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This month sees the 10th birthday of the International Harm Reduction Association.
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IHRA’s origins can be traced back to Liverpool in the late 1980s and the hundreds of visitors coming to the city to learn more about the innovative “Mersey Harm Reduction Model”. To deal with this demand and interest, Liverpool hosted the inaugural International Conference on the Reduction of Drug Related Harm. The event was a huge success and is still going strong today (the 18th conference is in Warsaw in May 2007).
In 1995, Ernest Drucker outlined an idea for an organisation which would allow people to network and learn between the annual conferences and could advocate for sensible drugs policies around the world.
In 1996, the ‘birth’ of IHRA was announced at the conference in Tasmania and the founders (who became the first Executive Committee) held their first meeting at the Paris conference the following year. IHRA has grown from strength to strength since that day, focussing on the development of harm reduction, exchanging knowledge and experience, supporting harm reduction workers, increasing the professionalism of harm reduction work and placing harm reduction on the international agenda.
To commemorate IHRA’s birthday, we asked the founder members to reflect upon the last decade.
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Patrick J. Aeberhard M.D is a consultant in Cardiology and Head of the Cardiac Rehabilitation Center in Paris, France (a post he has held since 1980):
“IHRA: 10 Years already! I met the group [at the Paris Conference] and what an exciting meeting. Harm Reduction became our watchword, it gave us the strength to change the French public health policy- I am grateful to you all. 10 Years after IHRA's foundation the policy has changed but the group is still active. Congratulations!”
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Ernst Buning is the Director of Quest for Quality, a training and consultancy organisation based in the Netherlands. Ernst is Chair of the IHRA Executive Committee:
“When I first heard about the idea of starting a Harm Reduction Association, I had my doubts. How would it be possible to put independent thinkers, activists, drugs users, pioneers and people of so many different walks of life under one roof? Luckily, I was wrong: ten years later, IHRA is blossoming as never before. We managed to organize conferences in many parts of the world, attract growing numbers of people, work with many organizations to put harm reduction higher on the international agenda and be open to new developments, such as applying Harm Reduction to the alcohol field.
With his unique style, charm and social skills, Pat O’Hare played a crucial role in developing IHRA. During the past 2 years, Gerry Stimson carried IHRA forward: further professionalizing IHRA, securing longer term funding, developing projects and engaging IHRA in international campaigns. Today, IHRA is well on track and ready to face the many challenges ahead of us.
I am proud to be part of IHRA. Congratulations on our 10th birthday!!”
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Dave Burrows is the Director of the AIDS Projects Management Group in Australia and has been working in the field of HIV/AIDS and drug issues since 1987:
“Happy Birthday IHRA. In 10 years, harm reduction has come from an idea which appeared to be on the fringe of established approaches to dealing with drug issues (and drug-related harms such as HIV and hepatitis infection) to the most accepted and supported approach. This has not occurred by magic but through a series of advocacy actions ranging from original research and dissemination of research to engagement with a variety of political and activist processes. IHRA has been central to many of these processes, increasingly so in recent years. The role played by IHRA in many of the major decisions affecting HIV related to injecting drug use in the past two years proves the worth of and the need for the organisation. To continue to be effective, IHRA needs to grow and to attract young people to take over from the generation of researchers and practitioners who helped found the association. The news from Vancouver that a Youth International Harm Reduction Network is to be launched is a great step forward that will ensure IHRA's relevance and success into the future.”
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Ernest Drucker PhD is Professor of Epidemiology and Social Medicine and Professor of Psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, USA:
“Having been officially credited with the "idea" of forming IHRA, I have a humble appreciation of the difference between a good idea and the reality of a dynamic, effective and increasingly influential organization, IHRA, that was based on so much hard work by so many. Nonetheless I'd like to say a bit about the genesis of the idea. Like Alex [Wodak], I didn't think that what the world needed was yet another Association to look after. But, by 1992, the need was evident- precisely because its enemies hated HR [Harm Reduction]. From the start the term just drove them crazy, as did the enormous positive response HR got from exactly those groups they despised and we cared about most- drug users, their families, and advocates of human rights and social justice: they all loved it! So we wanted to stand up for the unlovely term Harm Reduction, embrace it as our brand, make it our identity. So we did. And very quickly HR came to symbolize our commitment and opposition to the oppressive and corrupt status quo of drug control. HR has now become symbolic of our struggle and its realization in IHRA as an organization that can now attract up to 1500 people to meetings endorsed by national and international political leaders shows how right we were. Happy Birthday to all.”
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Fabio Mesquita, MD, PhD, is Brazilian and (since 2005) is a Harm Reduction Advisor for Indonesia HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care Project based in Jakarta, Indonesia:
“Harm Reduction (NSP) was first tried in Latin America (Santos, Brazil) in 1989. In 1991, I first met with David Purchase and Nick Crofts who invited me to Melbourne at the 3rd International Conference. It was my first contact with the founders of IHRA in 1996. Since then, IHRA has been crucial in the development of Harm Reduction in Latin America, in Asia and in the entire developing world. Harm Reduction is now an impressively increasing strategy in the world- helping to save the lives of thousands of people. It was a privilege to be among the founders and to be able to congratulate IHRA on it’s 10th anniversary.”
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Patrick O'Hare has been working in the drug field since the mid 1980s. He founded the International Journal of Drug Policy (and was Editor for 10 years), initiated the annual IHRA conferences and was IHRA’s Executive Director from 1996 to 2004. Pat is the Honorary President of IHRA:
“Ernie [Drucker] gave me the idea on a roof in Nice, or was it Cannes? He thought we needed something for the time between the conferences which did (and still do) a marvellous job in energising people. I thought it was a great idea but all I could think of was the amount of work which needed to be done. I thought about it and dithered for a while longer and after many discussions with Bill Stronach about how we would do it, Bill said to me “just do it”. So I did, and Ernie announced it in Tasmania in 1996. The founders had a meeting in a bar in Paris in 1997 and said I should do what I could and look at it now. It was hard work but not just on my part. Many people, too numerous to mention, helped by giving us grants, by encouraging people to join or by talking us up with the important people. We became almost victims of our own success in building the credibility of an organisation many times its size and wealth. Quite simply we couldn't do many of the things we wanted to or respond to the many requests we received to help because we were a "poorly resourced" organisation to use the current jargon. I do want to mention one person who, for me, is the great unsung hero of harm reduction- Bill Stronach, whose support as Treasurer, confidante and friend was vital to me during my time as Director. Bill likes to stay in the background but just for a moment I want to bring him out front. Thank you Bill and Happy Birthday IHRA.”
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Diane Riley PhD received her doctorate in psychophysiology from the University of Toronto in 1983 and is currently a policy analyst at the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy (of which she was a founder):
“The birth of IHRA had quite a long gestation period. We had many requests between conferences for advice, talks, and the like, and knew that a mechanism was needed to carry the international harm reduction movement between conferences. We also knew that those international agencies in place were either unwilling or unable to take on the policy and practice of harm reduction. It was the right idea at the right time in a world desperately in need of more humane and more effective approaches to the reduction of drug related harm. In retrospect, the idea and the birth were easy, but, to paraphrase Eliot, there was a shadow cast by difficulties of funding and functioning with so few of us to do it. But we did do it, and it was most certainly worth it. It is timely that for our tenth birthday I have announced the foundation of the Youth Network for Harm Reduction International, which will provide a mechanism for youth to mentor youth (and help us adults as well). Happy Birthday to the harm reductionists of the world!”
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Marsha Rosenbaum PhD received her doctorate in medical sociology from the University of California in 1979. She is currently the Director of the Safety First Project and Director of the Drug Policy Alliance (San Francisco office):
“IHRA has been an invaluable source of information and education about a range of substance use and abuse issues. I have learned more about HIV-AIDS and IV Drug Use around the world at the yearly conferences than in any other setting. Not only that, IHRA knows how to throw a great party
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Bill Stronach is the Chief Executive of the Australian Drug Foundation and has hosted three of IHRA’s annual conferences. He is also Vice-President of Anex (the Association of Needle & Syringe Programmes) and is on IHRA’s Executive and is IHRA’s Treasurer:
“Happy birthday IHRA. The experience of harm reduction in Australia pre-dates IHRA's foundation and has, in fact, been a key element of Australia's national drug strategy from 1986. It is still a key plank, though subsequent governments and some key stakeholders have tried to emasculate the spirit and reality of the term and its principles over the years. An embryonic international association was starting to emerge at the 1992 conference in Melbourne - an event that first brought me into a working relationship with some of the pioneers of the HR field. To meet, talk and work with the people like Pat O'Hare, Alex Wodak, Dave Purchase, Nick Crofts, Ernie Drucker and Diane Riley and more was eye opening, extremely rewarding and humbling. The hostile environment that some of these key protagonists had to endure probably hastened the formalization of an international association. For some people IHRA provided a support, for some a rallying point. For some it helped provide the evidence base that was so needed- it translated the faith into science. In its first decade as an association, IHRA has played a (if not the) major role in establishing harm reduction as a mainstream rather than a marginalised response to drug related issues.”
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Alex Wodak PhD is the Director of the Alcohol and Drug Service, St. Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, Australia, President of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation and a former President of IHRA (1996-2004). He is a member of the IHRA Executive Committee:
“The idea of an international harm reduction conference seemed bizarre in 1990. But already during the conference it was clear that this event had to be repeated every year. I can distinctly remember the moment in 1996 when Ernie Drucker said to me that the annual conference was a necessary but not a sufficient step - now we needed an organisation. I felt a cold sweat down my back realising that this was an unarguable proposition but would involve an enormous amount of work. 1,300 people from over countries attended the 2006 conference [in Vancouver]: harm reduction is now a mainstream movement.”
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Read more about the founding members of IHRA and the history of the organisation.
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International Drug Policy Consortium launch new website
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The International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) launched their new website this month, which is now fully operational at www.idpc.info. The IDPC is a global network of 24 national and international NGOs that specialise in issues related to illegal drug use, and IHRA is proud to be among those member organisations.
The Consortium aims to promote objective and open debate on the effectiveness, direction and content of drug policies at national and international level, and supports evidence-based policies that are effective in reducing drug-related harm. It disseminates the reports of its member organisations about particular drug-related matters as well as offers expert consultancy services to policymakers and officials around the world.
This is an important time for global drug policy as we move towards the next UN special meeting in 2009, which will determine the focus of the next UN drugs strategy. The Consortium will be playing a key role in trying to establish NGO presence at the highest levels of global drug policy-making.
The website is the key information hub for IDPC to promote its work and those of the member organisations. We would urge you to visit the website (using the link above) and get involved in this initiative in whatever way you can.
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Harm Reduction Ethics Committee
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In another significant development this month, the newly established ‘Harm Reduction Ethics Committee (HR-EC)' announced its mission statement for the next 12 months. The group is a special IHRA sub-committee, whose task is to raise the profile of ethical issues in all areas of harm reduction including research, policy, service delivery and advocacy.
In the next twelve months, the HR-EC will focus on producing a needs assessment on harm reduction ethics issues (which will include an IHRA member survey and will be presented at the 2007 IHRA conference in Warsaw), organize a major session on ‘Harm Reduction Ethics’ at the 2007 IHRA conference in Warsaw and co-ordinate a special issue of the International Journal of Drug Policy (which is free to IHRA’s ‘premium’ and ‘institutional’ members) dedicated to highlighting the topic of Ethics and Harm Reduction.
The intended audience for the HR-EC includes drug users, researchers, service providers, policy makers, funders, ethical review committees, or anyone interested in the ethical dimensions of harm reduction. For further information about this new IHRA initiative, please contact Kaveh Khoshnood or Kevin Irwin. We will also keep you up-to-date with the committee’s progress through the IHRA website and newsletters.
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To receive the IHRA monthly e-newsletter and newsflashes please become a member.
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