Research on harm reduction and medical care in drug policies

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24530687
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Sociology
• Research Institution: Kwansei Gakuin University
• Principal Investigator: SATO Akihiko 関西学院大学, 社会学部, 教授 (20295116)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 薬物 / 薬物政策 / ハーム・リダクション

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Harm reduction has been one of the most influential measures for drug problems around the world today. It has been perceived and talked as a “public health approach” to drug problems. However some medicalized aspects of harm reduction and a sort of revival of “medical model” sometimes can be found in some activities today. The purpose of this research is to describe practices of these two models and compare of them in terms of how these models explain the problems and how these approaches are operated, in order to reveal and discuss the features of today’s harm reduction. The research reveals that the variances between these two models are not any causes of real conflict in the course of the activities, rather function as a sort of variation of harm reduction activities. The fact that there are several models and approaches to harm reduction guarantees the possibility to adopt it as a measure to drug problems for various institutions and municipalities that differ from each other.

Free Research Field

社会学