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NEWS: The AGE - 09/10/07 'Cash for safe drug injection 'off mark''

lil angel15

lil angel15

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Cash for safe drug injection 'off mark'
October 9, 2007 - 4:19PM


The Queensland opposition says pamphlets offering drug users cash payments in return for teaching safe injecting techniques are "grossly irresponsible".

Opposition child safety spokeswoman Jann Stuckey said the Queensland Injectors Health Network was distributing flyers headed: "Wanna make some cash?"

They offered $110 cash payments to intravenous drug users willing to teach others safe injecting techniques, or, "learn a bit, share a bit and make a bit".

Ms Stuckey said it was not a responsible way to deliver a harm minimisation program.

"To pay drug addicts in this manner, knowing that the $110 will almost certainly be their next hit, is grossly irresponsible," she told reporters on Tuesday.

Ms Stuckey said she believed the program was not effective because it did not focus on getting people off drugs.

"Without that support, these facilities are nothing more than needle hand-outs," she said.

"The public have for many years been led to believe these are needle exchanges, and sadly, this is not true."

Premier Anna Bligh said Queensland Health had ordered the advertisements be withdrawn at least six months ago.

She agreed the program, jointly funded by the state and commonwealth governments, would offend some people, but said "unconventional" methods were sometimes required.

"Sometimes they have to go to extreme lengths to engage with these people," Ms Bligh said.

"It is unpalatable work, it is a difficult subject.

"But Australia and Queensland can stand proud in terms of our very open approach to dealing with issues such as the spread of HIV/AIDS."

Ms Bligh said she would ensure the flyers had been withdrawn as ordered.
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The AGE
 
I'm in.. bring your 16 yr old junky son and I'll do them up goodm, no mark or anything left behind for $110.
 
dude, I got this. for $110 I'll learn how to I.V. properly, then teach kids. no problem mon.
 
uhh ohh.. it snapped off.. put him in the dumpster in the back alley call a cab and say he had too much..

seriously though.. its not the worst plan. Seeing the bruises and stuff in newbies arms?
Could see it turning into dealing though or getting people more connections.
 
Last edited:
Junkies paid for needle lessons
October 10, 2007 02:20am
Article from: The Courier-Mail

A CONTROVERSIAL project in Queensland offering cash to intravenous drug users to teach others how to inject safely has reignited debate about taxpayer-funded harm-minimisation programs.

Liberal Member for Currumbin Jan Stuckey yesterday tabled in State Parliament a flyer for the "Mixup project" offering cash payments of $110 to users who participated.

"Learn about wheel filters, handling overdoses, your legal rights, safer injecting, get free food and get paid," the flyer produced by the commonwealth and state-funded Queensland Injectors Health Network said.

Ms Stuckey said the flyer, which featured a picture of an insect-like creature wielding a spoon (often used to melt drugs in powder form), was encouraging destructive behaviour rather than rehabilitation.

"Queensland Health, by funding this program, is condoning practices of drug addicts and teaching them how to instruct others by offering cash incentives - this left-wing philosophy is grossly irresponsible," she told State Parliament.

Premier Anna Bligh said: "I'd like to get some data on whether it actually works before I made a final judgment on it ... but they are working with desperate and unconventional people."
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News.com.au

Vote: Should taxpayers fund harm minimisation programs?
 
It doesnt seem that hard. Getting people into a health industry maybe pick some for traineeship, get them off tjhe gear while making sure current users arent gking to spread aids, and filter street shit properly.

They do it for POoker machine maddicts all the time at places ive worked. People spending their pension and pay on pokies, so when they get some type of pattern they get a ticket, each ticket works as money inside the club/pub and you use them to buy food and housing items.. a bit like food stamps i guess.
 
Erm, am I missing something? Why would they need junkies to teach people safe injection techniques? Why not just get a health professional... or someone who has taken 20 minutes to read some of the myriad online tutorials, including BL...

Paying a junkie $110 for this seems like a ridiculous waste of money. I mean, I could care less that they'll spend it on drugs, you could make that argument about ANYTHING (why give them jobs, they'll just spend their paychecks on drugs!).
 
Eer, have you ever got a blood test? Those nurses are mostly fucking useless. A junky knows anyones veins.
I often star at peoples veins thinking "now that would be a nice fat deep vein there"
 
I don't know weather there is a`more irrisponsible thing you could teach a young person than how to shoot up. I have a 15 year old brother. I would be so pissed off if there was a place near our house where he could go to learn how to shoot up.

I think the reason a lot more people don't do it is because most people don't know anything about it and wouldn't even have any friends that know how to. Junkies are in their own dark sacred little world that most people never get to venture into or see.

In saying that, I would teach people for that kind of money - as long as it was in a big city where nobody knew me - and my little brother didn't walk in.

P.S. It would be the definition of torture for a junkie to have to sit there and watch OTHER people shoot up all day. You would have to be comfortably high on drugs yourself or it simply would not be possible. And that is a fact.
 
I don't know what they were thinking when they came up with this idea, it's exactly the sort of ammunition opponents of harm minimisation are looking for. The public will never stand for it and as the media present it, it just comes across making everyone in this field look extreme and out-of-touch.
 
Qld needle exchange a self-serve: Flegg
October 10, 2007 - 2:50PM

A Gold Coast needle exchange has left bags of needles outside its clinic for drug users to take without counselling or returning used needles, the Queensland coalition says.

Liberal leader Dr Bruce Flegg said the needle exchange, at a Queensland Health facility at Palm Beach, attached a basket to the outside of its clinic doors.

Inside the basket were brown paper bags, each containing 20 syringes, and a flyer for a party.

"It is not a needle exchange program, it is a self-serve needle program, because you do not have to bring it back and exchange it," Dr Flegg told reporters in Brisbane.

The revelation comes after opposition child safety spokeswoman Jann Stuckey exposed methods on Tuesday at a separate Gold Coast facility which she called "grossly irresponsible".

The Burleigh clinic was offering $110 cash payments to drug users who learned safe injecting techniques.

Ms Stuckey denied she had been motivated by a long-running community campaign to have the clinic removed.

"If we are to have this facility in our midst, let's make sure that it's operating under those federal guidelines and offering the counselling and education services," she said.

"Not being closed, not having needles hanging on a door, so that people can come and help themselves."

State Health Minister Stephen Robertson issued a statement saying the needles were only placed outside the clinic doors for four hours on July 2.

"This was an isolated one-off event while a ... welfare officer attended a training course at the Gold Coast Hospital," he said.

"I have been assured that it has not happened again."

Premier Anna Bligh said the Burleigh program was under review, but it was a regular procedural review.
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SMH
 
hoptis said:
I don't know what they were thinking when they came up with this idea.
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Erm.. are you serious? It's called "peer education", which is a very respected idea and widely used in community development work with young people and drug users.

It's based on the principle that most people who use drugs learn about drug use from their drug using peers (hey wow - just like Bluelight! 8) ) - so if you train up current drug users about safest practices, they can pass it on to others - other current drug users that is. There's no suggestion that people who don't inject are going to get taught how to inject - this is a complete misunderstanding of the process.
 
I have to say - I agree with what I believe Hoptis was trying to get across.

Although peer education is an effective HR tool among youth and drug users alike - I believe this program was poorly thought out. It's easy for members of ‘our’ community, and the community at large, who are interested in HR to see the value of this program, however, the today tonight watching Australian is blinded to its benefits.

This is where the double edged sword scenario comes into play. The today tonight watching Australian is not going to support paying an IV drug user to teach another IV user safe injecting practices, likewise, an IV drug user isn’t going to teach someone these practices without some type of compensation. If more thought had have been placed on the compensation aspect of this program it could have been highly successful.

Today Tonight watching Australians vote you see, and sadly, there are more of them then there are of us. :\
 
I'm sorry you think that way. The problem is in the ill-informed media representation, not with the strategy. Organisations such as QuIHN are funded through state and federal government all over Australia to provide peer education programs such as the one mentioned in the Courier-Mail article. Similar programs are run all over the world. It is normal to pay people for their time in these instances - particularly when there is an expectation of future unpaid work - passing on safer using info to others.

People will quite happily exchange information with their peers without expecting a payment at the time - do you get paid for your role at Bluelight? It is normal human behaviour. Training people as peer educators is a way of ensuring that the best possible information gets distributed.

And TT watchers won't understand - but don't worry - they also don't understand needle syringe programs, or Bluelight for that matter...
 
Splatt said:
Eer, have you ever got a blood test? Those nurses are mostly fucking useless. A junky knows anyones veins.
I often star at peoples veins thinking "now that would be a nice fat deep vein there"
Click to expand...

lol - I once took my own blood at pathology cause the old lady nurse was absolutely hopeless and couldn't hit a vein if it was the size of a garden hose. Also - she kept touching my vein with un-gloved fingers AFTER she swabbed it because she had no confidence in hitting it.. I promptly took over.


Hehe.. ooh i know that thought all to well.. I mean veins aren't terrible... but some people.. drool..Like they were designed & built for injecting drugs.


Anyway.. while i don't entirely oppose the scheme, or really care that much. I must admit, it isn't really the brightest plan on earth. There is so many holes in the plan I'm amazed it ever got off the ground. While i support teaching proper techniue, for sure, there has got to be more responsible ways than this.
 
It's a flawed plan. They should be clean or relatively clean, do the course, use past experience and do them up. Or teach themj how to. Theres a lot of people on my MSN you asked me for advice from Bluelight, alot of them ended up with bruises and nasty stuff before asking me. My friend has done up a persopn interested in inecting ice (bought by himself!) one time not knowing what to do but franticly trying to find fits and ended up finding a 18 OR 21G!!! We came to the rescue and he had a great night.
 
It's harm reduction in action. Whether you like it or not people inject, and they usually have no idea what they're doing, except for all the (often) myths and
bullshit someone older than them told them when they first whacked em up.

Peer education is about users teaching users safer practices, and its about reducing harm. The more users who actually know what they're doing, the less harm there is and the less blood borne viruses are being spread in the community.

It seems that everyone here is taking the media articles as gospel and not even applying any of the usual skepticism you should apply to stories about drugs. Mix Up is usually run over 4 workshops, and people get paid $20 for each one and then a $30 bonus for the last one if they make it to every workshop. Sounds a little less dramatic than the "$100 for junkies" headlines, don't you think?

Just because it's unplatable doesn't mean anyone should be shying away from it. These programs are currently being run all over Australia, and that's been the case for years and years now.

I used to work for a peer education program that paid current ecstasy users to attend similar education programs. Do the people who have issues with Mix Up disagree with peer education in the dance scene?
 
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