Undoing Drugs : The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction

Undoing Drugs tells the story of harm reduction. It will show how this concept has begun to transform the treatment of addiction and how it holds the potential to revolutionise how we deal with a range of other urgent behavioural and societal issues. Harm reduction challenges people to prioritise radical empathy and kindness over punishment as a way of not only dealing with drug use, but also in questions related to racism, sexism, disability and inequality. And, as Szalavitz shows, it says unequivocally that we must be more concerned about saving lives and health than about criminalizing quality-of-life crimes. Szalavitz argues for a practical application of the Hippocratic oath to "First, do no harm" beyond medicine and to those who urgently need it most.