title: Junkies in the House of the Lord.
abstract: The self-organization and mobilization of active drugs users is historically four decades old, but is rarely noted in the addiction, or drug policy literature. This piece looks closely at three European countries that have had varying degrees of success in organizing injection drugs users as key stakeholders in the development of non-criminalizing drug and reintegrating social policies. Indeed, the core questions here are about whether drugs users organizations can, or do have any impact in the improvement of drug treatment as well as the policies, which ultimately govern their lives. It should be noted that all of the groups studied included a few ex-users and/or non-user allies.
authors.affiliation: a John Mordaunt Trust , London , UK.|b OCCUPY London Welfare Working Group , London , UK.
authors.forename: Andria
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Efthimiou-Mordaunt
mesh_terms: D002835:Christianity; D003254:Consumer Advocacy; D003255:Consumer Organizations / Q000458:organization & administration*; D055030:Drug Users / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D005060:Europe; D040261:Harm Reduction; D006291:Health Policy; D006801:Humans; D007880:Legislation, Drug; D011640:Public Policy / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D036301:Qualitative Research; D015819:Substance Abuse, Intravenous / Q000628:therapy*
keywords: drug user organizations/activists, health and human rights, drug policy reform movement, coalitions, mobilization