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 dru g users (IDUs) at state and national levels have been key in providing input to policy, program development, and delivery, but their importa nt contributions have so far been inadequately documented. We review h ere available information about the histories and impact of user group s, and report that their mere existence has had a profound effect on t he nature of the response to HIV among IDUs, and their activities on t he prevention of an epidemic among most sectors of the IDU community, After checkered careers and different evolutions, the greatest challen ge now facing user groups is to sustain a relevant role in an atmosphe re of developing complacency-that the epidemic is over-and that user g roups are no longer useful to governments, The history of IDU organiza tions in Australia is nor over, but their future is yet to be defined.