Home > Moving beyond 'people first' language: a glossary of contested terms in substance use.

Scottish Drugs Forum. (2020) Moving beyond 'people first' language: a glossary of contested terms in substance use. Glasgow: Scottish Drugs Forum.

[img]
Preview
PDF (Moving beyond 'people first' language)
1MB

Committed engagement from stakeholders across the drugs field means that the field remains one in which discussion and debate has flourished. This discourse exists within the public realm and reflects the values and instincts of the public as well as those of professionals and academics and, crucially, the opinions and experiences of people who use drugs. One of the issues in such a complex discourse with so many stakeholders is that language develops that excludes some stakeholders. Some professional and academic discourse is unintelligible to people whose specialist knowledge and perspective lies outwith the professional or the academic world. Likewise, there is a rich language amongst people who use drugs to describe their experiences and communicate with each other. Some of this, given the illegal and sometimes clandestine nature of drug use is deliberately exclusive of others. 

A glossary of all the terms used would be a huge undertaking. This project sought to identify terms that are contested or commonly misunderstood. The aim has been to explain the nature of contention and, where terms may be misunderstood, account for this. Where appropriate, SDF’s own preferred use of language is given and explained. The drugs field contains a lot of language that is offensive to some people. This is because drug use is a stigmatised activity. People who use drugs; people who have a drug problem; people in treatment and people who may be regarded as being in recovery all suffer stigma as do their families and communities. Self-stigma means that people may use stigmatising terms to describe themselves and their situation. The issue is delicate and complex. 

This resource allows people to understand contested terms and understand how language can result from and perpetuate stigma. In Scotland, there is an emerging consensus on the use of people-first language – using ‘people who use drugs’ rather than ‘drug users’ or ‘drug misusers’ or ‘addicts’, for example. There has also been a commitment in the latest drug strategy to use acceptable terms. However, there is a long way to go. We cannot continue to think that people can be included or supported, never mind empowered, by people and services that have adopted languages and notions which reflect and perpetuate societal stigma.

Repository Staff Only: item control page