There is a need to take a fresh look at the way drug services cater for the black community. Drug services have to realise that Britain is a multi-racial society and in drawing up drug service policy they have to take on board the needs of black drug users which may be different in some respects. This paper looks at the need for providing adequate treatment and support for black users, the argument for more black drug workers and the need for drug workers to understand the need to encourage or make the service more accessible to black people and in doing so how this can in some way reduce the disproportionate number of black people sentenced to prison for drug-related crimes. Also black communities like any other groups needs to be educated about the harmful effects of using drugs and some strategy have to be developed to build confidence between black users and drug workers

Drug services are at present failing the black community. It is known that the people actually accessing drug services are overwhelmingly white, in their late twenties to early thirties and male. For example the probation service comes into contact with very large numbers of young drug users who would not be accessing services in any other way; black-drug users and women drug users who would have more difficulty accessing services otherwise. For example in one probation service, on any one day the probation officers will be in contact with 600 people who misuse drugs aged under 21, 750 black drug users and over 600 women drug users. Only one in five of these will be in contact with any other drug services. So why is it that only a small number of black people access drug services? Although there are many reasons I will only concentrate on what the services should do to help black drug users get the treatment they deserve.

Most current drug services are set up for opiates users, combining detoxification and rehabilitation with needle

exchanges and prescribing services. Illegal drug use and drug problems in Britain, have been associated primarily with white people. Recently African-descent males have been portrayed by the media as typical users of crack. Crack cocaine is commonly used by black people which would mean that their needs need to be taken on board. It is known that specialist services are orientated towards the needs of opiate users. This would mean black drug users may well have different needs not being met mainstream services. The medical model of working with drug users has little or

nothing to offer stimulant users. One of the speakers at the’ recent Local Government Drugs Forum (LGDF) Effectiveness Review conference said: "The best I can do for crack users is to wait until they start using heroin and then prescribe Methadone"2. There is a need for more projects such as the Brixton Drug Project which is designed to work with crack cocaine users. These projects should tackle health, personal and social issues.

How can drug services help and encourage more black drug users to access the service? Research has shown that African-Caribbean people are less likely to approach drug services than white people. The main reasons given were that services are perceived as being run for and by white people and that the other reason is that the services are generally not known The report by Trish Daniel that ethnic minorities drug user do attend statutory drug services cannot be relied on (as the authors themselves acknowledge) as this is based on regional drug use databases3.

The data may be merely telling us the number of black people who approached the services but not necessarily the number who went on to receive treatment. The data does not tell us anything about the number of black people who after approaching the service felt unwelcome, or did not see it as providing a service for black people or felt they could confide in any of the staff for various reasons and therefore did no continue with the treatment. The lack of black drug workers may make black drug users believe that the service is not for them or is white orientated, or may feel that the information they give about their drug use may be passed on to the police

There is a need in the drug services to realise that Britain is a multi-racial society and therefore the drug workers need to reflect that. Black workers should be employed at all levels of the service and not only as outreach workers as is the

situation in some services. More black people should be employed and if necessary sent on drug training if we are to

see the equal opportunity policies in practice. Very often drug services tend to play lip service to equal opportunity policies It would appear that once the service has an equal opportunity policy written in their hospital or drug services

policy that is enough. However, this needs to be followed in practice with sufficient numbers of black workers on the staff and also with monitoring of black drug users accessing the service.

Why the need for more black drug workers? In my view if we do not have black drug workers on the staff we are failing the black community and effectively denying them service By having black workers on the staff it encourages access to the service by black people as they will have a sense of feeling that the service is also for them. Also black workers on the team will help towards giving confidence to black drug user and this may help them to give information about their drug use freely without the fear of the information being passed onto the police. Black drug users may feel at ease in talking about their problems to black drug workers as the may feel they have a better understanding of the nature of their problems.

Having more black people working in the drug service is a necessity rather than a ‘luxury’ as Ross Coomber seems to

think4. Black people need to be given an option as to whether to be ‘keyworked’ by a black or white worker. It is difficult to understand how Coomber could come to the conclusion that providing black workers is actually a luxury - this is being very insensitive to the needs of other people and other cultures and wonder whether, if the tables were reversed Coomber would be quite happy to be ‘keyworked’ and counselled only by black drug workers who may not be familiar with his culture. I would also like to remind Coomber that black people are not ‘scroungers’ but mainly young black people born in this country and therefore have the same rights as other British people. By providing enough black workers on the team you are actually providing role models for black young people who may have lost hope in life and feel they can never be anything than a drug user. Black drug users deserve to receive treatment and made to feel that they can access the service.

To provide adequate treatment for black people drug services would have to go out of their way to recruit black staff if they are to be seen as responding to the needs of all sections of society. In my own research on black women’s experience of the criminal justice system the women felt that when they found themselves in trouble with the police they would approach black solicitors as they were seen to be able to understand where they were coming from. On the black staff in prison one of the women said: "There should be more black prison officers otherwise its like them against us." As other woman who had not attended post-release group sessions said it was because she found that the discussions did not relate to black people and that she in turn could not relate to the group. "It was all right for jobs and that but you couldn’t really discuss your problems as they would not be able to understand them"5. These examples are merely being used here to show that black people on the whole find it easier to relate to other black people and should be given that option. The statement also show that a black drug user may find it difficult to discuss his/her underlying reason for taking drugs as he/she may feel that the white drugs worker would not understand the problem.

While I appreciate that addressing the needs of all drug users would reduce the number of people sentenced to prison each week I am in this paper concerned with needs of black drug users. Thousands upon thousands of young people are going through the courts after being arrested not for being drug addicts but for committing minor crimes to feed a drug habit. They are being arrested and being put before a court and into a criminal justice system that is not geared up to deal with them. They go through the system eventually ending up in prison, come out of prison, commit crime, go back into the system.

Drug use and crime are linked and are linked closely. Ethnic minorities make up 5.5 per cent of the total population of England and Wales and yet the constitute 17 per cent of the prison population. A large number of black prisoners are there for drug-related crimes. More black women are being sentenced to prison for minor offences related to drugs. A large number are there for committing offences to finance their crack cocaine habit. Black women on the whole make up 26 per cent of the total female prison population and even when foreign nationals (who are mainly there for drug trafficking) are excluded black women are still well over-represented in prison. Police reports that addicts as young as 12 are turning to prostitution to fund their habits, in some areas such as the London Borough of Bexley - they account for half of all breakins. Recent Home Office findings show that 20 per cent of all those arrested have evidence of heroin use6.

It is known that crack cocaine is more expensive habit to finance than heroin. According to the Home Office research

crack cocaine addicts typically spend over œ20,000 a year on drugs as compared to heroin addicts who spend an average œ10,0007. The research found that a majority of crack and heroine addicts funded their habits partly or wholly by inquisitive crime, such as theft, shoplifting, fraud and burglary, rather than crimes of violence. However some of the interviewees felt their dependence on crack led them to commit offences - perhaps with greater potential for violence. Drug dealing was found to be one significant funding option. The research also found prostitution to be a significant funding for a smaller group of women. Many black women as mentioned above are in prison due to crimes committed to finance their crack cocaine habit.

Black males are portrayed by the media as typical drug users and dealers. The result is that they are seen by the police as potential suspects. The distinction made between users and street level dealers is a red herring in that many users deal in order to fund their habits and many dealers use. So the policy of various support agencies in agreeing on the need to fight dealers, whilst helping drug users needs to be looked at.. In addition there is a concern that the dividing line repeatedly falls along stereotypical racial lines, ‘the poor white user’ and The ’evil black dealer’ and this obviously has a bearing on the way one is charged given the flexibility that exists in the application of the law.

The number of black people stopped and searched in London is up to three times greater than their proportion to the general population would suggest. The national stop and search figures suggest that black and ethnic minority citizens are five times more likely to be stopped than white people. Over 25 per cent of all persons stopped and searched during 1993 and 1994 emanated from black and ethnic communities. During the same period 42 per cent of the people stopped in the Metropolitan Police’s jurisdiction were black, yet black people comprise 20 per cent of that population. In the West Midlands 32 per cent of stops were of black people, compared to 14 per cent of the general population Virtually all police areas produced stop and search figures for black people which exceed their number in the general population. Around ten per cent of all Metropolitan Police stop and searches resulted in arrests.

It is common for the police to stop black people for speeding for example and then be told to turn their pockets out. Searches may take place under the Police and Criminal E7~idence Act 1984 (PACE) only upon reasonable grounds for suspicion that articles unlawfully obtained or possessed are being carried: In many instances however there appear to be no clear grounds as to why the person was searched. Some might say that the ends justify the means. However police practice has to be either by the book or random, anything in between means that assumptions and bias can come into play.

It is true that a higher proportion of the black population in this country are in the crime prone 14 to 25-year-old age group. It is also true that the black community suffers disproportionately from poverty, unemployment, poor housing and other social disadvantages compounded by discrimination - which are often associated with crime. More black children are excluded from school. Research at Portsmouth University has shown that there is a risk of these exclusions being drawn into more risky behaviour drug use8 It is often difficult for young black people to envisage any positive hope for their future or that they have any legitimate contribution to make to society which would be valued or wanted. They are vulnerable to attraction of a ‘glamorous’ lifestyle and status in the eyes of their peers. For example in Moss Side research found that young people are recruited to run dealers messages for drug dealers and from there it is a short step to personal drug use and small scale dealing to feed their own habit.

The previous Government’s White Paper Taclcling Drugs Together does little to address the underlying association between deprivation, dependent drug use and associated crime. The 1994 British Crime Survey results, whilst showing that drug use per se is distributed throughout the social economic spectrum, also demonstrates the powerful association

between drug dependency, poor housing, unemployment and low income. Eighty to 90 per cent of drug users attending drug treatment services are long-term unemployed. In a survey carried out in the North West in 1992 nearly 40 per cent of those using drugs in public places were homeless. The strategy needs to reflect the cumulative and complex relationships of multiple need.

What needs to be done is to invest in people, educating young people on the possible dangers of drugs. The Government also needs to play its part by giving these alienated groups hope for the future so that they might be able to exercise real choices and avoid either drug use or supply as a way of existing. We perhaps need to look at street level suppliers, rather than treatment for drug users, as an integral part of our drug strategies. It is hoped that Labour’s new Crime and Disorder Bill, which will make drug addicts attend three month course treatment, will go towards helping all drug users get the treatment they deserve

Drug agencies should create a climate where black drug users can feel that they can use the service - they need to feel that the services are for them. This means drugs services employing more black drug workers, finding out particular needs of black clientele and meeting those needs. Steps have to be taken to go into black communities to give information on drug services available and what they offer. More projects which deal with crack-cocaine users are also needed. Drug agencies alone cannot solve the problems of drug use, neither can they be expected to compensate for society, but I believe that they should be seen to be doing their part.

Ruth Chigwada-Bailey lectures in criminology at Birbeck College, University of London, and is well known as a speaker, commentator and writer on black women’s issues. Her latest study, ‘Black Women’s Experiences of Criminal Justice is published by Waterside Press (ISBN 1872870546).

REFERENCES

(1) Tackling Dnags Together: One Year On. The Institute for the

Study and Treatment of Delinquency (ISTD), 1997.

(2) Ibid, p.30, 1997.

(3) Ethnic Minorities ‘ Use of Drug Services, Trish Daniel, Druglink,

Vol 8, issue 1, 1993.

(4) Beyond ‘The Black Drug Worker’, Ross Coomber, Druglink,

Vol 6, issue 3, 1991.

(5) Black Women ‘s Experiences of Criminal Justi_. Ruth Chigwada-

Bailey,1997.

(6) Straw’s Hard Curefor Heroin Crime Wave, Mail on Sunday,18

May 1997

(7) Crack Cocaine and Drugs-Crime Careers, Home Office Research

Findings No. 34. Parker and Bottomley, June 1996.