For current and former drug users to make their full contribution to society an enabling environment is required, in which their capacity to contribute can develop. The challenges of achieving this in a context where the drug user identity is, in effect, criminalized and certainly highly stigmatized and marginalized, is hard to exaggerate. Today there is more awareness of the problems of drugs, dr
ug trafficking and drug policy than ever before. However, figuring out how to translate that awareness into constructive action is a major challenge. In Nepal, the Coalition of Drug User Networks (CDUN) is an alliance of all the different Drug User Network Organizations existing within the country, bearing in mind that Nepal, despite being a small country, has over 500 organizations and 7 different DU networks working within such a comparatively small geographical area, involved in the treatment, care, support and advocacy as well as Hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS care. In Nepal, it is still DUs who care for DUs; in many ways, analogous to the blind leading the blind;
Reflecting on claims voiced within the drug user community in many areas of the Nepal, CDUN May be best described as a last ditch effort to consolidate all the diverse interests, expertise and capacity within the Drug User and HIV/AIDs/Scenario in Nepal. By definition a coalition cannot exist in the absence of its elemental allies. As opposed to politically invalidating the existing networks and negate the good work they are already doing, in a power play, CDUN, instead, seeks to bind them to together into a unified alliance task force that builds upon their strengths such as technical proficiency, capability for community mobilization/ in reach and access to government policy makers including donors, technical partners as well as other stakeholders to achieve a cohesive force for social change.
