The Ana Liffey Drug Project and the TCD Addiction Research Centre Conference on Harm Reduction for Problem Drug Users
Posted on: 23 March 2007
During the early-1980s, drug policy and service provision in Dublin struggled to adapt to what became known as the ‘opiate epidemic’, the first wave of injecting heroin use in a city previously accustomed to much less risky drug use. This adaptation was not helped by the lack of formal drug policy-making structures or by the assumption that the only legitimate health and social service interventions were those which had abstinence as their goal.
The Ana Liffey Drug Project was established in 1982, a project which introduced the concepts of ‘user friendliness’, ‘low threshold’, ‘outreach’ and ‘peer education’ drug policy makers. The Ana Liffey Drug Project developed close links with the Addiction Studies programme which began at the School of Social Work & Social Policy at Trinity College Dublin in 1983. The aim of a half-day conference which took place on March 15th last at TCD was to reflect on the subsequent evolution of Ana Liffey, as harm reduction policy and strategies gradually gained acceptance in this country.
It would be foolish to assume that all of the contentious issues have been resolved either in Ireland or anywhere else, and there are ongoing tensions for the Ana Liffey Drug Project and for other harm reduction services which are based in city-centre locations.
To provide a broader context for this debate, the conference’s key note speaker, Dr Tim Rhodes, drew from his own empirical research on injecting drug use to argue for policy and service provision which does not focus solely on individual behaviour change, but which also accepts the need for ‘safer injecting environment interventions’.
Speakers included:
Dr Paula Mayock, Senior Research Fellow at the Children’s Research Centre, TCD, and author of Choosers or Loosers? Influences on Young People’s Choices about Drugs in Inner-City Dublin (2000).
Dr Tim Rhodes, Reader in Public Health Sociology and Director of the Centre for Research on Drugs and Health Behaviour at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He leads a programme of research focused on the social aspects of risk and HIV/HCV prevention associated with injecting drug use. His academic background is in qualitative methods and public health sociology. He is editor of the International Journal of Drug Policy.
Frank Brady, Jesuit priest who was co-founder and first Director of the Ana Liffey Drug Project.
Marguerite Woods, Course Director for the Diploma in Addiction Studies at TCD and a former Director of the Ana Liffey Drug Project.
Tony Duffin, current Director of the Ana Liffey Drug Project and a former ServicVenue: Edmund Burke Theatre, Arts Building TCD