Drawing a Line | Mike Linnell | 20 Years of Harm Reduction
Colin Wisely
Mike on Colin
Colin was the director of Unit 51 in Huddersfield when it merged with Lifeline. Colin became Lifeline's International Director, persuading a number of colleagues (mainly me) to follow him around the world to work on various research and harm reduction projects. Colin Wisely was responsible for me ending up in the middle of Siberia. He now works for Salford DAT.
Back in early 1997 I read an article in the BMJ about rising levels
of HIV amongst injecting drug users in the Russian Federation. Within
months I began a personal Odyssey that took me into the murky world of
international drug policy. One of my companions on that journey was Mike
Linnell. My work with Mike began as the last century drew to a close and
took us from the icy Siberian forests of the Altai district, all the way to the
sunny beaches of Miami. 
On the journey we experienced the highs and
lows of attempting to make a dent in the HIV epidemic in Russia, examine
social exclusion amongst drug users in Western Europe and even tried to
open up shop in the good old US of A.
The epidemic in Eastern Europe continues to this day, drug users remain some the most excluded individuals, even in liberal Western Europe and as for the United States; well they obviously weren't ready for cool Britannia and all her treasures. In hindsight it was all folly but what a folly!
Behind the fart jokes and the swearwords of Mike's publications there lurks a very serious purpose: to give truthful information about drugs to drug users in a language they can understand without moralising. In an age where appearances always seem to win over substance, there is little room for truth. Mike's willingness to attempt to speak the truth on behalf of drug users has often brought trouble from those who would prefer more palatable messages.
At the beginning of this century, Mike and I went to a party hosted
by a group of street outreach workers based in Moscow. Under pressure
from all sides these young people, many former users themselves, were
attempting to develop harm reduction from scratch within the midst of an
epidemic that has now affected an estimated million individuals in Russia
alone. Upon walking into the room Mike received a standing ovation! What
better accolade? For once even Mike was lost for words. I hope that
Mike's work will continue to inspire many others for years to come.