Harm Reduction

I had a nice ride in to work, although the forecast is questionable for the return home. Along Shepard road I passed a few guys sleeping on park benches- presumably homeless. My experience working in social services has left me with much ambivalence about "homelessness." It seems that at some level, homelessness is a choice. There are plenty of resources and programs available for those "willing to participate." I'll skip the circumstances that must result in an individual having no friends in the world willing to help them out by providing a couch to crash on. I'll ignore the barriers to housing created by having felonies on one's record. I won't even mention that one's socio-economic circumstances have a strong influence on whether or not someone is even convicted of a felony. I just want to consider the issues of chemical dependency for a moment.

Most residential programs require that participants be chemical free- that they abstain from drugs and alcohol. From a cost-benefit analysis, it just isn't worth it for many people. It becomes preferable to sleep on a park bench. There are very few programs that provide basic food and housing to ensure that an individual's basic survival needs are met, while tolerating some chemical or alcohol use. For whatever reason, our society views these "wet houses" as institutionalized forms of "enabling." We really like to stick it to people with chemical dependency. This is in glaring contradiction to our wide-spread use of "harm reduction" in almost every other aspect of life. We have all sorts of low-fat or sugar-free junk food. We raised the speed limits of our freeways, while adding seatbelt laws and tossing airbags in most vehicles. We eat very unhealthy diets while stuffing our bodies with medications to control cholesterol and acid reflux. We market "light" cigarettes, decaf coffee, near-beer, I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Butter, Diet Coke. We use very poorly written computer operating systems (albeit, relatively easy to use) while plugging holes with anti-virus software, spyware scanners, and firewalls.

Harm reduction is everywhere. Well, almost everywhere. I definitely saw two guys sleeping very peacefully on benches this morning. As long as they aren't smashing bottles on the bike lanes...