A public controversy - Fabrice France

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A public controversy concerning the failure of the drugs users representations in the 19th conference of the IHRA

Written by Fabrice Olivet

ASUD France

May 20, 2008
Introduction

I have just com back from the 19th conference of the International Harm Reduction Association in Barcelona, and I never felt myself as frustrated, disagreed and bitter, regarding the drugs users self organizing scene.

My interest of the IRHA conferences is deeply target on the drugs users move. In fact, ASUD is an indirect emanation of the existence of such a conferences and so, I ‘m deeply touched when I feel that the all harm reduction system is improving except the part from where I belong.

egarding the excessive unorganized situation of the so called INPUD association witch is supposed to represent us, I’m in the necessity of make the people know my feelings regarding this failure which is also a result of my responsibilities as a drugs users leader.

A bit of History…

When I first came into a conference it was in Berlin at the AIDS conference of 1993. The organisation has provided methadone treatments directly on the site of the conference. A few drugs users associations were visible, and the host organization, the YES group, was saying a few words of welcome to all the new groups who were arriving. Werner Hermann, the YES leader, was the one chosen to speak at the closing ceremony session and after his speech, a standing ovation of the all session applause him during 5 mn . 5 mn of applause is very long and very impressive.

learned from Werner a part of the historic foundation of the move. Nico Adriaans from Junky Bund of Rotterdam, John Mordaunt from Liverpool and the U.K. movement and I remember that those figures was a strong symbolic help for me when I come back to France and try to do my best to do the same job than those people did.

After that, my first IHRA conference was in Paris in 1997. ASUD the host association has organized, with the finance help of Limiter La Casse the local Harm reduction association, a satellite meeting named ‘International Meeting of (a) Drug User – I ‘M D.U. has been organized with the help and complicity of IHRA. My remembrance about this is two hundreds persons in the sessions standing and shouting "I’m drugs users!".

Since that, we’ve had a lot of interesting times with Matthew Southwell and his incredible presentation of Geneva (1999), Theo Van Dam from LSD in Utrecht (1998), Jude Byrne from AIVL – the Autralian league- in Jersey (2000), Annie Madden from AIVL as well in Ljubljana (2002). I got myself the chance to present our thought about the danger of medicalization in Jersey 2000. It is impossible to record all the interesting moments that we have shared during this conferences with Astrid (Germany), Grant, Erin (U.K.) Raffi (Cannada) Jorgen (Denmark), Jimmy (India), and many names I presently forget, but the main thing to record is that each time we were proud of our movement, each time we were going back in our countries thinking that drugs users movement have gained a few points in the way of being represented and recognized by the Harm reduction movement.

Then came a period of discouragements…

We tried to organized ourselves as an international network (without any financial help) and we failed. The only creation was an international Internet list witch appears to be a battlefield or a ‘discouraging list’. I keep on concentrated on the national purposes, I miss a few conference, and I finally heard that now a new network is born in Vancouver three years ago with the financial help of IHRA, which was the thing we were begging for since many years.

ASUD, the organisation I work for, is now well established in the French harm reduction network. During these 11 years we have grown, even if it is still difficult to exist as drugs users movement in such a society. I went to Barcelona with good hope that with such a new tool called INPUD, we have all the keys to grow as well at the international level.

But my discover of the event makes me come down: the self organisation drugs users movement has gone down, very deeply, it is in a worse situation that it was 15 years ago. The new activists, the presentations of several drugs users groups are often interesting but relegated in small rooms without translations, and most of all, INPUD the official organization is a kind of disaster.

Reasons of the frustrations: why Barcelona was such a mess!

1. Historical identity

INPUD has been possible because other guys have done some work before: history of the movement should be part of the identity of INPUD, otherwise we are standing on nothing. The memory of our movement is not only an ethical duty, it is also a way to grow and became powerful. I met new activists in this 19th conference who seem very effective and cleaver. But nobody was there to speak to them of the past. Nobody was there to let them share their experiences with what we’ve learned from the experiences of before. INPUD has been created without any references of what happens before INPUD, without any help of the persons who has worked on drugs users move, this is the first failure. Results: 3 years after Vancouver, in Barcelona, drugs users movement appears to be miserable and less organized that it was 10 years ago.

2. Conferences venues

We all know that the price of the entry gets high year by year, but in the same time it seems that the scholarships for the users is going downer and downer. My organization gets only one, even if we have offered 40 000 copies of free promotion of the conference in ASUD Magazine. It was very different of what happened in the past and no one can help thinking that this is a result of being included or excluded from the first circle persons of INPUD. In addition, we have learned that the budget of INPUD mentioned 26 000 us$ on a total amount of 30 000 reserved to the salary of the director. This made people a bit mad.

3. Promotion of d.u. abstracts

Normally this is supposed to be the job of the person representing the d.u. Move in the program committee to defend the drugs users abstracts. STINJE, the director was also this key person. We don’t have any ideas of the difficulties he has regarding this, because nothing was organized to talk about this.

I have been in many conferences, mostly in Europe ( Paris 1997- Geneva1999- Jersey 2000- Ljubljana 2002- Melbourne 2004- Belfast 2005). Each time my abstract was accepted and I got a free entrance for my organization. Suddenly, since INPUD is creating in Vancouver my abstracts are rejected and no more scholarship for ASUD. A structure that is supposed to defend my interest is objectively killing my possibilities of being visible in the conferences from where my organization comes.

To fight this problem, we have worked to organize a session with Erin O’Mara from Black Poppy mag, and we finally succeed to have a couple of sessions. This was done without any help of INPUD. This was done in spite of INPUD. The result was not so bad but in a room without translation in very bad conditions. Our animator was Gaspar Fraga the Spanish director of CANAMO one of the best cannabis magazine of the entire world. The guy was incredibly nice to come just after his chemotherapy. But without translation or PowerPoint we just have a brief talk with him before he left the session unable to understand a word. This came from the lack of support of INPUD

4. Choice of speakers in the Pleanaries

Normally the board of INPUD should debate this important matter openly and the first meeting of INPUD should be a debriefing of what happens in such a matter. I remember that in the past, we had a bunch of arguments around these subjects. A lot of disagreements, a lot of talks, but at last we knew who was chosen and why.

In Barcelona I got the surprise to read that Milena from Bulgaria was the one in charge of speaking about « drugs users organizations all over the world ». Frankly I have nothing to say on this presentation I haven’t seen it. The only thing I know is that Milena claimed herself that she is the girlfriend of the INPUD director- I mention this because we have all got a few e-mails all over the world to inform us on this important matter- And I perfectly know that she never have a single phone call with us to know how is the self-help situation in France. From what I could listen she neither try to know what happen in Sweden, Danemark, Germany, Australia and Nederland. I mention only these ones because they are all countries where the self support move is ancient and well organized since years, but which seemed to appears as absolutely uninteresting for INPUD.

5. First meeting of INPUD on Sunday, May 11

The first INPUD sessions were useless and unorganized. Its problematic understandable. The contents were completely different than what was written on the program. In the place of being welcomed by the official drugs users representation we’ve sit and listen to the list of places where the director of INPUD was present. I’m glad to ear that Stinjes went to the UNAIDS 3 times or 4 times but at the same time because INPUD is absolutely unknown in FRANCE and had never tried to get in real touch with us we don’t feel to be represented in all those important tribunes.

The general assemble which was supposed to be there was sent to the Wednesday, nobody told us why, we even don’t have any documents about this, so most of the people began to doubt of the friability of the all thing.

6. General Assembly

During the 3 days which separate INPUD 1st meeting from the general. Assemble. I have talk to a few people who were feeling the same frustration than mine in variable degrees. This is the list of the countries and the organizations, which appears to disagree with INPUD present managing. It will be easy to contradict me by mail if necessary, otherwise all this organizations will be contacted to sign an official letter of protest.

Germany (Yes)
Australia (AVL)
Canada (VANDU and Metah d’âmes)
Sweden (Swedish drugs user Union)
Denmark (Danish drug user Union)
Macedonia
Nederland (LSD)
- I probably forget somebody, please excuse me by advance.

The Spanish and the Portuguese get a lot of problems of translation but seemed to be disappointed of the lack of interest of the international movement for there nationals problems which normally is the main subject when you spend time in a country.

I also complain on the lack of support of IRHA during these days. Several meetings happen in hotels rooms because of the impossibility of having a room in the conference. The general assemble itself happens in the INPUD room which is absolutely inappropriate. I don’t know if the fault belongs to INPUD who doesn’t pay attention to its job or to IRAH who doesn’t care about drugs users but the materials conditions of these meetings were unacceptable.

On the Wednesday the meeting was awful. I’m personally responsible of part of the mess. I was idealistically persuaded that with so many persons irritated about the INPUD process we would be able to change it in organizing some permanent commission composed by the ‘ old fashioned white people organizations » as STIJN was calling us (for the first time in my life I’m calling a white person- and I doubt it is a compliment).

It was impossible for many reasons:

- Nobody was able to say who was real members of INPUD
- The majority of the Assemble (17 members vs. 11) has voted against the Agenda
- Stinje, the director and Milena the…girlfriend of the director, were absolutely not ready to change a single thing to this pathetic situation

The positive points of INPUD (there are some)

It seems that since our « old fashion period (1997-2005) » the Asian countries and part of Eastern Europe has joined massively the IHRA. In some of this countries there are well-organized drugs users associations. I apologize to them because those people seemed to feel well recognized by INPUD. They have organized themselves in an INPUD ASIAN-Pacific union, and they are probably bored by our complains. They made a probably wonderful job and I personally ear a few presentations about what they are facing which imposes respect. They get more deep troubles than ours in being drugs users in there countries. They get urgent problems of surviving and probably they are close to the feeling of our western countries organizations when AIDS was ravaging us.

But I supply those people to understand that our anger is not target on them. It is important for them also to learn that the movement gets a history in the West and maybe they can share something with us from this history.

CONCLUSION : money money

Our major problem is the money issue.

s soon as IHRA will give a budget to INPUD, every year INPUD will exist no matter if it is recognized or not by the users. The budget is a real problem because if INPUD were not financed, it would be very easy for us to create a new organization named INFUD, INRUD or anything else with an I, a D and a U, . But since the budget is given to INPUD this means possibilities for the situation to stand like this. During that time we will all get back to our countries and work on our nationals affaires. We even don’t know if we ever met again.

In the other hand, the money should be controlled and my experience in drugs users organizing tells me that no control on the money means big problems at the end.

The question is who belongs this money to? s it IHRA? If the answer is Yes I suggest IHRA to organize a meeting of the main organization of drugs users with it, just to organize the use of this money.

Is it INPUD ? If yes this means a ghost organization umbrella uncontrolled and unable to organize a single meeting?

r is it the drugs users association well known all around the world which felt them excluded, despite, and unrepresented by INPUD?

Second problem is the membershipness

Menbershipness of INPUD is the key point. As soon as INPUD wish to be organized around a few people, as a bunch of fellows, and not around existing drugs users movements, the frustration will be enormous. The reason is very simple. As I was saying, the individual engagements in self supporting d.u. is very weak. From a conference to another a lot of new faces appear, a lot of ancients disappears or simply dies. The only way to preserve a minimum of continuity is to consider that INPUD is the emanation of the established drugs users group of the world.

Otherwise anyone who is around here at the good place and the right time saying, « I’m a drugs users from Lichtenstein and I want to vote » got more power than one of us who run a drugs users group for 15 years and who miss the conference.

Countries should organize the board also and the annual meetings of the board sponsored buy the INPUD/IHRA funds with an invitation addressed in the name of the well-known organizations.

Regarding the failure of the self-organisation of drug users during the 19th conference ASUD is decided to alert the people in charge of the conference not to ask them to interfere but to ask them officially for help.
The proposal is a meeting of most of the drugs users organizations leaders somewhere in the world, may be in Paris or in the IHRA Office. The agenda would be most of the issues have raised in this letter:

- Membership
- Budget
- Scholarship
- Plenary session.

If this proposal is not sustained, I hope that INPUD will take an initiative to solve the problems I raised in this letter because it is real problems. Otherwise people will try to organize themselves outside of INPUD which is a crazy thing thinking of the lack of time, influence and energy we all have.

ASUD will send this letter to well known groups as the Swedish drugs users Union, the Danish drugs user union, the Australian League, the Spanish one, the Dutch, the Canadians and many others that I presently forget.

Fabrice Olivet, Director of ASUD

P.S. f you agree with most or only part of this letter, please let Jerry Stimson know in forwarding this to IHRA with a simple mail saying "I agree with this" and put a copy to ASUD. Then we will try to organize an extraordinary meeting of INPUD.
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