Merseyside, the first harm reduction conferences, and the early history of harm reduction

In the mid 1980s, Liverpool implemented pioneering approaches to dealing with the problems caused by the use of drugs. The Mersey Harm Reduction Model concentrated on reducing the harms rather than, as previously was the case, trying to reduce drug use itself. This policy was given great impetus by the emergence of HIV and the danger of infection from using contaminated injection equipment. It became imperative to reduce this kind of risk behaviour by providing clean injecting equipment, prescribing methadone (and in a small percentage of cases, heroin) and by using outreach workers to go into the community and help people where they lived and to attract them into services. The police played a key role. Service uptake was rapid and included many who had never had previous contact with services. An HIV epidemic did not happen amongst injecting drug users in Mersey. In 1991, the approach was applied to the new phenomenon of the use of MDMA with the publication of the leaflet ‘Chill Out’. The First International Conference on the Reduction of Drug Related Harm took place in Liverpool in 1990 as a response to the interest shown in what was happening in the region and the International Harm Reduction Association was born out of these conferences.