Conferences

In 1990, Liverpool, England hosted the ‘1st International Conference on the Reduction of Drug Related Harm’. The city was one of the first to open needle exchanges and had attracted hundreds of visitors each year who wanted to learn about the ‘Mersey Harm Reduction Model’. The conference was a way of dealing with this interest and the volume of visitors and it was a huge success. Accordingly, the following year, the 2nd International Conference on the Reduction of Drug Related Harm took place in Barcelona and a movement soon developed around this conference – spreading the principles behind the harm reduction approach, sharing knowledge and experiences from around the world and promoting the growing scientific evidence that supported this approach.

Since 1990, these events have become the key forum for the dissemination of harm reduction ideas and practice, and have helped to put harm reduction on the map and to coordinate advances, innovations, evidence and advocacy in this field. Each year, delegates include frontline workers, researchers, policy makers, members of governments, officials from law enforcement agencies and the judiciary, criminal justice workers, UN officials, members of national and international NGO’s and members of international and national drug user organisations.

Harm Reduction International will be updating this section – eventually uploading photos, programmes, reviews and information from all of the previous conferences.

For each conference, we have uploaded as much available information from the conference as possible (such as conference booklets, ‘Rapporteur’ reports, photos and links). If you have any materials or photos from any of these events that you would like to share with us, please contact Annie Kuch.