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Psychedelic-assisted therapy may represent an upcoming paradigm shift in the treatment of mental health problems as recent clinical trials have demonstrated strong evidence of their therapeutic benefits. While...
Between December 2018 and January of 2019, we evaluated the accuracy of the point-of-care Hepatitis C (HCV) antibody test (POC; OraQuick HCV) used at a community-based needle and syringe exchange program servi...
The social determinants of health that influence steps in the entire Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) treatment cascade must be identified to achieve HCV elimination goals. This project aimed to evaluate the associatio...
The smoking of illicit drugs presents a serious social and economic burden in Canada. People who smoke drugs (PWSD) are at increased risk of contracting multiple infections through risky drug practices. Peer-l...
Electronic cigarettes (“e-cigarettes”) have altered tobacco smoking trends, and their impacts are controversial. Given their lower risk relative to combustible tobacco, e-cigarettes have potential for harm red...
Indigenous communities in Canada face significant challenges with intergenerational trauma, which manifests in substance use disorders. There is consensus that connecting treatment approaches to culture, land,...
The use of psychoactive substances frequently starts at a younger age than adulthood. Considering the perspective of young people, this retrospective study tried to provide them with a role in identifying thei...
Street-based female sex workers (FSWs) are highly at risk of HIV and other harms associated with sex work. We assessed the prevalence of non-injection and injection drug use and their associated factors among ...
Prisoners report much higher prevalence rates of drug use and more harmful consumption patterns than the general population. People who use drugs have above-average experiences with the criminal justice system...
In preparation for the 2021 revision of the European Union Tobacco Products Directive, the Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (SCHEER) has posted its Preliminary Opinion on Electroni...
The opioid epidemic has caused an increase in overdose deaths which can be attributed to fentanyl combined with various illicit substances. Drug checking programs have been started by many harm reduction group...
Smoking or inhaling illicit drugs can lead to a variety of negative health outcomes, including overdose. However, most overdose prevention interventions, such as supervised consumption services (SCS), prohibit...
This interventional-cohort study tried to answer if people who smoke and choose an e-cigarette in the context of smoking cessation treatment by tobacco counselors in Flanders are achieving smoking abstinence a...
Higher smoking prevalence in people with serious psychological distress (SPD) is well-recognized. However, gender and age differences in the association between heaviness of cigarette smoking and SPD have not ...
The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated unprecedented changes in the way that services are delivered to individuals experiencing homelessness and problem substance use. Protecting those at high risk of infectio...
Retention in care is a prerequisite for successful recovery, especially for a chronic condition like opioid dependence. Though retention varies greatly depending on the different substitution medication and tr...
With the ongoing opioid crisis and policy changes regarding legalization of cannabis occurring around the world, it is necessary to consider cannabis use in the context of opioid use disorder (OUD) and its tre...
An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.
The original article was published in Harm Reduction Journal 2021 18:11
Experiencing a nonfatal overdose (NFOD) is a significant risk factor for a subsequent nonfatal or fatal overdose. Overdose mortality rates in rural Appalachian states are some of the highest in the USA, but li...
Since the start of the opioid epidemic in 2016, the Downtown Eastside community of Vancouver, Canada, has lost many pioneering leaders, activists and visionaries to the war on drugs. The Vancouver Area Network...
The COVID-19 crisis has had profound impacts on health service provision, particularly those providing client facing services. Supervised injecting facilities and drug consumption rooms across the world have b...
To describe the key qualities and unique roles of peer support workers in the care of people who inject drugs during and after hospitalization.
Peer workers or “peers” (workers with past or present drug use experience) are at the forefront of overdose response initiatives, and their role is essential in creating safe spaces for people who use drugs (P...
A range of civil society organisations (CSOs) such as drug user groups, non-governmental/third sector organisations and networks of existing organisations, seek to shape the development of drugs policy at nati...
After publication of the original article [1], the authors identified an error in the author name of Marlene Janzen Le Ber. The given name and family name were erroneously transposed.
The original article was published in Harm Reduction Journal 2021 18:6
Peer involvement of people who use drugs within HIV and harm reduction services is widely promoted yet under-utilised. Alongside political and financial barriers is a limited understanding of the roles, impact...
Condom provision is one of the most effective harm reduction interventions to control sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including HIV/AIDS and viral hepatitis in prisons. Yet, very few countries around th...
Four emergency shelters were instituted in Lisbon during COVID-19, and are still in operation. Between March and August 2020, they served over 600 people. The shelters host a diverse population, including peo...
Prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection among people who inject drugs (PWID) in Iran is high. Since 2005, the Iranian government has implemented a harm reduction program to control HCV. We aimed to des...
Some people do not benefit from oral administration of opioid agonist treatment, and an intravenous (IV) formulation may be more suitable. Our objective was to evaluate the willingness of people who regularly ...
The Correction to this article has been published in Harm Reduction Journal 2021 18:23
In 2007, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended for prison authorities to introduce prison needle and syringe programs (PNSP) if they have any evidence that injecting drug use is taking place in priso...
There is a lot of debate about the effects of smoking on COVID-19. A recent fixed-effects meta-analysis found smoking to be associated with disease severity among hospitalized patients, but other studies repor...
Reports from experienced heroin users about an alternative and appreciated but harmful so-called “Turkish” heroin preparation technic led to the chemical investigation of the compounds produced during this pro...
Cigars and cigarettes are both smoked, but much less is known about the former’s long-term health effects, due to its low prevalence and infrequent collection of cigar information in national surveys.
Globally, communities are struggling to gain support for harm reduction strategies being implemented to address the impacts of substance use. A key part of this discussion is understanding and engaging with pe...
The Correction to this article has been published in Harm Reduction Journal 2021 18:16
Peer assistance is an emerging area of study in injection drug use. When Canada’s first supervised consumption site (SCS) opened in 2003 in Vancouver, Canada, clients were prohibited from injecting their peers...
To date, peer-reviewed research has found no evidence linking supervised consumptions sites (SCSs) to increased crime. Yet, in March 2020, a government Report released in the province of Alberta, Canada, prese...
Civil society organisations (CSOs) play a vital role in developing and implementing effective measures to reduce the harms of drug use. They are also fundamental actors to monitor and evaluate programmes and p...
The Netherlands is well known for its early adoption of harm reduction (HR) programs at the height of its heroin crisis in the 1970s/1980s, including the implementation of the first needle and syringe program ...
Ongoing legal and social discrimination, and stigmatization of people with lived experience of drug use (PWLE) continues to contribute to overdose-related deaths in Canada. The involvement of PWLE working in h...
The United States and Canada are amidst an opioid overdose crisis, with the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC) among the hardest hit. In response, drug checking services (DCS) have been introduced in t...
Recent research shows an increase in drug and alcohol-related hospitalizations in the USA, especially among older adults. However, no study examines trends in discharges to a skilled nursing facility (SNF) aft...
Harm reduction services to people who use drugs (PWUD) in Russia are insufficient in terms of quantity, government endorsement, and accessibility. The situation has recently deteriorated even further because o...
Drug-related deaths in the UK are at the highest level on record—the war on drugs has failed. A short film has been produced intended for public and professional audiences featuring academics, representatives ...
Skin and soft tissue infections (SSTIs) are among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality for people who inject drugs (PWID). Studies demonstrate that certain injection practices correlate with SSTI inci...
People who inject drugs are at increased health risk in a pandemic due to their greater susceptibility to severe disease and as a consequence of the restrictions put in place to halt the spread of infection. H...
This study examines the use of new psychoactive substances (NPS) and the harm reduction response in six Eurasian countries: Belarus, Moldova, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Georgia. The aim is to identify...
We aim to describe the general characteristics of how the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail reports on opioid-related news, the opioid crisis and its victims, and explore how Canadians’ perceptions of the opi...
Only July 1, 2017, Nevada became the fifth US state to allow the legal sale of recreational cannabis products for adults ages of 21 and over. This study investigates young adults’ cannabis-related attitudes, p...
Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) are widely promoted as harm-reduction products for smokers, and smokers commonly perceive them as less harmful than combustible cigarettes. One of the key questions regardi...
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