Harm Reduction Australia (HRA) is a national organisation for individuals committed to reducing the health, social and economic harms potentially associated with drug use.
HRA is a membership-based organisation that represents the views of its members. Our members are primarily people working in the health, welfare and law enforcement sectors, but also include concerned family members, consumers, students and other individuals wanting to advocate for the continuation and expansion of harm reduction policies in Australia.
HRA was formed in 2015 by a group of professionals concerned about drug policy in Australia. For over thirty years Australia’s National Drug Strategy has focused on harm minimisation. In recent years, the commitment and support for this evidence-based and effective approach to addressing drug use has waned across many of its government signatories.
The previous high level of support for harm reduction in Australia had meant that there was a limited need for a national association dedicated to promoting evidence-based, pragmatic and safe drug policies.
The Board and members of HRA are people who understand the complexities of drug use and are advocating for the safest, most effective ways to protect the wellbeing of individuals, families and communities addressing drug use.
In essence, HRA aims to ensure that drug policies in Australia first and foremost do no harm and provide real benefit to Australian society through evidence-based and humane responses to drug use.
HRA neither condemns nor condones drug use but recognises that drug use will occur and it is important to ameliorate the harms that it can cause for some individuals, families and communities.
HRA takes a non-judgmental approach to drug use within society and recognises the key role people with current and past drug use experience must play in any effective drug policy solutions.
We are dedicated to reducing the harmful impact of drug use in Australia through evidence-based, sensible and safer drug policies.
Goals
- To develop Australia’s first recognised network of individuals, agencies, and organisation including people with current and past drug use experience, committed to achieving and maintaining best practice harm reduction in Australia;
- To educate the public, decision makers and the media about the efficacy and legitimacy of harm reduction and human rights-based policies and programs for redressing some of the potentially harmful consequences of drug use; and
- To work collaboratively to ensure reform to current drug policy with the primary aims of ending imprisonment, stigmatisation, discrimination and human rights violations against the people who use or have used drugs.