The enforcement threshold approach to harm reduction

The harm reduction approach to public policy is canonically associated with the institution of supervised consumption sites for drug users. In recent work, both Daniel Weinstock and Shannon Dea have argued that the basic structure of normative reasoning employed in this case can be applied in many other policy domains. Harm reduction, they claim, constitutes a general approach to reasoning about policy questions in deeply non-ideal circumstances. Although agreeing on this point, they offer differing accounts of the approach, with Weinstock emphasizing what he calls the ‘fact of reasonable disagreement,’ and Dea focusing on the ‘fact of unenforceability.’ This paper develops a criticism of Weinstock’s approach, before offering an elaboration and defense of Dea’s ‘unenforceability’ view. The position defended is referred to as the ‘enforcement threshold’ approach to harm reduction.