Harm Reduction and Substance Use Through an Islamic Ethico-Legal Lens 
Nasir Malim, Montefiore/Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY

Harm reduction as a public health concept is a set of strategies that help reduce the negative impacts around an action, specifically negative health complications, death, and adverse social outcomes. Though implemented variably, harm reduction practices have existed in many parts of the world, including the United States and other Muslim majority nations, with increasing usage of different methods of harm reduction over the past decades in both of those regions. The current analysis of harm reduction examines substance use. There is growing evidence on the reduction of death and other negative health outcomes through implementing harm reduction programs which has resulted in increased urgency to expand such practices. However, socially in both the United States and among Muslim communities within America and beyond, stigma and criminalization around many forms of substance use exists that ultimately limits the full ability to implement harm reduction programs. To further assess the potential discord between the health benefits of harm reduction and potential moral and legal prohibitions around substance use, we discuss the ethico-legal validity of harm reduction practices using an Islamic framework. Due to evidenced public health benefits, harm reduction practices are considered valid by a majority of interdisciplinary and legal scholars on the basis of providing the greatest public interest and reducing harm. Thus, the potential moral and legal prohibitions around individual acts of substance use are overruled to ultimately preserve life, and reduce associated morbidity. Additionally, some examples of harm reduction practices tailored to Muslim populations are described.