JUST USING OLD WORKS - INJECTING RISK BEHAVIOR IN PRISON

A minority of injecting drug users engage in high risk injecting behav iours when in prison. In the United Kingdom between a quarter and a th ird of injectors who enter prison inject when in prison, and of these about three-quarters share needles and syringes. In the present study, 44 drug injectors who had been released from prison for no longer tha n 6 months were recruited and interviewed in three geographical areas in England. Interviewees were asked to recount their experiences of dr ug use during their most recent period of imprisonment. The majority o f interviewees were male (38/44), had a mean age of 28 pars, with a me an age of 16 years at first drug use, were primarily opiate users (39) and had multiple imprisonments. All respondents reported drug use whe n imprisoned and drug injecting was reported by 16 interviewees. Most injected at irregular intervals and at a reduced level, compared with injecting when in the community. Nine reported using needles and syrin ges that others had previously used, When considering other injecting equipment, more sharing occurred than was actually reported. Much re-u se of equipment was viewed simply as ''using old works''. The sharing of ''cookers'' and ''filters'', and drug sharing by ''backloading'' an d ''frontloading'' were common. The concept of ''sharing'' tended to b e understood by respondents as related to the use of fools of injectio n (needles and syringes rather than other equipment); the use of tools in the art of injection (rather than for mixing drugs); proximity (mu ltiple use of needles and syringes in the presence of others); tempora lity (shorter time elapse between consecutive use of needles and syrin ges preciously used by another) and source (hired rather than borrowed or bought). We conclude that syringe sharing is an integral part of d rug use and drug injecting in prison. Many of those interviewed displa yed a restricted understanding of what denotes syringe sharing. Our da ta reinforce the need for interventions and initiatives to be develope d within prisons to deal with the considerable risk posed by continued injecting drug use.