In this article I would like to provide advice, information and a suggested ‘action plan’ for practitioners who may have concerns about existing/planned blue lights in their particular area/setting.
At the 2010 National Conference on Injecting Drug Use (NCIDU) I organised a workshop session that was concerned with the issue of fluorescent blue lights in public conveniences. In an earlier article on Injecting Advice, I previously outlined the way in which such environments can amplify particular injecting harms and behaviours (such as groin/neck/peer injecting) and emphasised that injecting under these conditions is based almost entirely upon ‘touch’ rather than ‘vision’ (i.e. because injectors, literally, cannot see what they are doing in blue light environments). These conclusions were drawn from empirical research that was conducted in the city of Plymouth (UK) during 2006-2009 (Parkin and Coomber 2010).
In addition to these injecting-related harms and hazards are the seemingly arbitrary decisions made by local authorities and other agencies to have such lights installed on a national and local level; in which choices to install blue lights are apparently based only on assumptions that they are successful in preventing injecting drug use from occurring in relevant environments. However, there is no known publication, report or research that demonstrates fluorescent blue lights as an effective form of drug prevention, yet they continue to be found in settings throughout the UK on a regular basis.
The widespread introduction and popularity of fluorescent blue lights therefore poses particular challenges for harm reduction advocates and practitioners. This challenge relates to:
It was therefore due to this challenge that I organised the workshop session in order to inform a ‘standardised’ harm reduction response to any current/planned fluorescent blue lighting in local settings on a national basis.
In this article I would like to circulate the outcome of this workshop in order to provide advice, information and a suggested ‘action plan’ for practitioners who may have concerns about existing/planned blue lights in their particular area/setting. These suggestions were obtained from an interactive discussion/focus-group session with 7 delegates that attended the workshop – and who each approached the issue from their own particular profession. Although the session had been planned to accommodate a greater number of participants (including service-users), I would like to thank each delegate that contributed to this workshop and for their assistance in the development of the following action plan.
In short, this action plan aims to challenge decisions to install fluorescent blue lights in any setting – and may be utilised as either a reactive, or proactive response to blue light decisions.
‘due to the increased risks to users and lack of evidence as to its efficiency, blue lighting should not be used in public toilets to deter drug use’.
‘due to the increased risks to users and lack of evidence as to its efficiency, blue lighting should not be used in public toilets to deter drug use’.
Consider the annual costs of lighting and if this cost may be used for other more constructive, targeted intervention in the site concerned (e.g. aimed at injecting drug user ‘participation’ rather than displacement/prevention of injecting drug use)
Finally, I would be very interested in any feedback from any practitioners/ service-users that use this guidance in responding to blue light installations and particularly interested in how harm reduction challenges were received by the relevant agencies.
Stephen is a Research Fellow at the National Addiction Centre at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London. His most notable ethnographic work relates to a multi-site study of street-based injecting drug, drug-related litter and associated harm and hazard from the perspectives of people who inject drugs and frontline staff who encounter such issues in their daily employment. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of his employer.
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