Andria Efthimiou-Mordaunt,
founder of the John Mordaunt Trust, berates PN for its failure to cover the
spread of HIV among injecting drug users
from Andria Efthimiou-Mordaunt
Life
is strange. Before Christmas, frustrated with the woeful lack of
coverage of Aids and injection drug use issues in Positive Nation, I wrote
to the editor pointing out the gap. A few days later, a member of my family
was diagnosed with Aids and I spent much of the next week with him. This redoubled
my resolve to write more about injection drug use and HIV in Positive Nation,
our national magazine. In a way, I am an elder in the ‘therapeutic addict’
community; that is, I put the needles down, got a prescription for chronic
pain and, as they say, ‘got a life’.
A fellow activist in New York once wrote: ‘Legal = Life’ which
has proven to be true, though there are occasional ropey days when I must
be careful not to take more pain control than necessary. The great thing is
that I have found this to be possible, after a few years of not injecting
drugs. After I stabilised, I started to feel grateful and got into full-time
activism and advocacy. Back in 2001, quite out of the blue, I received a letter
from Lin, a fellow therapeutic addict in south London saying she was very
concerned with the lack of knowledge and education about HIV available to
young injectors. Indeed, Lin said she was forced to pull these young people
up firmly and remind them HIV was not over and that they must somehow find
a place to access clean needles and never share them. She collected some data,
a small sample study, that showed clearly what she was talking about. Of 66
young injectors, she found that 70 per cent had virtually no information on
blood borne disease prevention and only two per cent knew how to inject drugs
correctly.
Her biggest concern was that 55 per cent were under the impression that HIV
was no longer an issue and that the risk of contracting illnesses like HIV
was negligible. Lin felt protective towards these young people and angry that
harm reduction service providers had not reached them. Here are some more
sobering facts: in Ireland, the National Disease Surveillance Centre (NDSC)
reported a 10 per cent increase in new HIV cases in 2003. These included children
as young as eight and nine, only some of whom were the children of HIV positive
women. Just a few months ago at the All-Party Parliamentary group on Drugs,
National Treatment Agency (NTA) worker Annette Dale-Perera mentioned there
was now evidence that the HIV infection rate was rising among young injectors
in England. Perhaps she would have had this information earlier had she hired
Lin to conduct the research.So what’s to be done? Well, first, all HIV
journals in this country need to more seriously consider the fact that HIV
is not over and that applies to injecting drug users too. While figures may
seem low compared with other groups, we cannot wallow in complacency when
kids as young as 12 are shooting up dope with each other,
hiding their drug use (of course) and potentially getting themselves embroiled
with various dangerous scenes. Secondly, we need to train more young people
in contact with vulnerable youth about blood borne viruses and how to communicate
with those kids most at risk. These may be well-supervised, detached outreach
workers, and/or drug agencies specifically established to address the health
and social needs of young illegal drug users.
Thirdly, we need to reach out to young people’s magazines and get them
to cover this issue and not sweep it under the carpet. I laugh now, but even
when I was a young drug user I read girly magazines that of course only ever
said: “Just say no”.
Credible information is not about moralising or dictating, but about saying:
“If you do use, please be careful and ‘this’ is what we
mean.” My personal experience is that it’s difficult to navigate
safe use under our currently punitively prohibitive system as (more often
than not) we don’t know the potency of the street drugs we are purchasing
or what they are cut with. But, even so, there are
strategies we can use to minimise harm. At the very least we can make a start
by getting blood borne HIV prevention and care back into the pages of Positive
Nation. Older ex/current drug users are our fellow citizens and you may well
find that once they are given the opportunity to re-engage, they are more
than willing to assist in the fight against Aids in our neighbourhoods and
communities, particularly the younger ones as we feel compelled to stop them
undergoing the suffering we did.
• www.usersvoice.org.uk
