance abuse are the family members and friends of the abusers because they have to deal with the person abusing the substances. Things that can be abused are

Although, there are many efforts to reduce the stigma of addiction, false concepts among individuals still persist. Many individuals may describe drug addicts as “people who are morally weak and cannot control their impulses”, or simply just “people who cannot get their life together”. Such misconceptions suggesting that

Harm reduction is a concept that refers to policies, programs, and practices that aim to reduce the harms associated with the use of psychoactive drugs in people unable or unwilling to stop (Syme, Browne, Varcoe, & Josewski, 2011). Methadone has been increasingly utilized as a means of addressing and reducing the health, social, and fiscal harms associated with opiate addiction (Kerr, Marsh, Li, Montaner, & Wood, 2005). During my clinical rotation at Rosthern Hospital, I learned that this small town rural hospital has a successful methadone program to treat opioid addiction. When a person thinks of small town Saskatchewan, their first though is not usually intravenous (IV) drug use, but after working at Rosthern Hospital for a few shifts, I began to realize the town and the surrounding communities may have an addictions problem. At the hospital, the doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and support staff have all decided to collaborated and developed a harm-reduction methadone program for their patients. Not only is this program successful because it addresses the needs of the community, but it is also controversial. Using Carper’s (1978) “Five Ways of Knowing” I examined the methadone program and its patients, the positive and negatives, as well as a patient’s own personal experience being in the methadone program.

When I was 14 years old, my father died of a drug overdose, after spending his life struggling with the disease,. I took care of my niece while my sister was heavily using. I fought with her for years to get sober. Then I found her in a bathroom unconscious, with no pulse, and a needle still stuck in her arm. I gave her C.P.R. for nearly 13 minutes until the paramedics’ arrived. They explained to me that if I had stopped giving her C.P.R., they would have never been able to revive her. In addition to them, I have several other family members and friends that also struggle with addiction. I have watched them try to get, and stay, sober. I have seen the control that addition has over them, and felt the way it affects everyone around them. I have watched the financial burden they cause their families, and our community.

The harm reduction movement was born in the early 1980s as a pragmatic, remarkably effective response to the spreading hepatitis and AIDS epidemics, since then, harm-reduction workers and activists in Europe and increasingly throughout the world have sought to provide drug users and addicts with a range of services aimed at reducing the harmful effects of drug use.

The designing used in the addiction scenario would be a double-blind, randomized, study of the effects of Antaquil vs placebo in minimizing the cravings of individuals suffering from alcohol dependence. Participants for the study should meet the DSM-V criteria for alcohol dependence and have recently entered into treatment. Certain medical and psychotic conditions along with any current substance use will disqualify the individual from participation. To secure that the sample is random, several outpatient clinics should be used to recruit the participants, a computer randomization program will then be used to ensure that each member of the qualifying population has an equal possibility of being chosen. The randomize sample will consist of (n=36)

However, I believe s.1 is a double-edged sword as the ‘serious harm’ requirement was not succinctly defined in the statute, thereby opening it to a plethora of interpretations due to the absences of a yardstick to measure ‘serious harm’. The impact of this will likely surface in the way the press publishes materials and this is detrimental to free speech. For instance, would labelling someone ‘slightly’ inept in his profession be considered acceptable where the harm was not

Drug addiction is a complex problem in society today. Addiction is a condition that extremely affects the person’s mind and body. Addiction also has wide sweeping effects on that person’s social connection and functioning. Unfortunately, many addicts don’t realize the social influence of their addiction until much of their functioning has greatly deteriorated.

It’s easy to lose track of the chaos that happens in the world on a day to day basis when your main priority is deciding what to eat for lunch tomorrow, or even dreading your next shift; yet we can turn on the news and hear about the most recent overdose and not even blink an eye. The blatant disregard for drug addicts today is at an ultimate high. In the past two years alone, more people have died from opiate addiction than they have in the entire Vietnam War. The fact that drug users are seen as lower class members of society as only aided in the increase of addiction and death, killing more Americans than HIV/AIDS did at its peak. Though the epidemic did not occur overnight, it has recently become one of America’s biggest health confrontations. Although there is no absolute solution, in order to decelerate the prevailing wave of usage and overdose/death, decriminalization in correlation to government funded programs could give ease to the definition of the word “epidemic”.