If the 16th International Conference on the Reduction of Drug Related Harm proved one thing, it was that the U.S. is far behind the rest of the world in its harm reduction approach to drug use and abuse. The conference, hosted in Belfast, Northern Ireland last week, had a theme of “widening the agenda,” where experts, researchers, scientists and other harm reduction supporters came together to further explore this approach in their respective countries.

The conference opened with an address from Allan Clear, Director of the Harm Reduction Coalition in the U.S. In one of the most powerful speeches of his career, he fiercely criticized—as did many other speakers—the immensely destructive efforts by the U.S. government to impede syringe exchange and other crucial HIV prevention measures both in the U.S. and around the world.

As harm reduction is being steadily stifled in the U.S. by flawed drug policies, other countries around the world look to harm reduction as a viable solution to their drug problems. This year, the conference welcomed a large number of people from Asia—a substantial increase from the handful of Asian attendees in previous years. Jim Yong Kim, head of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organization expressed strong support for syringe exchanges in developing countries. “Such international solidarity is very important now, especially to people who matter most—those working on the ground providing services to drug users,” said Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, Director of the Open Society Institute’s harm reduction program.  Chinese plenary speaker Zunyou Wu, MD, PhD, a professor and research scientist who plays a leadership role in promoting harm reduction programs in China, spoke about expanding treatment to the Chinese.

In Iran, where heroin addiction is the highest in the world, per capita, remarkable progress is being made through the use of the harm reduction approach, according to Parviz Afshar, Director of Health in Iranian Prisons Organisation. Alliance Executive Director Ethan Nadelmann said in his closing plenary speech, “In Iran, the mullahs [religious leaders] issued a fatwah [legal ruling] authorizing needle exchange and methadone maintenance programs. But in America, we can’t get our own mullahs to do the same thing.”

Other notable conference speakers and supporters of harm reduction included Bob Newman, Alliance board member and Director at the Beth Israel Medical Center, who gave a poignant speech about his own evolution as a methadone reform advocate. Former Vancouver mayor Philip Owen also attended the conference on behalf of the city’s current mayor, Larry Campbell, and invited harm reduction advocates to next year’s conference being hosted in Vancouver. Owen is known for following in the footsteps of former Alliance board member and Baltimore mayor Kurt Schmoke in providing courageous leadership in promoting harm reduction approaches in his own city. Organizers for the Alliance conference later this year in California look forward to working closely with organizers of the Vancouver conference to maximize synergy between the two events.

With portions of the conference covering the harm reduction approach to educating young people about drug use and abuse, attendees of the conference besieged the Alliance’s Safety First Director Marsha Rosenbaum, also a keynote speaker, with requests to translate Safety First: A Reality-Based Approach to Teens, Drugs, and Drug Education into Dutch, Vietnamese, Thai, Farsi, and Portuguese, among other languages.

“This enthusiasm for the Safety First approach internationally shows that parents and educators all over the world are looking for ways to handle teenage drug use that are based on honest education and the need for harm reduction,” Dr. Rosenbaum said.

The conference was successful in bringing together and highlighting the proliferation of harm reduction programs such as needle exchange and methadone programs in countries like Iran, Indonesia and China. The conference also made it that much more evident that the U.S. needs to step up its game in using this important and life-saving public health approach to address drug problems in the States.  Glenn Backes, Director of Health Policy for the Alliance, said, “Most nations are willing to be pragmatic about controlling drug related harms, prioritizing the health of their people over so-called 'moral messages' about drugs.  I wish my country was more like that...."

To learn more about the Alliance’s work using harm reduction, click here.

Teri Weefur is Deputy Web Coordinator for the Drug Policy Alliance