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September 2001
What it's like to be a user in Darwin Australia.
By Andrew Blood
For the past 26 years, the Northern Territory (of which Darwin is the
Capital) has been ruled by the Country Liberal Party (CLP) - redneck
supreme our beautiful Territory has been.
Recently, the Australian Labor Party (Labor) were elected to run the
Territory. The question now is, "Will Labor give drug users a better deal?"
Our only question (for now) remains to be answered. Parliament is yet to
sit and changes to legislation that affect the way drug users are treated
cannot be made before Parliament sits (even the CLP understands this).
So, you ask, what is it like for drug users in the Northern
Territory? Fucking shocking, that's what.
There are only two community based needle exchanges in the whole of the
Territory and neither of these employees drug users - what a sham that is!
Whilst both community based needle exchanges have in the past hired drug
users, some of the staff who were drug users felt incredibly isolated by
those organisations and were often expected to meet every need of drug
users - never mind that the organisations have funding to support people
with HIV/AIDS and Gay men, they're "the right kind of people our
organisation (i.e. AIDS Councils) should be supporting". What a load of
absolute hogwash.
We have no maintenance based pharmacotherapy treatments for people with
drug dependencies.
We have no funded organisation representing the interests if users of
currently illicit substances (we do, however, a strong voice through our
unfounded user group - TUF - the Top End Users' Forum -
http://www.octa4.net.au/tuf - have a look!).
We have very few services that are reality based and what we get is a lot
of moralising bullshit.
Help us - write to jane.aagard@nt.gov.au
- Jane is our new health minister - let her know that the international networks
of drug users care about each other and that our rights are human rights.
That's about it for me for now - I hope to publish more on this site real soon.
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