STOP THE BLACK SHEEPING…

IDUD’ 2007 – ANTWERP, Belgium

Daniel Wolfe (IHRD/OSI) and Milena Naydenova (INPUD)

STOP THE BLACK SHEEPING…

1^st of November – the Day for Remembering the Dead for the society at large and the International Drug Users Day for just a small marginalized part of it.

But IF you think twice there is no big difference in what both society and DU commemorate. In our small marginalized group – the so called DU Community – the Death has become almost a regular guest, a routine – worldwide it stays among us and takes victims in the forms of blood born infections, of ODs, of the uncontrolled substances on the black market, of homelessness, of isolation and despair, of constant harassment, of incarcerations, and many, many other …

And IF you can spare just a second more and ask yourself: “What is the unforgivable crime all these people have done to deserve all this?” and IF you are fair enough the simplicity and the ridiculousness of the answer might even chock you, because the only crime of all these people is that they somehow have been unable to manage too well with the Drug Free Lifestyle.

But obviously there are too many IF s. People do not think twice and can not see the simple truth. They just believe in emotional roaring slogans: War On Drugs !!!, Zero Tolerance!!!, as in the same time remain blind for the massive damage all these policies impose in any area of public life - the public taxes are uselessly spent on fruitless and nonworking policies, the public health-care system collapses in countries where the IV drug use driven HIV epidemics spread in an uncontrollable manner, the public law-enforcement and public court systems get overloaded with insignificant drug-use related case that leave no space for persecuting the real criminals in the drug war – the ones that support the flourish of the organized crime and the corruption on the topmost political levels.

Everybody will agree that the experts’ research and the evidence-based data should be the grounds for enacting policies, not the emotional reactions on the laic majority. And we have the experts’ research, the evidence-based data, and uncountable indisputable proofs that the more harsh the laws on drugs become the more severe problems and damage they create – starting from the measured in billions profits from the black market of drugs, all of the logical outcomes as economically strong organized crime, corruption at all levels, high rates of drug use related crimes, incarcerations, that solve nothing but only create new criminals, more taxpayers money in court system and more ruined lives … Situation that should immediately arise the logical question: Why then the PROHIBITION still exists and continues to escalate?

The answer is as obvious as the contradiction of the good wishes with the reality. The PROHIBITION suits everybody. All parties involved in the illegal drug market get their billion-measured profits, and which is even more suitable - the society gets its public enemy – the DRUG USERS – usual suspects to be blamed for everything that goes wrong. And if the lives of some, even many people, have to be sacrificed to please the silent majority – let it be! Cruel, sad, but truth …

The only answer we can give to this outrageous attitude is: “Stop Blacksheeping Us!” The criminalization is what made us criminals, not our substance dependency. Stop with the blacksheeping of the people who use drugs - it only creates fear, the fear leads to hatred, isolation and repressions, which result in an escalating vicious circle of terror, rights abuse, harassment, restrictions, increased criminality, police raids, more fear, more hatred, lost civil liberties, lost dignity, lost humanity…. No solutions are needed for artificially created non-existing problems – they can only create bigger mess and confusion.

This is the simple message the DU in Antwerp will deliver to their fellow citizens on November, the 1^st– the day all of us will remember our dead loved ones. But this time we will not only remember but also will honor the useless deaths of our peers – the victims in the most fruitless and absurd war ever lead – the war on drugs that even grew into a war on the people who use drugs. And if we manage to make people hear our message and think even for a moment over it – their deaths might even be not so useless and the prohibition fueling and breaking-point will be revealed - the Blacksheeping of the People who Use Drugs!!!

Miena Naydenova, INPUD member

Antwerp, Belgium, 2007

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