Page 26 - WHACK35

“MELBOURNE
Safe INCLUDING INJECTING,
DESPERATELY NEEDS
A CONSUMPTION
ROOM, RUN BY USERS
FO R USERS,
CATERING FOR ALL
ROUTES OF
ADMINISTRATION,
Consumption PLACED TO ADVOCATE
SMOKING AND OTHER
ROUTES.
DRUG USERS ARE BEST

FOR ONGOING
LAW REFORM,
INCLUDING THE

DRUGS. “
(Injecting) DECRIMINALISATION OF

Rooms

W HY L A W R E F O R M I S S O IMP O R TAN T T O DR U G U S E R S
Maureen Steele and Elena Jeffreys

The world seems like a big of drug use is damaging so ‘problem,’ not the drug
place, but when you are It might sound unusual to many people, in so many itself.
a member of a ‘minority’ be still interested in the ways, because of widely D R U G S A R E U S ED
group, or subculture, the same issues two decades held beliefs based upon A L L OV ER T H E
number of people who later, but isn’t really. Many prejudice, stigma and WO R L D E V ERY
share the same beliefs as people think that thoughts stereotypes. These ideas
you diminishes, and the and ideas about drug use result in marginalisation DAY – CO F F EE ,
world can seem very, very are something you have and the loss of human S UG A R , A LCOH OL ,
small. Humans gravitate when you are ‘young’ – and rights for people who use P R E S C R IP TI O N S ,
towards others who that the older and more drugs. M E DIC AT IO N S A R E
share similar values and ‘responsible’ you become, AL L S U B S TANC E S
ideals. We (the authors, you should stop using drugs People say drugs users have T H AT H AVE A
Maureen and Elena), or caring about drug related ‘problems,’ and that if users
first met each other at a issues. We both find this stop using drugs we will ME A NIN G F U L
meeting of injecting drug pretty damned tough stop having ‘problems.’ I M PAC T ON OUR
users in Perth who were considering the devastating Obviously drug users don’t B O D IE S A ND S TATE
interested in setting up an effects of our current drug have ‘problems’ because of O F MIND.
organisation for drug users, laws. For us, we became drug use - (though some So many of these substances
in the mid-1990s. And so it even more concerned the would like to convince have been illicit in the past,
should come as no surprise older we got. Maureen that she has drug or in the present. ‘Illegality’
that almost twenty years problems by default of is an outcome of politics
later we met again, as staff The longer you look at being on the methadone and history, usually urged
of the supervised injecting drug issues, the more you program.) It’s the illegality on by a moral panic of
centre in Sydney. see how the criminalisation of drugs that creates the some sort. Today, many

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