The St. Ann's Corner of Harm Reduction, which is named after the original needle exchange site, is a series of offices on Cypress Avenue in the Bronx. The interview with Rivera took place in the room where acupuncture is performed. Next door, participants were holding a group therapy session. You look at where harm is generated . . . Society says that drug use is a disease, and that it must be cured by abstinence.
Harm reduction looks at social policy, at the individual in the social realm.
With access to methadone, clean syringes, and condoms, people have control over the environment in which they are living, and responsibility over their own lives. The state has abdicated its role in the poorest communities, like Mott Haven, she notes. These communities are laboratories in deprivation. The government should create minimum standards for these people, but they don't. They don't have a shot at security needed for their survival.