.

This group of the using community is neglected and shunned by harm reduction services, which continue to refuse to consider their specific needs.

The M2M network, although hiding from services, worked in partnership with Exchange Supplies to change the gendered nature of NSP for the first time in 30 years, as well as developing an anti-stigma campaign that is now international.

Activist-led underground injecting equipment provision was often the only access route, leaving them relying on others by exchanging services, money or drugs. They are open to a level of exploitation and blackmail like no other part of our community.

Imagine living with a dread that each day could be the last you spend as a family and knowing that if it happened the world would hate you for it and you would hate yourself.

It has taken almost two years for Exchange Supplies, M2M, HIT and Release to dismantle radical recovery as the dominant voice in the UK – to place harm reduction centre stage again.

Sam Nickerson commissioned a report that broke boundaries – it did not flinch from the truth or hide that the system perpetrated harms; it allowed real raw mothers who use drugs to be heard. They did not need lived experience to speak for them.

When did we start taking their voice and thinking for them? When did we stop asking or listening to them? When did we allow ourselves to become distant and the ‘other’? When did we begin to patronisingly refer to ourselves as their peers despite not living the same life any longer? When did HR start thinking it was acceptable to use the struggle of users to make money or look good?

Social Justice is never given – it is taken.