They have demonstrated to encourage social welfare policies, drug abuse treatment policies, and police regulations that respect drug users' dignity and that, in some cases, make it more feasible for drug injectors to reduce their risks of acquiring or transmitting HIV and other viruses. Practitioners and theorists of social movements and community and labour organising have developed useful insights on these issues. Here, we will attempt to apply these perspectives to develop a framework for thinking about changing drug injectors' norms. Although education-focused projects approach drug scenes as collections of individuals to be taught facts about HIV and skills with which to reduce their risk, this model is far too simple for interventions that aim to change norms. We need to look at the structures of drug scenes, and at ways to study those structures as we intervene.
Drug scenes consist of varying degrees of open street scenes and of hidden users.
We know little about the hidden users, although projects such as the needle exchange in Boulder, Colorado, USA, have been developing ways to work with them. The more open scenes, on the other hand, are better understood. They contain structures for dealing drugs, as well as networks and peer groups. Local leaders' exist both within many peer groups, and, sometimes, on a network basis. Working with such local influentials is a critical part of changing norms in a scene.