When Harm Reduction Becomes Normalisation: What Are We Asking Our Children to Live With?
Drug policy is often discussed in terms of compassion, personal choice, public health and the rights of people who use drugs.
Those are important conversations.
But there is another group whose rights and wellbeing must never disappear from the discussion:
Our children.
A recent article in The Atlantic, The Cities That Said Yes to Drugs, provides a confronting look at communities in the United States and Canada that have moved significantly further toward harm-reduction approaches, decriminalisation and the acceptance of public drug use.
It is not comfortable reading.
But at NotEvenOnce®, we believe understanding what is happening elsewhere in the world is essential. Keeping our heads in the sand because the subject is difficult does not protect our young people. Neither does assuming that every policy described as “harm reduction” is automatically harmless to the wider community.
We need to be prepared to research, listen, question and learn from the lived experience of communities that have already travelled further down this road than Australia.
What happens when drug use becomes part of everyday life?
Journalist Michael Powell describes visiting Seattle and Burlington in the United States, as well as examining developments in Vancouver and British Columbia in Canada.
In Seattle, he describes an open-air drug market where hundreds of people were gathered, many smoking fentanyl. Nearby, young boys carrying school bags stood watching.
At a playground, people were reportedly smoking drugs while no children were present. In another park, drug use was occurring near children's play equipment. One mother described boarding a bus with her six-year-old daughter and encountering someone smoking fentanyl. (The Atlantic)
Whatever position we take politically on drug policy, surely we should be willing to ask:
Is this the environment we want children to regard as normal?
That question matters enormously to us at NotEvenOnce®. Our work is centred around prevention and education because we believe every young person deserves the opportunity to grow up without drug use being presented as an inevitable part of adolescence or community life.
Compassion cannot only extend in one direction
People experiencing addiction deserve compassion.
They deserve dignity.
They deserve access to effective treatment, recovery support and communities that do not discard them because they are struggling.
We strongly believe that.
But compassion for a person experiencing addiction cannot require society to stop considering the impact of drug use on everyone around them.
Children deserve compassion too.
So do parents trying to raise them.
So do families living in neighbourhoods affected by public drug use.
So do teachers, youth workers, emergency workers and businesses dealing with its consequences.
One of the most confronting accounts in The Atlantic comes from a youth centre in Burlington, where staff reportedly arrive early to remove discarded needles before children arrive.
Its executive director poses a question that should cause all of us to think carefully about how we define compassion: how do we protect the dignity of people using drugs without compromising a child's right to enter a youth centre without encountering needles and blood? (The Atlantic)
That is not a question about abandoning people experiencing addiction.
It is a question about whether everyone's wellbeing matters.
Harm reduction has a place. But it cannot become the destination.
There are important distinctions that need to be made in this discussion.
Some harm-reduction measures can save lives.
Needle-exchange programs, for example, emerged partly in response to devastating rates of HIV transmission among injecting drug users. Supervised consumption facilities are also designed to reduce overdose deaths among people who are already using highly dangerous substances. The article itself acknowledges evidence that people using supervised injection facilities can be less likely to die from an overdose while using there. (The Atlantic)
We should be capable of acknowledging that evidence while still asking a much broader question:
What is the ultimate objective of our drug policy?
Keeping someone alive today matters enormously.
But so does helping them become free from addiction tomorrow.
And preventing another young person from becoming addicted in the first place must matter as well.
One of the people interviewed in the article, British Columbia psychiatrist and public-health researcher Daniel Vigo, reflects that somewhere along the way the fundamental goal of preventing people from becoming addicted had been forgotten. He argues that harm reduction becomes problematic when it stops being one component of a broader response and instead becomes an ideology in itself. (The Atlantic)
That distinction is incredibly important.
Harm reduction should never replace prevention, intervention, treatment and recovery.
There is no genuinely “safe” illicit drug use
At NotEvenOnce®, our prevention message remains clear.
There is no level of illicit drug use that we can confidently describe to young people as completely safe.
Risk varies enormously depending on the substance, dose, frequency, individual, circumstances and method of use.
But risk exists.
For young people, that conversation becomes even more important because their brains are still developing.
Our concern is not simply whether a particular drug causes an immediate overdose.
We need to consider the bigger picture:
the developing brain;
mental health;
decision-making;
dependency and addiction;
school engagement;
relationships;
family stability;
exposure to crime and exploitation;
and the environments in which young people grow up.
When drug use becomes increasingly visible and accepted within communities, young people are also receiving a social message.
This is normal.
That matters.
We need to learn from other countries before repeating their mistakes
British Columbia provides an important case study.
The province established North America's first sanctioned injection facility in Vancouver in 2003 and subsequently expanded harm-reduction initiatives. In 2023, British Columbia temporarily decriminalised possession of small quantities of certain illicit drugs.
More recently, policy has begun shifting again. British Columbia introduced tighter controls around aspects of its prescribed safer-supply system, and its three-year decriminalisation pilot expired in January 2026. (The Atlantic) That does not prove that every harm-reduction measure failed. Drug policy is considerably more complex than that.
Overdose trends are influenced by fentanyl, synthetic opioids, housing, mental health, poverty, organised crime, treatment availability and numerous other factors.
But when jurisdictions that have undertaken major drug-policy experiments subsequently begin reconsidering elements of those policies, other countries should pay attention.
Australia does not need to experience every possible consequence ourselves before being willing to learn from others. Researching overseas experience is not fearmongering. It is responsible policy development.
Prevention must remain part of the conversation
There is an increasing tendency in some discussions about drugs to begin with the assumption:
People are going to use drugs anyway.
At NotEvenOnce®, we challenge that premise. Yes, some people will use drugs. Some will develop substance-use disorders. And when they do, we should respond with compassion, evidence-based treatment and meaningful pathways toward recovery.
But inevitability is a dangerous foundation for prevention policy. Imagine applying that philosophy elsewhere.
Some young people will drink-drive.
Some will smoke cigarettes.
Some will experience violence.
Some will engage in dangerous sexual behaviour.
Some will attempt suicide.
We don't respond by saying, “Well, they're going to do it anyway.”
We educate.
We prevent.
We intervene early.
We reduce access.
We build protective factors.
We equip parents.
We strengthen families.
We help young people understand risk before they encounter the decision.
Drug use deserves the same seriousness.
What kind of community are we creating?
Perhaps the most important question raised by The Atlantic article is not simply whether particular harm-reduction policies work.
It is this:
What happens to a community when the needs of people actively using drugs begin to outweigh the rights of everyone else sharing that community?
Children should be able to use playgrounds.
Teenagers should be able to catch a bus.
Families should be able to walk through public spaces.
Community organisations should not have to sweep needles from their entrances before children arrive.
Businesses should not have to treat serious drug-related disorder as simply the cost of operating in their neighbourhood.
And people experiencing addiction should not be abandoned to spend years living and using drugs on the street under the banner of compassion.
Surely we can aspire to something better for everyone.
Families must be part of drug policy
We also need to talk much more about families.
Behind almost every person struggling with addiction there are people who love them.
Parents.
Children.
Partners.
Siblings.
Grandparents.
Friends.
They experience addiction too. Not pharmacologically, but emotionally, financially and relationally. Drug policy that focuses almost exclusively on the individual using a substance can miss this wider circle of impact.
At NotEvenOnce®, we believe families should be a priority in our response to drugs.
And children, in particular, should have a powerful voice in the decisions adults make about the communities they inherit.
Every child deserves the freedom to grow up in an environment where adults actively seek to protect them. Where playgrounds remain places to play. Where drug use is not treated as an unavoidable rite of passage. Where addiction is met with compassion but never normalised. Where recovery is expected to be possible. And where prevention remains something worth fighting for.
We need courageous conversations
None of this requires us to demonise people who use drugs. In fact, doing so would undermine everything we are trying to achieve. We need honest conversations without judgement. We need evidence rather than slogans. We need to listen to people who have experienced addiction.
We also need to listen to families, residents, schools, businesses, police, health professionals and communities living with the consequences of drug policy. And importantly, we need to listen to countries and cities that have already implemented policies Australia may one day consider.
Some of their experiences should encourage us. Others should warn us. Both are valuable. Because our goal should never simply be to manage addiction more effectively.
Our goal must also be to prevent it wherever we possibly can.
At NotEvenOnce®, that remains at the heart of what we do.
Educate early.
Have the difficult conversations.
Build resilient young people.
Strengthen families.
Understand the risks.
Challenge normalisation.
Support people who are struggling.
And continue to believe that a young person's future does not have to include drugs at all.
Prevention matters. Families matter. And every child deserves the opportunity for a safe and protected upbringing.
Further reading: Michael Powell, “The Cities That Said Yes to Drugs,” The Atlantic, published 30 July 2026. (The Atlantic)