I. THOSE WHO MISUSE DRUGS ARE EQUAL CITIZENS

• People who use drugs and those who misuse them are equal citizens with rights (the right to health care, employment, housing, self-advocacy) and responsibilities like the rest of us.

• Drug dependency is an expression of suffering and leads to psychological, physical and social difficulties. Such malaise places European societies with the need to act in a preventive, caring and collaborative manner.

• Even long-term dependency on drugs needs to be thought of as a temporary situation.

II. ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE AND RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

• People with drug problems need to be provided with access at the point of need to the kind of care and treatment which respects their dignity.

• In conception as in application, the object of care and treatment must always be to enable drug users to lead a responsible and self-supporting way of life, and not to impose them institutionalised and dependent.

• It is necessary to promote therapeutic, medical and other care and treatment agencies which enable rehabilitation, work in a social setting and quality after-care services.

• Greater importance needs to be accorded to the role of prevention by a campaign against exclusions. This can be done by linking prevention with particular reference to community and family based networks, to education and to other perspectives concerning with the future well-being of children and adolescents.

• Working with those dependent on drugs cannot rely on goodwill, common sense and personal experience alone. Professionals working with those who use drugs need to be provided with the opportunity to acquire specialist skills and knowledges, based on the findings of medical and social research, which supplement their training in various fields (education, psychology, medicine, social work, etc.), and which takes account of the multi-disciplinary approach relevant to working in the drugs field.

• It is for public authorities an professional bodies to exercise their duty with regard to ethical practices in the field of prevention, care, treatment and rehabilitation. Those agencies which seek to profit from drug users, from their vulnerability, and from the anguish caused to their families need to be denounced.

III. CO-ORDINATED POLICIES ALIGNED TO NEED

• It is necessary to set up prevention, treatment and rehabilitation policies, both at national and local levels, which reflect the different areas of social relations involved (health, education, youth, family, social welfare, the law, employment, etc.) and which combine both public and private interventions.

• The defining and setting up of such policies requires technical skills, the training of all professionals, respect for the diversity and range of models of intervention, and research into their complementarity.

• It is vital that local, regional, national and Europe-wide policies need to be financed and resourced commensurate with the gravity of the problem. In particular, governments need to assume their responsibilities for ensuring access to economic, good quality care, and for ensuring the respect for the rights and freedoms of individuals using drugs.

IV. LEGISLATION NEEDS TO PRIORITISE PREVENTION, CARE AND REHABILITATION

• In the eyes of the law drug use should no longer be placed on the same level as a crime against the person or property. In particular, drug use must cease to carry a prison sentence or entail an increase in sentencing. On the contrary, legal, social and health-related alternative to penal sanctions must be encouraged.

• In terms of employment law and welfare legislation, drug misusers in receipt of care and treatment need to be eligible for sickness benefit like any other person who is ill.

• Public safety and public health issues should not be seen as oppositional and mutually exclusive nor be confused with each other. Public safety measures need to be biased in favour of access to care and health protection. Treatment for drug dependence needs to respect the question of individual choice rather than positing constraint or becoming a form of sanction.

V. PUBLIC HEALTH IMPERATIVES AND THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST EXCLUSION

• Drug users are amongst those most vulnerable to and also amongst the first to be victims of the AIDS epidemic. It is absolutely essential to reduce the risks related to drug use, in particular the risk of HIV infection. This entails in the first instance health education, the provision of general information specifically adapted to drug use, and by all such actions which contribute to the campaign against the exclusion or marginalisation of drug users.

• Drug users need to be empowered with respect to their right to health care and to preventive measures. They need to have access to clean needles and syringes, to other precautionary measures and to HIV testing. The result of such testing needs to be strictly confidential. All persons who are seropositive, including those in prison, need to be informed and given appropriate medical and social support.

• The increase in the number of drug users who are living with AIDS necessitates the planning and increase of adequate support systems. Drug users living with AIDS need to be provided with access to existing and unsegregated information, counselling, care and treatment services on the same basis as others living with AIDS.

VI. A EUROPE BASED ON EXCHANGE AND COLLABORATION

• Models of working in the field of drug abuse are the result of historical, cultural, institutional and juridical contexts specific to particular countries and regions. These models cannot be exported. However, an understanding and appreciation of them, through practical exchange and concrete collaboration, would allow for the emergence of similarities, unified of working and common progress.

• Members of the Federation of European Professionals working in the field of Drug Abuse (FERIT) are committed to the deepening and development of exchange and collaboration networks between locally based agencies and professionals in the different European countries, and in co-operation with national and transnational bodies. This work will need to be informed by respect for each other’s practices and for the principles formulated in this platform paper.

Liege, 20 October 1993

Platform adopted by ERIT (Association Européenne de Rencontres des Intervenants en Toxicomanie) and signed by representatives of the following:

AFIT Belgium ANIT Portugal ANIT France GREAT Switzerland ASIT Switzerland SCODA UK
ERIT Italy APCTT Spain and by the Association of the Republic of San Marino.