Cocaine and stimulants, the challenge of self-regulation in a harm reduction perspective

A significant body of research on cocaine users recruited outside the "captive" populations (i.e. studies from samples of users who have not been enrolled through drug addiction services) has been carried out in many European countries and outside Europe. These studies show a variety of patterns and trajectories of use other than "addictive" use. The reason of most "controlled" use lies in a wide set of self-regulation "rules" users "naturally" apply to keep drug use at bay and prevent the disruption of everyday life. Not only is this perspective at odds with the "pathological" perspective of professionals, focused as this is on "addiction" originated from the chemical properties of drugs and individual psychological deficit; it also challenges the social representation of drugs as intrinsically "out of control" substances and of drug users' helplessness under the influence of drugs. The paper describes the workstream Innovative cocaine and poly-drug abuse prevention programme, developed in 2013 by the Italian NGO Forum Droghe within the European project New Approaches in Drug Policy & Interventions (NADPI), aimed at linking findings from research on "controls" to operational models in drug addiction services. Through a critical overview of the disease model and taking cues from users' self regulation strategies, a new "self regulation" operational model has been developed, focused on users' control abilities; and on social context and setting of use, following the drug/set/setting paradigm. The self regulation model may be seen as a development of the Harm Reduction approach to drug policies, aimed at decreasing the negative consequences of drug use without necessarily reducing the consumption of drugs.