First, Do Less Harm: Harm Reduction as a Principle of Law and Policy

Readers will be able to gain a deeper understanding of how different approaches to harm reduction can create a stronger foundation for more effective policies and legislation. Scholars from law and social sciences collaborate with frontline organizations as well as with individuals with lived experience to reflect diverse perspectives, and transform how society addresses substance-related challenges.

Each chapter provides unique findings, drawing from examples of harm reduction strategies implemented for opioids, cannabis, and tobacco in Canada and beyond. While harm reduction has been a central aspect of the legal and policy responses to all three substances, its application has varied significantly.

First, Do Less Harm explores how the ongoing opioid crisis emphasizes the pressing need for safe consumption sites and life-saving tools like naloxone. Case studies on Canada’s legalization of cannabis highlight both the benefits and challenges of providing legal and regulated access to a drug. The volume further examines the evolving landscape of tobacco regulations where recent innovations such as vaping offer less harmful alternatives, yet raise significant concerns about youth uptake and public health.

Designed for policymakers, health professionals, academics, and anyone interested in creating safer communities, this collection not only presents thought-provoking ideas but also provides inspiration to take action.

Joao Velloso (Contributor) João Velloso teaches sentencing and ＂sanctioning＂, legal research methods, criminology and socio-legal studies. He has a multidisciplinary background in law, criminology, sociology, anthropology and communication. He works in the areas of criminal law and sentencing, critical criminology and socio-legal studies, more particularly sociology and anthropology of law. His empirical research deals with the penalization of protesters and migrants (deportation and detention), access to justice in detention, and the regulation of cannabis. He is particularly interested in the governance of security through the use of administrative law and the deterioration of rights resulting from these penal configurations that operate alternatively and in addition to criminal justice.
Dr. Velloso is a member of the uOttawa Human Rights Research and Education Centre and and he participates in different Canadian and international research networks and projects, such as: Access to Law and Access to Justice (www.adaj.canorth_eastexternal link), Institute of Comparative Studies in Conflict Management (http: //www.ineac.uff.br/north_eastexternal link), Canadian Partnership for International Justice (https: //cpij-pcji.ca/north_eastexternal link), Observatory Violence, Criminalization and Democracy in Latin America (http: //ovcd.org/north_eastexternal link), Ottawa Hub for Reduction Network (www.lessharms.canorth_eastexternal link), Observatory on Profiling (https: //profilages.info/north_eastexternal link), and Prison Transparency Project (https: //carleton.ca/prisontransparencyproject/north_eastexternal link).Sam Halabi (Contributor) Sam Halabi is the director of the Center for Transformational Health Law and a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Health. He is also an affiliate researcher at its Center for Global Health Science and Security.
Prior to O’Neill, Halabi served as the senior associate vice-president for Health Policy and Ethics at Colorado State University and as a professor at the Colorado School of Public Health. He is the former Manley O. Hudson Professor of Law and director of the Center for Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurship at the University of Missouri, where he earned the Husch Blackwell Award for Distinguished Teaching. He has published five books and more than 80 manuscripts in the fields of data sharing, the development and deployment of vaccines in routine and emergency circumstances, liability and indemnity factors affecting private sector participation in emergency response, the philosophy of medicine, international technology transfer, public health ethics, universal health coverage, and vector-borne disease surveillance.Ryan Pusiak (Contributor) Ryan Pusiak is Ph. D. Candidate in the Biology Department at the University of Ottawa.Marewa Glover (Contributor) Dr Glover is a Māori (New Zealand indigenous) behavioural scientist with over 30 years experience in public health and over 100 scientific papers. She is well known for her compassionate insight and advocacy on tobacco harm reduction, which resulted in her being appointed as Tobacco Section Editor for the international Harm Reduction Journal in 2019. In 2017, Marewa was a Finalist in the New Zealand Women of Influence Awards and in 2019, in recognition of her contribution to society she was named one of three finalists in the New Zealander of The Year Awards. Previously Marewa was a Professor of Public Health at Massey University and Chair of End Smoking NZ. Much of her work as a Professor of Public Health has concentrated on designing pragmatic solutions to reduce smoking, particularly smoking while pregnant. She has also studied how to reduce obesity, and the barriers for Māori to breastfeeding and assisted human reproduction assistance.Amelia Howard (Contributor) Amelia Howard is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Waterloo studying vaping innovation and the politics of technological change.Vanessa Gruben (Editor) Vanessa Gruben B.Sc.H (Queen’s), LL.B. (Ottawa), LL.M. (Columbia) is Vice Dean (Academic) and Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Common Law and a member of the Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics. She also leads the Ottawa Hub for Harm Reduction - a multidisciplinary forum for scholars and community organizations who work on innovative harm reduction strategies. She is also co-editor of the 5th edition of Canada’s leading text on health law and policy in Canada, Canadian Health Law and Policy, co-edited with Joanna Erdman and Erin Nelson (LexisNexis, 2017). Professor Gruben teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in Health Law and a seminar on Access to Health Care.