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International Drug Users Day continued
Fabrice Olivet (ASUD - France), Matt Southwell (National Drug Users Network - UK), Joergen Kjaer (Danish Drug User Network - Denmark) and Theo van Dam (LSD).
Introductory remarks
Fabrice:
At the Harm Reduction Conference in Florence, seven interesting organizations were present. There
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international users and organizations at first seems like a complex affair, considering the substantial differences between the various countries.
Matt:
In a way, you could say that an international network of user organizations already exists. The contacts are there; they don't have to be set up anymore. The more structures there are, the more complex communication can become. A 'development agency', an advisory body, which can be reached by
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was an atmosphere of distrust, and a lot of 'security'. Members of interest groups received little, if any room for voicing their opinion. ASUD then took the initiative to hold a meeting for interest group activists.
It was about time to 'send a message' to the harm reduction movement that drug users want practical involvement in the policy and set up of harm reduction.
Currently there seems to be active dialogue and faith by the harm reduction movement in the involvement of drug users and their organizations.
A network of
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interest organizations all over the world might be more constructive.
Fabrice:
Drug users are still struggling with their own identity. Because they are drug users, they have a bad self image; a consequence of the general ignorance surrounding the phenomena of 'drugs'.
To be able to talk of an 'organization', we'll first have to reach a consensus about our identity. And this identity will have to exceed the use of drugs, because drug use causes division also within the organization, owing to the different status of the various kinds of drugs.The movement ...
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