For over a decade I have been working with young people and drug users, often providing AIDS education and support services. Over the last six or seven years I have come into contact with several drug users' organizations from around the world. I have also been involved in establishing four users' groups here in Canada: C.O.D. (Citizens On Drugs), and TRIP (Toronto Raver Info Project) - both in Toronto, MindBodyLove (a "safer raving" project in Vancouver), and now HCV+IDU, a peer-directed project providing education and support around hepatitis C and related issues among injection drug users (IDU). I was diagnosed HCV+ (Hepatitis C Virus-Positive) about five years ago. I assume I was infected in the early 1980's when I first shared needles while injecting drugs.

Many people living with HCV (in particular IDUs) are dealing with a number of barriers, including frequent discrimination, to having our health concerns taken seriously. In March, I gave a presentation on my experiences as a Canadian drug user living with HCV at the First Australasian Conference on Hepatitis C in Sydney, Australia. I was sponsored by the Canadian Red Cross to attend the conference, during which I made contact with a number of people involved in HCV+IDU peer-support organizations. I have been dreaming (and talking) of such a group here in Vancouver for several months.

The conference really helped to give me the shove I needed to get on with it. In July, I organized two information sessions (sponsored by the Canadian Liver Foundation) on hep C and injection drug use - one for service providers in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, and one was for IDUs.

An important issue that is currently up for debate is the effectiveness of bleach in killing HCV. Some researchers are saying that bleach will kill hep C, however we are left wondering how long the virus needs to be exposed to bleach before it will be killed. Users I have spoken with in Sydney, London, and Amsterdam (all light- years ahead of us on this stuff) say that bleach is not enough. In most IDU communities the HIV rates have been kept down to 5 - 10% through needle exchange programs and bleach campaigns, while HCV rates are up around 80 - 90%. Injectors feel this is an indicator that bleach doesn't work for HCV, and no research has been done to prove anything one way or another. I have also heard that HCV can live in dried blood for up to 30 days. If that is true, then the relatively encapsulated environment inside a syringe (like inside the tip of the needle, or cracks in the rubber plunger that could be caused by a reaction between bleach and the rubber) would be a perfect place for a virus to survive and hang-out for a while. Again, no research has been done. In many ways this is a lot like the early days of the HIV epidemic, where we were really just guessing and asking a lot of questions.

Because HIV has had such a massive impact on the gay community (among others) over the years, through much political organizing and activism the health concerns of gay people and people living with AIDS have begun to be taken seriously. It helped that the gay community was already somewhat organized before HIV hit. We have seen the similar organizing in regard to women's health care needs.

As the HIV/AIDS struggle has irreversibly changed how health care is thought about and practiced, so will hep C and all of the issues related to drug use and prohibition. People who use drugs (for whatever reasons) are people first, and nobody is disposable. It is unquestionably worth spending the time, effort, money, etc., to do research and to improve the health and save the lives of people who use drugs. It is essential that there be groups of drug users' who are able to speak clearly and concisely about the concerns of this marginalized segment of society. We need a voice in any discussion or policy that effects our lives.

Kenn Quayle - HCV+IDU

P.O. Box 21521, 1850 Commercial Dr., Vancouver, B.C. V5N 4A0 Canada

tel: (604) 215-0351, e-mail: brian_mackenzie@mindlink.bc.ca

HepC BC