The Drug User Rights Action Network
The following is a current list of the goals of D.U.R.A.N. aka The Drug User Rights Action Network : 1. To highly publicize the human rights abuses of drug users . 2. Form a coalition of drug user groups and other organizations that explicitly support drug user rights. 3. Promote the formation of new drug user unions/groups in California and the United States.
Friday, October 14, 2016
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Announcing the Formation of the American Drug User Political Action Committee
We will support the political candidates who support legalization, decriminalization, and truly harm reducing policies. Much more to follow looking for feedback.
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Wolves in Sheep's Clothing
There are unfortunately members of the so called harm reduction movement who are in fact invested in the systematic repression of drug user empowerment. Their reasons for "keeping drug users in their place" vary from misguided concepts of what addiction and recovery mean to active drug users, to blatant racism and stigmatization based on internalized stigma projecting outward, and even to base personal reward aka "poverty pimps" using grant money intended for the drug using community to enrich themselves. A prime example is the many members of the non profit industry who refuse to employ active drug users or let them have any say in the decision making process .
Even when those decisions affect life and death situations for drug users they refuse to allow us to advocate for ourselves. Everywhere that Intravenous Drug Users congregate there should be 24/7 access to clean syringes but instead we see needle exchanges running in the same limited timeslots that they have for generations. Who does this benefit the NGO taking the same old grant money for their once a week two hour window or the drug user who has to resort to attempts to clean a used rig at 2a.m. in the morning?
This is not to say that good and even great things are being done for drug users in the name of harm reduction. Distribution of needles and naloxone have saved thousands of drug users lives. It's the hangover of paternalistic attitudes that reinforces the belief that active drug users are limited in their abilities to do anything a "non using" person can do that is holding us back from truly enjoying the freedoms promised by the end of the drug war. So do us a favor stop holding us back and you can come forward with us. Or stay a shrouded enemy and reap the karma you sow.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Repost: An Ugly Truth in the War on Drugs
" it is time for the human rights movement to take a leading role in calling for an end to the war on drugs and the development of drug policies that advance rather than degrade human rights"
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Beyond Harm Reduction: The Drug User Empowerment Movement
More to follow....
Monday, January 21, 2013
Call to Action: Free The Half Million Non Violent Drug Offenders In U.S. Prisons Now!
President Obama you are an admitted drug user, you are one of us why do you engage in our persecution? Or is your internalized stigma about the use of drugs so deep that you can ignore the plight of millions of your citizens you are swearing to protect? Is the money from the prison industrial lobby so great it can blind you to the great human tragedy called The Drug War?
Mr. President, if you truly want to be remembered forever as a man of the people, by the people, for the people, legalize drugs and free the half million.