Organizing Drug Users in

Communities of Color

Louis JonesUsers United & Harm Reduction Coalition

United States

Burden of the War on DrugsIt is not drugs that are being arrested, prosecuted, imprisoned, stigmatized and marginalized – but people. ~Peter Sarosi

…In the Beginning

Denying Treatment & Care• Hopeless, Harmless, Homeless• Perpetuating the oppression• Constantly institutionalized

Caught by agency = PATIENTCaught by a cops = CRIMINAL

Stigma was Challenged

• Birthed from not talking, but whispering• Denial of basic rights

• From using past responses to community actions (Black Panther, Young Lords…etc)

• Motivated by loss of loved ones & lack of action

Moved from Isolation Action

Community Paradigm: Responding to Need

• Work within the community• Grassroots• Democratic • Relevant • Effective • Stay focused

on community• Each one, reach/teach one

Response to Local Issue• Only happened recently (2004)• Broke the silence, disclosed & self-identified• Came together within own network of

community• Birth of drug-user organizing

– Drug users coming together– New York Users’ Union

To Organize, Is to Live…

Questions?

Harm Reduction National Conference:Portland, OR November 2012

Visit HRC on Facebook and Twitterwww.harmreductioncoalition.org