A History of Peer-Based Drug-User Groups in Australia

The active involvement of at-risk communities has been the hallmark of Australia's response to the AIDS epidemic, including community groups often supported by government funding. Organizations of injecting drug users (IDUs) at state and national levels have been key in providing input to policy, program development, and delivery, but their important contributions have so far been inadequately documented. We review here available information about the histories and impact of user groups, and report that their mere existence has had a profound effect on the nature of the response to HIV among IDUs, and their activities on the prevention of an epidemic among most sectors of the IDU community. After checkered careers and different evolutions, the greatest challenge now facing user groups is to sustain a relevant role in an atmosphere of developing complacency—that the epidemic is over—and that user groups are no longer useful to governments. The history of IDU organizations in Australia is not over, but their future is yet to be defined.