The fact is, the people who deliver harm reduction services are there to support people who use drugs. They can refer them to treatment or detox centres. Users who want to cut back or stop using altogether build trust with the front-line workers they interact with on a daily basis.
This is a suite of services designed to ensure the health and safety of these people and to keep them alive, given the number of deaths we are currently seeing.
Our basic assumption is that people have been using drugs for millennia. There's also the human face to this, which Mr. and Ms. Hedican talked about. My condolences to them. Unfortunately, programs based on abstinence, whether they target drug use or sexual health, have shortcomings and are not effective. They can even have the opposite of the desired effect.