Hacker News
points by whimsicalism 4 days ago | 0 comments
Harm reduction is a double edged sword and should be assessed on the actual merits of the evidence - I am skeptical that legal heroin would be net mortality reducing.

There's already causal inference evidence out there indicating that needle exchange programs reduce rates of HIV and other bloodborne infections, but increase the risk of fatal overdose. If simply making fresh needles more accessible increases overdose rates, I suspect legalizing heroin would have a much larger effect.

[–] scarecrowbob 4 days ago
Harm reduction could be mortality neutral and still be an improvement on other metrics.

But I personally am not sure what the causal relationship between access "clean needles" and "fatally overdosing" is, though I would be interesting in hearing that account.

[–] stickfigure 4 days ago
I would expect consistent potency to lower accidental overdoses.
Hacker News