Harm Reduction and Recovery; Two sides of a coin.

The focus of the Drug Policy week, held in Cape Town was on a call for harm reduction interventions to be increased in South Africa.   There is a view, held by both many practitioners of harm reduction and recovery that the two views are hostile and antagonistic. This was initially my view, coming as I do from a recovery background. I have come to understand that this is not the case and in fact the two approaches  actually have far more in common than what divides them.

The first and most important area in which I found agreement  is the need for legalisation/ decriminalisation  of drugs and the adoption of rational policies towards drugs and drug use. I know this is a contentious issue and one many recovery proponents would argue against, but I feel equally strongly that this is a conversation we need to have, and that people need to take a stand on this issue. We know that the war on drugs is not working, or rather it is working --as a political exercise to criminalise and control large sections of the population through violent militarisation and terror. This was highlighted in the opening address by Ethan Nadelmann. (http://www.sadrugpolicyweek.com/31-july-2017.html ).

The end result of the war on drugs is that the power and profit from the sale of drugs ends up in the hands of competing gangs (the most powerful of whom are not even seen as gangs but comprise so-called respectable people  within our political and corporate structures of power), and escalating warfare for control of these profits. While the legalisation and decriminalization of drugs, undoubtedly, will present us with a new set of  challenges and social issues, these will certainly not  (judging by the examples of countries which have gone down this road….Portugal, Holland, Uruguay and even the USA amongst others) compare to problems created by the war on drugs.

The following is controversial. Please read this as  my opinion given  with the stated aim of stimulating debate.

I believe the war on drugs forms part of a deliberate strategy by those in power to benefit themselves and  to establish a world order of individual survival and disconnection from community.  A world where violence and military power hold sway and the weak and powerless are victimised and blamed for the state of the world. A world, in short that feeds addiction.

I believe this is a political issue. We have come to see the political sphere as somehow separate from our everyday life—something done by politicians. In reality politics permeates every area of our lives. All the choices we face everyday- what we eat, how we treat people, the language we use-are political by nature. We have been made, deliberately, to forget this. We need to reclaim politics as a normal sphere of everyday life and make a stand as active citizens to rectify the  wrongs in our society.

I am not challenging the traditions of the 12 step fellowship. I remain committed to these. I feel deeply that the fellowship does and should continue to provide a space free from the divisive nature of these and other issues. I do feel however that those who care about these issues should find other spaces, channels and organisations, alongside the fellowship, to take these up.

To be continued….