The Ana Liffey Drug Project: "If You Bang It, Bin It"

The Ana Liffey Drug Project's Peer Support Group is a well established programme designed to enable active drug users to spread Harm Reduction messages throughout the drug using community. The programme is set out over an eight week period and involves two morning sessions a week - Tuesday and Friday. The sessions include group work, outside speakers and talks from staff members on key drug issues. The course recognises the reality of the lifestyles of people who actively use drugs. The structure has been designed to be very flexible - participants have input into the topics to be covered, and the group is open access. The Peer Support Group also plays a valuable role in informing Ana Liffey's service delivery, through their 'Duck, Dive & Survive' resources. In 2009, Peer Support Group resources won a health literacy award.

Towards the end of 2009 the Ana Liffey Drug Project raised the issue of unsafe disposal of drug paraphernalia at a number of forums including the Peer Support Group. The Peer Support Group was concerned that people who did not dispose of their works appropriately were putting other people at risk. With this in mind the group were invited to work on a poster as part of their 'Duck, Dive & Survive' campaign.

Read more on the Ana Liffey Drug Project website here. Good stuff!

This Is Why: Poignant Words from Off the Streets Discussion Board

OK...as an X-IV drug user, I wil tell you first hand that we need to have clean needles available. Personally, I cannot count how many times I have shared works, just to not be sick!!! And that is someting I said I would NEVER, EVER do...as we all know, addiction is a disease of progression, and we will do whatever it takes to secure our fix. I recall picking up discarded works from the side of the street, and in gutters...horrible...I am grateful to have 2 years free of heroin now! I know to be cautious, all I have regained that was once lost could be lost again faster than one could ever imagine...we will not stop drug use all together...but we can provide the equipment needed to ensure drug use that will not spread the diseases of HIV and HEP C. I was active for 10 years and I did contract HEP C...by the grace of the Goddess (in which I choose to believe)...I am HIV negative...How this happened, I can only say that I was pulled from a life of degredation and pain...and I will be grateful for everyday that I have here on Earth...SOBER and CLEAN... I firmly support making needle kits available to help ensure public safety. I am not supporting drug use, but...an addict will stop at nothing to get what they need at that moment in time...why can't we make it just a little safer? Thanks for listening... 

(from Off the Streets Facebook Discussion Board, November 2009)

Letter of Support from Coalition of Police Supporting Harm Reduction

It is interesting to read through the many letters that have come in from all over showing support for the volunteers currently facing misdemeanor charges in Modesto. One letter in particular that stands out as relevant to the situation here in Stanislaus County comes from harm reduction expert and 17-year police veteran Gregory Denham, an ally from Australia.

Copied below is the letter he submitted to the Stanislaus District Attorney's Office in support of Brian Robinson and Kristy Tribuzio. Read it below - pretty much says it all. And for those who may argue that he is from Australia and it doesn't apply here, our answer is that substance use, public health and safety, and harm reduction principles know no boundaries. While environments and certain nuances may be unique, widespread patterns and implications remain rather consistent whether we are talking about Europe, Mexico or Atlanta, Georgia. Read on:

Gregory Denham
Law Enforcement and Harm Reduction Advisor
Nossal Institute for Global Health
Monash University
Melbourne
Victoria 3000
Australia  

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Greg Denham and I am a former state police officer having served in an operational capacity for 17 years in state police forces in Australia. Over the past ten years or so I have been working both locally and internationally in promoting police/health partnerships with a particular focus on the prevention of the spread of HIV and other blood borne viruses.

As you would be aware, there has been a growing health emergency for nearly 30 years that has required urgent action to halt the spread of AIDS. None more evident is the USA where there are approximately 50,000 new HIV cases each year, thousands of new Hepatitis C cases also, many attributed to sharing contaminated injecting equipment.

Police are now recognised as an integral part of the approach to prevent the transmission of these potentially deadly diseases, the police role cannot be emphasised enough. 

The most effective police approach has been found to give to support to programs that seek to reduce the risk of the spread of HIV - to both the individual and the community (including police). These programs, often termed 'harm reduction', include needle and syringe programs, methadone treatment, and condom distribution. Numerous police agencies throughout the world (including in the USA) have initiated both formal and informal policies and practices that support these harm reduction approaches. They are well documented in the literature and have been successfully evaluated.

In policing terms, it is essential that police become aware of their important role in this issue. Harm reduction cannot, and will not, work without the active participation of police. Further, police must be supported at the government level in the adoption of these supportive policies and practices and advocacy must be conducted with the communities where these programs operate.

Police and government must understand that harm reduction programs do not facilitate drug use, increase the number of people using drugs, entice drug users into a community, nor increase crime. Research in fact shows the opposite; needle and syringe programs are an effective bridge to treatment and improve the amenity of the local area through cleaning up of discarded syringes and other paraphernalia.

To aid the development of more effective approaches by police and explain their role in policing terms, I have initiated the Coalition of Police Supporting Harm Reduction (COPS HR). This network provides training, guidance and advice to police officers throughout the world in their role in this important health issue.

I would be more than happy to elaborate on these points and am available to discuss these issues further at any time.

Best Regards,

Greg Denham
Law Enforcement and Harm Reduction Advisor
Nossal Institute for Global Health
Monash University

October 15th 2009

World AIDS Day 2009: The War on Drugs is NOT WORKING

(December 1, 2009, London) - Governments worldwide should take urgent action to reform punitive drug laws, disproportionate penalties, and harsh and discriminatory law enforcement practices as part of their efforts to address HIV among people who use drugs, Human Rights Watch and the International Harm Reduction Association said today, World AIDS Day. Current policies also cause needless suffering among people living with HIV/AIDS, the two groups said in a joint briefing note released today.

International health and drug control agencies - including the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, UNAIDS, UNICEF, the United Nations Development Program, and the World Health Organization - all endorse comprehensive harm reduction services as the best ways to address HIV among people who use drugs, including those in detention. These services include needle and syringe exchange, medication-assisted therapy (for example, with methadone), and peer outreach and education programs. Notwithstanding broad endorsement and overwhelming scientific evidence that these approaches work, they are out of reach for the vast majority of people who need them.

• For the complete story posted on the Human Rights Watch website click here.

Harm Reduction 101: The Foundation of Syringe Exchange

From the Harm Reduction Coalition:

Principles of Harm Reduction

Harm reduction is a set of practical strategies that reduce negative consequences of drug use, incorporating a spectrum of strategies from safer use, to managed use to abstinence. Harm reduction strategies meet drug users "where they're at," addressing conditions of use along with the use itself.

Because harm reduction demands that interventions and policies designed to serve drug users reflect specific individual and community needs, there is no universal definition of or formula for implementing harm reduction. However, HRC considers the following principles central to harm reduction practice.

• Accepts, for better and for worse, that licit and illicit drug use is part of our world and chooses to work to minimize its harmful effects rather than simply ignore or condemn them.
• Understands drug use as a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon that encompasses a continuum of behaviors from severe abuse to total abstinence, and acknowledges that some ways of using drugs are clearly safer than others.
• Establishes quality of individual and community life and well-being--not necessarily cessation of all drug use--as the criteria for successful interventions and policies.
• Calls for the non-judgmental, non-coercive provision of services and resources to people who use drugs and the communities in which they live in order to assist them in reducing attendant harm.
• Ensures that drug users and those with a history of drug use routinely have a real voice in the creation of programs and policies designed to serve them.
• Affirms drugs users themselves as the primary agents of reducing the harms of their drug use, and seeks to empower users to share information and support each other in strategies which meet their actual conditions of use.
• Recognizes that the realities of poverty, class, racism, social isolation, past trauma, sex-based discrimination and other social inequalities affect both people's vulnerability to and capacity for effectively dealing with drug-related harm.
• Does not attempt to minimize or ignore the real and tragic harm and danger associated with licit and illicit drug use.

The Harm Reduction Coalition has a ridiculous amount of resources and a very comprehensive website. If you want to learn more, start there.