Injection Drug Users as Social Actors: A Stigmatized Community's Participation in the Syringe Exchange Programmes of New York

In 1992, New York State Dept of Health regulations provided for fully legal syringe exchange programs in the state. The inclusion of drug users as official advisors to the legal programs was seen as a method for incorporating the views of service consumers in operational decisions, & the regulations implied a new public image for users of illicit psychoactive drugs: active drug users were seen to be capable not only of self-protective actions (eg, avoiding human immunodeficiency virus infection), but also of serving as competent collaborators in programs to preserve the public health. This development has important implications with regard to the evolution of official drug policy, since it will be difficult in future to treat injected drug users as simply the passive objects of state intervention. Whether as individuals or representatives of a wider population of illicit drug users, they have acquired a legitimacy & sense of personal worth that would have been unthinkable in previous periods. 27 References. Adapted from the source document.