Exploring Community Perceptions of Addiction and Harm Reduction Strategies in Aotearoa New Zealand

This study investigated how community members in Aotearoa understand and perceive drug addiction and harm reduction strategies, through a discussion of two specific harm reduction strategies: needle exchange programmes and supervised consumption sites. Needle exchange programmes and supervised consumptions sites were selected as the focus of this study as they tend to be associated with addictive drug use, specifically injection drug use, rather than recreational drug use. Eleven community members participated in semi-structured interviews. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis to identify patterns of perceptions regarding addiction, harm reduction and harm reduction strategies. Nine themes were developed from this analysis: the process of addiction, engagement in drug use to feel ‘normal’, addiction causes harm, marginalisation and stigmatisation of people who experience addiction, criminalisation hurts people who need to be helped and supported, harm reduction versus prohibition, harm reduction is beneficial, relevance and salience of harm reduction varies, and opposition to harm reduction in others. As no such studies have been conducted in the Aotearoa New Zealand context, these findings establish a foundational understanding of how some community members in Aotearoa understand and perceive addiction and harm reduction. Participants viewed addiction from a holistic perspective, emphasising the role of both biological and social influences in the onset and maintenance of addiction. Moreover, there was overwhelming support for harm reduction within the sample, often positioned alongside critiques of the current punitive, prohibitionist approach to drug use and people who use drugs. Further research is needed to gain deeper insight into how community members view addiction and harm reduction, with a focus on increasing education and garnering greater awareness and support for harm reduction in Aotearoa.