DRUG-USERS OUTSIDE MEDICAL-TREATMENT - ME THODOLOGICAL AND PRACTICAL ASPECTS

A legal context that classifies the consumption of heroin and cocaine as an illegal act, poses a considerable methodological challenge to re search on users of these substances. This is in particular the case fo r research on those users who are not in treatment and, therfore, cann ot be recruited through treatment settings. In a research project on h eroin and/or cocaine users outside treatment settings, a sample of 917 individuals was recruited through ''Privileged Access Interviewers'' in the whole of Switzerland. In the first part of this article, we dis cuss matters of reliability as well as of validity concerning this met hod of data collection. In the second part of the article, we discuss the use of low threshold syringe exchange schemes by the users groups represented in the sample. Only intravenous drug users frequent those services - they are however a minority in the sample (n=238). In sever al regions of Switzerland syringe exchange schemes do not exist. Where they do exist, they appear to correspond to a need which they are abl e to cover largely. In the regions without such services, intravenous drug users get their supply of syringes more frequently from pharmacie s. However, pharmacies do not compensate the absence of specific syrin ge exchange schemes. In regions without such schemes, injections with used syringes are more frequent. Thus, regarding Aids-Prevention, ther e is an urgent need to develop syringe exchange schemes in all parts o f the country.