President Biden’s “drug czar,” Dr. Rahul Gupta, appears to support a radical shift in U.S. drug control policy toward harm reduction, a controversial approach that many believe is needed as the nation deals with surging rates of drug addiction and overdose. In an interview with the New York Times, Dr. Gupta, the first medical doctor to be drug czar, voiced guarded support for the administration’s apparent acceptance of harm reduction as a a major component of drug strategy, which would include safe consumption where users can inject drugs in a supervised setting. Two such sites, the country’s first, opened last year in New York City, and the Justice Department is currently weighing whether others could operate, in what would be a major shift in direction. Harm reduction is focused not on helping users achieve abstinence but on lowering the risk of them dying or acquiring infectious diseases, by distributing sterile syringes and fentanyl testing strips, and making overdose reversal medications widely available. Dr. Gupta has talked up harm reduction, the article notes and has encouraged city and state health departments to start syringe exchange programs. While harm reduction will undoubtedly save lives, to actually change lives it must also function as a bridge to drug treatment, and not simply as a revolving door for drug use.
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