North America
Regional Overview
Both Canada and the USA have key harm reduction programmes in place and support harm reduction in some aspects of national policy. However, in both countries, service provision is inconsistent and influenced by local law and policies – which in many cases favour repressive drug law enforcement and abstinence-only approaches to drugs. The USA’s… Read more
Injecting Drug Use, HIV and Hepatitis C
The following maps and table outline the current available data on injecting drug use, as well as the prevalence of HIV and hepatitis C among injecting populations in North America. The map below illustrates HIV prevalence among injecting drug users in countries of the region. The map below illustrates hepatitis C prevalence among injecting… Read more
Harm Reduction Policies
Policy in both Canada and the USA has fluctuated in recent years, but both include an explicit reference to harm reduction in national policy on HIV and/or drugs, as illustrated in the map and table below. Although policy wording is not necessarily indicative of the implementation of effective harm reduction measures in a country, it does… Read more
Harm Reduction Programmes
Key harm reduction interventions – including needle and syringe programmes (NSP) and opioid substitution therapy (OST) – are available in both the USA and Canada, as illustrated in the maps and table below. In addition, Canada has a highly successful safer injecting facility – the only one in the Americas. However, huge areas of both countries… Read more