CONCLUSIONES DE LA PROPUESTA DE INTERVENCIÓN

In this section I discuss some of the negative perceptions expressed about the

involvement of people who use illicit drugs in partnerships. The opinions expressed in the conversations reflect mixed views among members of Australia’s ‘drug policy community’ of the success, or otherwise, of the role of illicit drug users in

partnerships. As was discussed in the previous section, no clear patterns emerged from the data to indicate that different perspectives on the negative views of partnerships were related to their role as policy makers, service providers or user advocates. These negative perceptions of partnerships demonstrate that where an ideal governmentality model has not been applied it can undermine attempts to ‘govern at a distance’ through the unique expertise of people who use illicit drugs. This approach is more in line with the concept of ‘authoritarian liberalism’ discussed in Chapter Two where distinctions are made between those capable of bearing the responsibilities of freedom and those who are considered in need of more ‘pastoral guidance’.

Charteris-Black (2005) has identified how politicians commonly employ rhetoric for a variety of ends in policy communication and the creation of myths and illusions. One user advocate felt very strongly that the concept of involving users in partnerships had been little more than a rhetorical device of government that reflects this view

At best I would say that the involvement of users in partnerships is rhetoric and tokenism. After the NSW Drug Summit there was a

recommendation about accreditation of methadone clinics and one of the standards that was put into the accreditation was about consumer

participation in this process. I don’t know any users who have been involved in the accreditation processes of these methadone services. And from our organisation’s perspective we have never been surveyed or remotely involved in anything resembling consumer participation. And at a State government level we [users] are excluded from the main policy decision-making bodies. It has been discussed that we become members of these bodies but it has been decided that the peak NGO service provider body will be, but we as a representative of users are viewed as too much of an interest group to be involved at that level. We have a smattering of senior bureaucrats and the like but the people most affected, the drug users, are left out (Respondent 6).

This issue of service providers purporting to be able to represent the interests of people who use illicit drugs was another recurring theme in the interviews and are discussed in more detail in the following chapter.

Another advocate who had been involved in various incarnations of the now defunct Tasmanian user organisations had a similar negative view about the role of people who use illicit drugs in partnerships

You look at what’s happening in Tasmania now and still we don’t have a lot of input or involvement of users. They remain a minority, that is very much an underground minority, and hence we still have huge issues around the transmission of blood borne viruses and other health issues. I don’t think any of those have gone away, in fact they may have gotten worse (Respondent 7).

A service provider who has worked in the alcohol and drug sector for many years in Tasmania, and participated in a range of government policy development bodies over that time, also felt that the involvement of illicit drug users in partnerships had been a failure which has led to poor policy outcomes

In Tasmania it has been totally unsuccessful. Really there hasn’t been any such partnership that I know of in the last 15 years. There’s no

connection between bureaucrats and illicit drug users, there’s no

understanding at all, so I don’t think they can produce a workable policy document (Respondent 13).

While the comments from conversational partners above suggest that the involvement of people who use illicit drugs in partnerships has not been successful, others felt that this approach had mixed success. One respondent working in the policy development area had conflicting views on the involvement of users in partnerships

I would say to date involvement of users has been sporadic. It all depends on which perspective you take. In my experience of the drug treatment services system, not particularly successful. However, with some of the primary health services in Victoria I have had some external involvement with, their processes were more informed by the views of people who use illicit drugs. Consumers have some input into the day-to- day operations of these services. They seemed to have good processes in place, that I think came initially from the employment of peers, that allowed some of the potential cultural barriers, a sort of “us and them” divide, to be removed. There was a sense of a right to be in that space, there was a certain level of comfort which I have not necessarily seen in drug treatment agencies in Tasmania (Respondent 2).

One service provider, who also provided high-level policy advice to governments at both State and Federal levels, felt that Australia had failed to learn from previous experience of involving users in responding to critical public health issues

In responding to HIV and HCV the effectiveness of partnerships with people who use drugs in Australia has been profound. But if you come to the area of drug treatment I think it’s a very different story (Respondent 4).

It was felt by some conversational partners that this failure to learn from the

successful response to HIV involving affected communities saw the stigmatisation of drug users persist in health services and other settings. Further, the Howard Coalition Government’s “Tough on Drugs” rhetoric was felt to have placed harm reduction

technologies such as needle and syringe programs (NSP’s), a hallmark of the

successful response to HIV, at risk (Ballard 2005:22; Treloar et al. 2006). However, the Howard Government’s increased funding support to expand needle and syringe programs indicates recognition of the important role they play in reducing drug related harm, even though the “Tough on Drugs” rhetoric has been argued to work ‘against the involvement of affected communities in strategic and service delivery responses’ (Treloar et al. 2006:3). These contradictions again support the view that the field of illicit drugs is a ‘contested political terrain’ (Rowe and Mendes 2004:6-7). In this section I have discussed the views of conversational partners who felt that the involvement of people who use illicit drugs in partnerships has been unsuccessful or, as one put it ‘sporadic’. As with the views that efforts to engage users had been successful that I discussed earlier, there was no clear pattern to suggest that a conversational partner’s role in the ‘drug policy community’ influenced their perceptions on this. Again this highlights the contentious nature of partnerships involving users. In the following section I discuss some of the views expressed during the conversations about factors that impact on the meaningful participation of people who use illicit drugs in partnerships.