Why Drug Users' Organizations are different from others ?

By Rajesh Khongbantabam *

To really understand why drug user's organizations are important and why they are different from other organizations, it is essential to first understand what it is that motivates and moves drug users to organize in the first place's. Drug users who are fighting to get rid of the tag "incurable disease", waiting in line for a ticket to mainstream society are not treated like the majority of other citizens.

The illegal nature of their drug use and the phase before total abstinence is brought results in them being treated as second class citizens who are hated and dismissed as either lazy, liar, thieves or poor, helpless victims or all of the above.

Unless you have direct experience of what it is like to live and be treated as an illegal drug user, it is impossible to fully comprehend the devastating impact this treatment/attitude has on people using drugs.

Drug users are survivors of a long and fierce war that has been waged for many, many years and like most wars, brings with it a bottleful of disaster including death, disease, crime, corruption and discrimination, not to speak of 'DRUG and POLITICS'.

While the legacy of years of poor treatment/attitude has resulted in many drug users feeling simply too self-pity to consider that they had the power to change themselves or the right to change the way that they are treated, the advent of HIV/AIDS in the late 80's provided a challenge and motivation for ex-drug users' to take action.

A growing understanding of the potential for HIV/AIDS to quite literally wipe out whole networks of drug users led to the development of a powerful social movement that has never been given full credit for the role it plays in preventing a major HIV/AIDS epidemic in the state not to mention the likes of SASO, Kripa Society, Lifeline Foundation, Care Foundation and MNP+ who are upfront in this movement, there are still budding Users' led organizations in the sidelines waiting to join the battle against this HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Drug user's organizations did not just appear overnight because they received funding or because the broader community agreed to "allow" them to exist. They are the result of a sustained, suppressed activism over a long period of time on the part of individual drug user activist.

Many, including the above-mentioned user based organization, if not all, existed for many years without any government/agencies or community support. In fact, the likes of SASO and MNP+ existed as an active and productive organization for years before it received any significant funding or community support.

What this history tells is, that user organization are not the sum of funding they received or indeed whether or not they even had a building to house the organization. Drug user organizing has been, and will always be about networks of politically active drug users driving themselves and those around them to promote and protect the health and human rights of all drug users irrespective of their class and distinction.

Too often, discussion about drug user's organizations, regardless of who initiates them, seems to focuses almost exclusively on 'external' factors and agendas rather then 'internal pride' and grassroots motivation.

It is an obvious statement to say that the factors motivating organizational decision making when it comes to the direction of organization, what the organization does, how drug user's organizations, regardless of who initiates them, seems to focuses almost exclusively on 'external' factors and agendas rather then 'internal pride' and grassroots motivation.

It is an obvious statement to say that the factors motivating organizational decision making when it comes to the direction of organization, what the organization does, how it operates etc. have a direct link to the organizations on going survival, reputation and profile.

Unfortunately, however, the factors influencing or motivating critical decision in user organization are increasingly more about what the funding body wants or expects or what the community thinks rather than being focused on the issues drug users want to be address and finding the best way to address those issues Like most social and political movements, the history of drug user organizing is central to how drug user understands who they are and what they are fighting to achieve and sometimes serving as a reminder to self-identity.

Beyond these basic issues, however, before going down the road of direct services delivery, user based organization must ask themselves how providing the particular service or range of services may change their relationship with their members and other local drug users.

Is it possible for drug user organization to lose the very uniqueness that sets them apart from other mainstream organization when they become direct service provider rather than provider of more activists – based education, advocacy and lobbying?

For example, services developed and delivered by users for other drug users are, by and large, more accessible, user-friendlier, less judgmental and better targeted than services offered in mainstream settings.