With overdose because the leading explanation for death for adults ages 18–45 within the U.S., the seek for the answer to the drug crisis is becoming more pressing every single day. With the “abstinence-only” method failing again and again, the harm reduction movement is quickly gaining momentum as a more realistic, and more impactful alternative. is the practice of minimizing risk amongst high risk behaviors—prioritizing education and informed decision-making over abstention and stigmatization. Within the realm of drug use, it acknowledges that individuals be consuming drugs, despite legal or ethical implications, and it empowers individuals to have interaction in safer use practices to mitigate the chance of harm surrounding drug use.
Harm reduction can take many shapes—including the accessibility of tools like Narcan (an opioid reversal medication), drug checking kits and fentanyl test strips, syringe service programs, and drug education and outreach initiatives. With lots of these options implemented at large-scale events and other in-person locations, improving accessibility to harm reduction resources is considered one of the larger hurdles organizations are facing. Nevertheless, a singular opportunity to utilize the budding technology of artificial intelligence (AI) may provide a brand new layer of reach for the harm reduction initiative, in a landscape where the necessity for exposure is higher than ever.
The Need for Harm Reduction Advancement
Many have considered the drug crisis to be an isolated problem; something only “drug addicts,” the homeless population, or the mentally unwell face. While this has never been the case—drug addiction and overdose has historically permeated a wide range of populations—the sheer numbers of drug-related fatalities visible over the previous couple of years has made this unimaginable to disregard. The variety of lives lost has grown to staggering amounts, with 107,000 drug-related deaths in 2023 alone (marking the primary 12 months since 2018 that numbers have dipped barely).
With the rising prevalence of fentanyl and other adulterants being present in each recreational and illicit drugs, in addition to in gray market and even pharmaceuticals—this can be a problem that affects everyone. College students, elderly populations, children taking ADHD medication, high schoolers experimenting with substances, and lots of others are in danger.
The outdated notion that ‘those that wish to avoid injury or fatality as a consequence of drug use should simply avoid drugs altogether’ is clearly not an option. Harm reduction begins in a more accessible place, by meeting those that decide to devour drugs or medication where they’re at. It doesn’t condemn drug use, as a substitute, it offers safer practices to lower the extent of risk present during any of those situations. Nevertheless, with such a wide range of people needing access to those resources, in-person locations and events only reach a small portion of this population.
Our first harm reduction organization, The Bunk Police, worked on the grounds at music festivals to distribute drug checking kits and spread details about harm reduction. We’ve got expanded our mission into the nonprofit space with Transparency, where we intend to achieve these individuals in quite a lot of in-person and online spaces.
In working in harm reduction through the years, we began to know how common it was for people to prefer receiving harm reduction information and resources online. Most of our substance checking kits are sold online, and the tutorial pieces we post on our social media are a few of our largest-reaching initiatives. This began to beg the query—
Where AI and Harm Reduction Meet
In our quest to make these options more accessible and widely available, we began to explore AI tools like ChatGPT and Botpress. We realized that AI may very well be a superb resource to bring our database of harm reduction knowledge—like substance response videos to accompany test kits, testing information and suggestions, and other harm reduction FAQs—to the hands of any individual. With this in mind, we developed the Transparency Harm Reduction App, utilizing each generative AI and natural language processing to create a harm reduction “guide” accessible from anywhere.
While our app is currently the one implementation of AI for harm reduction that we’re aware of, we hope it will not remain the case. The long run of AI and harm reduction is amazingly promising, from helping expand upon at-home substance testing capabilities—like drug response identification—to pinpointing drug trends and rising adulterants in the web space that customers should concentrate on. AI could help individuals easily discover in-person harm reduction resources near them, reminiscent of syringe service programs, locations with free Narcan, and each brick and mortar and online test kit services. It could also help mail-in laboratories condense and distribute complex substance evaluation results into user-friendly summaries, and even update public drug databases with evaluation information to further understand the intricacies of the drug landscape.
From a broader perspective, expanding and strengthening services like Resistbot can be extremely relevant for harm reduction. Resistbot is an AI-driven chatbot that helps individuals contact state and federal government representatives to assist create petitions and drive legislative change. With many harm reduction tools still existing in a legal gray area (as a consequence of antiquated drug paraphernalia laws), legislative restriction is considered one of the largest hindrances to harm reduction aid. As AI improves, creating impactful petitions and driving harm reduction movements in this fashion would turn into more possible.
With proper training and help from harm reduction organizations and experts, AI may very well be harnessed and utilized to help in overcoming the present obstacles for harm reduction progression. This may higher educate the general public and supply tools to have interaction with substances more safely, ultimately lowering drug-related fatalities.
The Possibility with AI
Because the drug crisis becomes more visible, the necessity for an answer is on the forefront of everyone’s minds. While harm reduction initiatives each in-person and online are making an unlimited impact, making the most of every technological promise is crucial.
Within the near future, artificial intelligence will likely be implemented seamlessly into quite a lot of facets of our on a regular basis lives, and harm reduction is one where it could be particularly essential. With AI changing the landscape of our education and data systems, using it to raised equip the world with overdose prevention knowledge and safer use skills is a critical possibility—one we imagine is value working towards.
