The
incidence of the drug phenomenon on the Roma minority can be described
by analysing three levels or fields where its impact can be noticed:
-
drug abuse
- social structures and institutions of the Roma
- social image of the Roma community
Starting
by the image, the social relationships between a minority and
the majority are impregnated with prejudices and stereotypes.
One of the main mechanisms in the creation of prejudices is generalization
and/or over-representation. In this, the excuse is the existence
of a minority of Roma families who deal with drugs, an excuse
which has led to the elaboration of this new stereotype (that
affects a whole collective) of the Roma as a dealer. Drugs have
become, thus, the new referent used to stigmatise the Roma population,
denying the reality that also Roma families are suffering their
consequences, sometimes in a greater extent or with less tools
to fight them.
The
damage in the social image of the Roma has direct consequences,
too, in the field of the care for drug users or in phenomena like
AIDS, since there has been an attempt to hide the existence of
drug users and, even more, of HIV/AIDS cases. This makes it difficult
and delays the involvement of the Roma communities or organizations
themselves in any specific program or action, and it also contributes
to make it difficult for drug users to have access to health services.
The
difficulties for a social and labour integration for wide sectors
in this community, and the loss of traditional labour niches,
has encouraged some Roma families to turn themselves to the selling
of drugs as a means to make a living.
Several
circumstances have facilitated the involvement of some groups
of Roma with this business:
-
The existence of degraded settings with little social internal
and external control, which facilitate this kind of illegal business
promoted and profited by the drugs traffic networks.
- The difficult social and financial conditions some groups of
Roma are currently going through. The loss of their traditional
jobs, which is forcing them to find new ways to make a living,
ways for which they lack the adequate means.
- The chance of getting high financial profits, with a minimal
effort, within so needy a setting as many Roma families are.
As
regards the drug use, if the image of the Roma as a drug dealer
has had some kind of success within their social representation
up to the point of forming a new stereotype, the role of the Roma
as a user, as a drug dependent, however, remains hidden or has
received less attention.
It
is often unknown or ignored the reality of the effects of drug
abusing among an especially young population, subject to a heavy
mutation in their identity signs. It is another hidden reality,
even within their community, and, on the wake of it, it exists
an important segment of drug dependents which are "neglected"
or unknown.
It
is greatly difficult to carry an approximate estimation on the
prevalence of drug dependency among the Roma populations. The
fact that the very own families hide the use (out of shame, or
because it will make it more difficult to get their children married,
or because it can be the source of many conflicts...), plus the
lower demand of care in normalized centres, and the non-collecting
of data regarding their belonging to a certain ethnic group on
these services' clinical records... make it harder to estimate
it among the Roma than among the general population.
However,
we do have noticed the relevance that Roma organizations, support
groups or other NGOs working with this population give to the
phenomenon of drugs use. This situation offers a number of coincidences
in the repercussion that the drugs phenomenon are having among
the European Roma:
-
Drugs use is having a relevant incidence among the Roma population.
We must think that it is a "young" population (i.e.,
65 % of the Spanish Roma are under 25, and this phenomenon happens
all over Europe). The available data on Roma drug dependents indicate
that they start using drugs 2 - 3 years earlier than the rest
of the using population.
- We have noticed that, in marginal segments, young Roma and children
are getting involved in the precocious use of drugs, which requires
a specific proceeding that is not taking place.
- Roma drug dependents do not have access to care services and
treatment, nor do they profit the damage lessening programmes
existing in our countries. This situation is due to the lack of
confidence and of information among the Roma, and to the incompetence
of the care facilities to adapt themselves and to reach this kind
of population.
- Roma do not profit, as much as other people, policies and programmes
of primary and secondary prevention, both regarding the use and
abuse of drugs, and information on AIDS, programmes of syringes'
exchange, etc.
- In some countries, it is noticed a higher rate of HIV/AIDS cases
regarding to the rest of the drug using population, plus a lack
of prevention measures on transmissions nor of the use of pharmacological
restraint therapies.
- The lack, or shortage, of care and prevention measures adapted
to this population is creating the chronicity of problematic drug
using, of the psycho-social problems of these people, and of diseases
related to drug use.
Finally,
and with regard to their social structures, drugs are affecting
some sensitive aspects of the Roma coexistence, social structure
and mechanisms of social control. One of the reasons why drug
abuse has become one of the main "problems" in the social
discourse may be their capacity to create the people's destruction
and to bring drama to the families... These aspects are sharpened
in a population where the role of the collective and of the family
are crucial, where the individual is such as related to the group,
and to the kinship system of which they receive their social personality.
They affect, thus, structural aspects of the community in a way
so far unknown, and transmit a feeling of danger and alarm, as
well as some new situations to which one does not know how to
respond. Occasionally, drug selling, this new source of income,
has undermined the forefathers' authority and prestige.
Besides,
drugs are a referent that hides other problems. If this is and
has been so in our society as a whole, it is more among the Roma.
We have already mentioned the processes of exclusion and xenophobia
that have got new breath due to the drugs excuse. Drug abuse is
affecting certain groups of Roma, creating or increasing processes
of social, familiar and cultural disintegration among an already
vulnerable population.
It
is, thus, a European phenomenon that needs global and comprehensive
answers to situations often chronic, which add themselves and
accentuate a process of marginalization and social unadaptation
which, in some cases, had begun to be solved. The EU enlargement
towards the East and the inclusion of a high number of Roma population
forces the European Union to face the need of creating answering
structures, joint and valid.
