Facebook: Allow for life-saving harm reduction “instructions for non-medical drugs”

Jeremiah Owyang CC flickr facebook

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Facebook: Allow for life-saving harm reduction “instructions for non-medical drugs”

13 June 2018

By Społeczna Inicjatywa Narkopolityki

Substance abuse continues to be one of the major struggles of today. A factor that is significantly contributing to the problem is, on top of drugs, scarcity of information about their dangers and practical ways to mitigate those. Facebook banned harm reduction information, in an effort to mitigate drug profiteering hurting educators and self-help communities.

Banned are “ instructions for use of non-medical drugs” and talk about “use of non-medical drugs unless posted in a recovery context”. (FB Community Standards, I. Violence and Criminal Behavior, 5. Regulated Goods, section “Do not post”), which constitute the foundation of a pragmatic life-saving approach called harm reduction, designed for people who have not reached recovery but want to improve their safety already.

Harm reduction is a proven, pragmatic and effective approach to solve that problem by providing accurate scientific information to reduce harms derived from drug misuse, and this approach has gained major international recognition (i.e WHO http://www.wpro.who.int/topics/harm_reduction_injection/en/due to its great acceptance, better respect for human rights and effectivity compared with the old “taboo” ineffective approach that promotes dangerous misinformation.

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