Senior lecturer in human rights, School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Co-director of the International Centre on Human rights and Drug Policy. Author of Child Rights and Drug Control in International Law (2020).

Many people who inject drugs report having begun before the age of 18, while still legally children even if they might not identify or be perceived as such. The legal age of majority may be an important policy variable in considering the risk environment for drug related harm, and the concept of low thresholds in harm reduction policy and practice. In turn, these theories can help to understand what a rights-based approach to harm reduction among legal minors might look like. This presentation will set out the combined results of a mixed methods study across three high income countries – Sweden, Switzerland Wales. Our empirical material consists of harm reduction and drug treatment register data in all three countries, interviews with people who began injecting while under 18, focus group interviews with harm reduction and social work professionals, as well as legal and policy scans. Rooted in critical child rights scholarship, risk environment and threshold theory, we will present:

• What we can know about legal minors who inject drugs from register data
• Experiences and perspectives of people who inject drugs who began injecting before turning 18, as well as harm reduction, treatment and social work professionals
• Policy recommendations for creating an enabling environment for reducing drug related harm among a population we might not easily see, and rarely encounter

While aspects of our work have been published, this will be our first time bringing the mixed method results together.