Groundwork for a research programme on harm reduction in alcohol and drug treatment

The aim of this article is to set out the groundwork for a research programme for harm reduction in alcohol and drug treatment. First, attitudes to science of those who work in the harm reduction field are discussed and it is argued that hostility to the introduction of conventional scientific methods to this field is seriously misguided. Harm reduction activity is then defined as an attempt to ameliorate the adverse health, social or economic consequences of mood-altering substances without necessarily requiring a reduction in the consumption of these substances, and this definition is amplified. Finally, issues relevant to the measurement of outcome from harm reduction interventions are discussed by comparing Newcombe's classification of drug-related harms with an existing instrument designed to measure outcomes from interventions in the drugs field (the Opiate Treatment Index).