Rituals play a very important role. He [Stanton Peele] likened the injection ritual to cigarette smoking. “People don’t say ‘I’m addicted to nicotine.’ Smoking is a ritual; it’s an activity,” he says. As with smoking, the act of using the narcotics is as important as the effects of the narcotic itself. He stresses the importance of radical harm reduction models, such as safe consumption sites that allow people to inject heroin safely and under supervision.