Regarding the reduction of sanitary harm related to products' use, the watchword is:
"Better a drug addict still addicted than a drug addict infected with AIDS or hepatitis".

Definition
Harm reduction emerged in France with the AIDS epidemy during the eighties.
Initially oriented towards the reduction of health risks due to substance abuse and in particular the infection by viruses (AIDS, hepatitis...) among the drug addicts, it gradually widened its scope by developing programs such as :

• Street work,
• Reception places,
• Exchange programs for sterile products' consumption material,
• Syringue dispensers/ exchangers,
• Risk information and motivation activities...

The priority is not stopping substance abuse but rather preventing the damages that drug use may produce to persons that cannot or will not to try to quit. The goal is to attempt to enhance the addicts'willingness to take care of themselves by providing them will all relevant information and access to sterile material, so they can consume cleanly without adding the stigmatization and the ills caused by AIDS and hepatitis.

Intervention principles

• Without making drug consumption a commonplace, accept its existence as a fact of society (there is no society without drugs),
• Do not pass judgements, accept people as they are and work with them so that the relationship is based on people's habits and their representation,
• Provide information suited to people's habits,
• Give drug users the means to reduce their health risks,
• Make drugs addicts participate as actors of their personal evolution (principle of responsabilization).

Stratégy
To reduce health hazards is to promote the individual's responsability in taking personal action and becoming more responsible for his/her health. It aims at giving the users of drugs -either licit or illicit- the information and necessary means to prevent damages, by:

• Considering the persons as a partner and the foremost actor in promoting better health habits,
• Helping by providing access to information about sanitary risks resulting from drugs' use,
• Giving access to harm reduction material,
• Helping by providing access to treatment, possibly by the mean of substitution which can be a major tool in reducing,
• Gathering people with a common goal to improve community health,
• Trying to reduce the spread of AIDS and hepatitis among drug addicts.