Harm reduction is being pushed by activists as a way to save drug addicts’ lives but critics point out the messaging has become increasingly dangerous, with advertisements telling drug users to “do it with friends” and nonprofits handing out meth pipes attached to Valentine cards.

The National Harm Reduction Coalition (NHRC) is pushing drug-friendly initiatives and some believe it is normalizing addiction and all that goes with it including violence, depravity, poverty, and death.

Portland-area activist Kevin Dahlgren told Fox News in an interview, “I’m a drug and alcohol counselor. And the reason why I’m against harm reduction is because it’s now changed to encouraging use. That is a line that should have never been crossed.”

Fox News reports, “Harm reduction is a strategy that meets drug users where they are, offering clean needles, naloxone to reverse an overdose and other supplies without pressuring people to enter treatment. Only one out of 10 people with a substance use disorder have received treatment, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and most drug users don’t think they have a problem.”

(Video Credit: Fox News)

Jose Martinez, a reformed drug addict who now works for NHRC, claims that harm reduction was the “black sheep” of the public health field before gaining more acceptance over the last few years.

“Our approach was too radical for some folks,” he admitted.

Martinez smoked K2, which is a synthetic cannabinoid also known as “spice.” It resulted in him stealing from his family, alienating those around him, and turning him into a “completely different person.”

“But it was more my circumstance,” Martinez asserted. “It was not the drug because we believe that every drug can be used safely and recreationally even.”

He quit using that drug and now sticks with marijuana. He no longer lives on the streets and has his own apartment. Martinez works 40 hours a week and credits harm reduction with turning his life around.

“We’re not condoning drug use. We’re not condemning it either,” Martinez told Fox News. “We just want folks to be safe so that they have tomorrow. You know, we don’t know what tomorrow brings.”

Meth pipe valentines? Harm reduction advocates, critics at odds over best way to help drug users https://t.co/My3ZyWHuKB #FoxNews

— Bo Snerdley (@BoSnerdley) July 1, 2023

San Francisco-based recovery advocate Tom Wolf sees it very, very differently. He lived on the streets of the Tenderloin district in early 2018, going in and out of jail. His sixth arrest within 90 days landed him in custody long enough to get clean and reevaluate his life. He celebrated five years of sobriety in June.

“The harm reduction mantra is that you should have bodily autonomy. You should be in control of whatever you put in your body, including drugs,” Wolf pointed out. “If you’re in the privacy of your own home, I would kind of agree with that.”

“When you’re doing it out on the street, in front of kids, in front of families, in front of businesses … that’s not okay,” he asserted. “Leaving someone in a tent on the street to do whatever they want is actually not body autonomy. That’s actually cruel.”

In the last couple of years, drug overdoses and deaths have skyrocketed. Much of it is due to fentanyl. Over 100,000 people died from a drug overdose in 2022, a 45% increase since 2019, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

Harm reduction theory has given us places like the current zombie apocalypse in San Francisco.

— Bruce Hermann, MD (@bfhermann) June 30, 2023

Both Dahlgren and Wolf support harm reduction when it comes to offering needle exchanges. But they are staunchly against programs such as San Francisco’s Know Overdose campaign which they believe goes too far.

“Led by NHRC’s DOPE Project, billboards and posters plastered with the words ‘Know Overdose’ featured tips like ‘do it with friends’ and ‘take it easy,’ paired with photos of people at a party or homeless people smiling as they prepare to use drugs on the streets,” according to Fox News.

“I was an intravenous drug user. There’s nothing happy about it,” Wolf stated. “It just sends this really terribly wrong message that this is okay, that we should accept this as a society, and that this should become normalized. And I will not accept that.”

The posters also inform users where to get free naloxone to reverse overdoses.

San Francisco was hammered for the drug-friendly billboards and removed them. NHRC issued a statement expressing disappointment that the health department bowed to pressure from members of the public.

“harm reduction policies” equal nothing but enabling. They are destroying every city they have been enacted in.

— Jean Julian (@AerynMoonRaven) June 30, 2023

“Last year 2,601 overdoses were reversed with naloxone distributed by DOPE Project partner organizations,” NHRC reported in March 2020. “Imagine what the overdose rate might be without the program and without the work and love of the community we serve.”

“We’re seeing these cute Valentine’s cards and cartoon characters and fentanyl straw that become very colorful, that look like candy canes,” Dahlgren commented, charging that harm reduction organizations are marketing drugs to adolescents. “It’s no different than how they marketed candy cigarettes to kids in the 1980s.”

“Dahlgren pointed to the Seattle-based People’s Harm Reduction Alliance, which in 2022 shared an image of glass pipes attached to colorful Valentine’s cards. This year, the nonprofit shared numerous Valentine cards on its Facebook page with puns like, ‘I didn’t believe in love, but you foiled my plans’ over an image of foil and a fentanyl straw. Another card is more straightforward, spelling out ‘End the drug war’ with candy hearts,” Fox News noted.

“This is not marijuana,” Dahlgren remarked. “This is fentanyl — 50 times stronger than heroin and cheaper. This is insane.”

Harm reduction ideas and programs are designed to make drug use safer, but the real byproduct is that it encourages, glamorizes, and enables dangerous drug addiction. The County of San Diego is pushing this action in a big way.https://t.co/Icecs5MWrm

— Bill Wells (@MayorBillWells) July 1, 2023

NHRC has received over $8.4 million in government grants in 2021 alone. That was more than 80% of its total revenue for that year tax records show.

People’s Harm Reduction Alliance received approximately $1.3 million in grants and other funds in 2021. It’s unknown where that money came from.

According to its website, the organization also hands out drug user kits for smoking, snorting, and boofing (ingesting drugs through the anus), clothes, hygiene products, and outdoor survival gear.

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