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Aila Hoss, Visiting Assistant Professor at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, recently posted a piece on Harvard Law Petrie-Flom Center’s Bill of Health blog.  

Her post, “Many State Laws Undermine Harm Reduction Strategies in the Opioid Crisis,” examines harm reduction strategies and their effectiveness at the state level.

Harm reduction strategies minimize the injury associated with drug use, as opposed to decreasing drug use itself. In the context of opioid use disorder, these strategies include increased naloxone training and availability, syringe exchange programs, and overdose immunity protections. The evidence for these strategies have consistently demonstrated that they reduce incidence of HIV, hepatitis C, overdose deaths and do not lead to increased drug use, Hoss writes.

Like many states, Indiana has taken steps toward harm reduction, but legislative language often undermines the potential impact, she says.

“A law that supports harm reduction is better than no law at all. But, it is not enough to have law promoting a harm reduction strategy if that law is so narrow in its application that it undermines the success of the strategy,” Hoss writes.

The post is part of a symposium from speakers and participants of Northeastern University School of Law’s annual health law conference, Diseases of Despair: The Role of Policy and Law, organized by the Center for Health Policy and Law.

Hoss, along with Professors Nicolas Terry and Ross Silverman, serves on a research team funded by the Indiana University Addictions Grand Challenge and co-authored the report Legal and Policy Best Practices in Response to the Substance Abuse Crisis.