On Friday 14th July, the Government published its new Drug Strategy: ‘2017 Drug Strategy’. This briefing, endorsed by eight of the UK’s leading harm reduction and drug treatment organisations, looks at whether the focus on harm reduction has improved under the new strategy, and discusses challenges in the funding environment which will have a disproportionate impact on harm reduction services.
Across the UK, we can see the consequences when people are not able to access harm reduction initiatives easily, such as the recent outbreak of HIV among people who inject drugs in Glasgow. There has also been a devastating spike in drug-related deaths, with deaths involving heroin and morphine rising by 109 percent in the England and Wales between 2012 and 2016.
While the Government acknowledges the rise in drug-related deaths as ‘dramatic and tragic’, the new strategy proposes no concrete action plan to reduce them. Harm reduction as a term is only mentioned once in the report, and the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs’ recommendations on reducing deaths through drug consumption rooms and heroin assisted therapy are not mentioned at all. Drug consumption rooms are places where people can ask a wide range of support.
The lack of focus on policies such as these is especially troubling considering that over half of drug- related deaths happen to people not currently accessing drug treatment. Public health spending has reduced by more than 5% since 2013. With the cuts to the public health budget, we are already seeing the severe impact that cuts have upon the quality of much needed harm reduction services.
At a time when harm reduction should be intensified to respond to the highest rates of drug-related deaths ever recorded in the UK, there is a real risk of further cuts. This could lead to rises in HIV and hepatitis C incidence among people who inject drugs, as well as an increased burden on emergency services.
NAT recommends that the Government ensures provision of harm reduction initiative are based in a good prevention and treatment system by taking on ACMD recommendations, that harm reduction services are person-centred and well funded, and that steps must be taken to minimise the impact of budget cuts to deal with rising rates of overdose and avert further outbreaks of HIV.