Harm reduction: a realistic approach toward injection drug users

The injection use of illicit drugs is a major mode of HIV transmission in the heterosexual population. Indeed, because HIV is transmitted from injection drug users to their sexual partners and their children, there is widespread acknowledgement that controlling HIV infection in the general community may depend on controlling it in injection drug users. Unfortunately, a moralistic attitude toward illicit drugs and their users all too often deters health professionals from taking preventive action. This impractical attitude holds that stopping illicit drug use is the only answer. In today's age of AIDS, it's a dangerously simplistic stance.