Centre for Social Research in Health, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
Centre for Social Research in Health, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
Int J Drug Policy. 2021 Jan;87:103014. doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2020.103014. Epub 2020 Oct 28.
The importance of engaging people who use drugs in drug policy development is increasingly acknowledged including in recent UN documents. Little scholarly attention has been paid to 'drug user representation' in the global drug policy setting of the UN such as the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND). This paper examines 'drug user representation' in key UN drug policy processes over three decades.
A mapping process was undertaken using a corpus of publicly available documents from the UNGASS on Drugs and associated CND processes to identify relevant policy processes from 1987 to 2019 (n = 15) which were then assess for presence/absence of 'drug user representation'. Those processes with positive evidence of 'drug user representation' (n = 9) were critically interrogated across three co-constitutive domains of the subjects, objects and forms of 'drug user representation'.
Our analysis shows that despite calls for greater involvement, dominant UN drug policy discourses and other practices delimit both the political subjectivities available to people who use/have used drugs and their capacity to bring their voices to bear in this context. The analysis also highlights that human rights-based discourses, employed by 'drug user representatives', have emerged as an important practice of resistance against the problematic and delimiting power effects of existing UN discourses, governing practices and modes of engagement.
In addition to the practices of resistance being undertaken by 'drug user representatives', we suggest there is a need to improve how 'drug user representation' is being made possible and done in the sites of UN drug policy deliberation and, that these sites should be opened for questioning. This we argue will not only have a positive impact on political legitimacy for 'drug user representation', but on the health and human rights of people who use/have used drugs.
越来越多的人认识到让吸毒者参与毒品政策制定的重要性，包括最近的联合国文件。然而，在联合国全球毒品政策框架中，如麻醉药品委员会（CND），对“吸毒者代表”在全球毒品政策制定中的作用关注甚少。本文考察了三十年来联合国毒品政策进程中“吸毒者代表”的情况。
使用联合国药物管制和相关麻醉药品委员会进程中公开文件的语料库，对 1987 年至 2019 年（n=15）的相关政策进程进行了映射，然后评估这些进程中是否存在“吸毒者代表”。对有“吸毒者代表”积极证据的那些进程（n=9），从主体、对象和“吸毒者代表”的形式三个共构成的领域进行了批判性审查。
我们的分析表明，尽管有人呼吁加强参与，但联合国毒品政策主导话语和其他做法限制了吸毒者/曾经吸毒者的政治主体地位，并限制了他们在这方面发出声音的能力。分析还强调，以人权为基础的话语，被“吸毒者代表”采用，已成为一种重要的抵抗实践，以对抗现有联合国话语、治理实践和参与模式中存在的问题和限制权力的影响。
除了“吸毒者代表”所进行的抵抗实践外，我们还认为需要改进在联合国毒品政策审议场所中实现和开展“吸毒者代表”的方式，并且这些场所应该受到质疑。我们认为，这不仅将对“吸毒者代表”的政治合法性产生积极影响，而且对吸毒者/曾经吸毒者的健康和人权也将产生积极影响。
