Earlier this week The Guardian reported that
The Obama administration signalled today that it was ready to repudiate the prohibition and "war on drugs" approach of previous presidents, and steer policy towards prevention and "harm reduction" strategies favoured by Europe.
Unfortunately, there's far less to the change of course actually being proposed than that rather optimistic article and others like it imply.
In fact, the Obama administration opposed including actual harm reduction measures in the guidelines that will direct the UN's global drug policy for the next decade. It did this over the strenuous opposition of 26 countries (including Canada, Australia, and most of Europe) that saw the value of taking a health-based approach to drug policy instead of continuing with the same failed punitive law-enforcement approach of the past few decades.
The Obama administration actually opposes "harm reduction," which includes programs like needle exchanges, drug substitution, and safe injection sites that are meant to mitigate the most harmful effects of illegal drug use. What they are going to do that's new is provide federal support for needle exchanges and stop using the war on drugs rhetoric, and that's about it. That and the nomination of Seattle police chief Gil Kerlikowske to be head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy are steps in the right direction, but they are baby steps only.
If you want to understand what is meant by harm reduction and what value it has as opposed to the drug warrior approach to dealing with drug use, I strongly suggest you take the time to watch this program from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's The Fifth Estate. It's a piece called Staying Alive, and it's about North America's only safe injection site, Vancouver's Insite facility. If you watch it I guarantee you'll get a better understanding of the rationale for and value of harm reduction as part of drug policy.