Illicit Drug Use in Australia - Australian Illicit Drug User Organisations

Australian Illicit Drug User Organisations

In response to the emergence of HIV/AIDS in the mid-1980s, Australian drug users began to self-organize into community, peer-driven state and national drug user organisations. The aim of these organisations was to give voice to the experiences of Australian drug users and to advocate for drug-related policy reform, the provision of harm reduction prophylactics, the expansion of opioid substitution programs, to highlight the health issues affecting illicit drug users and to reduce the stigma and discrimination many illicit drug users experience. Drug user organisations have been recognized by state and federal governments as an effective strategy to educate illicit drug users in relation to techniques for avoiding blood-borne virus transmission, responding to drug overdose, safer injecting techniques, safer sex and legal issues. Australian drug user organisations use a peer education and community development approach to health promotion, with the aim of empowering illicit drug users by providing them with the skills they need to effect change in their own communities.

As of November 2012, every Australian State and Territory, with the exception of Tasmania, has a state-funded drug user organisation. A number of health services also employ illicit drug users to provide peer education in relation to specific issues affecting illicit drug users. Australia's peer-based drug user organisations are members of the Australian Illicit and Injecting Drug Users League (AIVL), a national drug user organisation, which advocates for changes to current illicit drug policy at a national level. As a member-based organisation, AIVL also supports State and Territory peer-based organisations to strengthen their internal governance structures, their capacity to provide services to illicit drug users and assists member-based organisations to develop advocacy strategies for engaging in localized drug-related policy issues.

AIVL is a member of the International Network of People who Use Drugs (INPUD), an international network of drug user organisations and drug user activists, that advocate for the health and human rights of illicit drug users. INPUD facilitates representation by illicit drug users to lobby international policy-making bodies such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the World Health Organization, UNAIDS, Harm Reduction International, the Commission on Narcotic Drugs and the International AIDS Society.