Harry Shapiro delivered the 2016 memorial lecture, the seventh in the series.

Harry is the Director of DrugWise the international Knowledge hub, promoting evidence-based information on drugs, alcohol and tobacco.

He has worked in the drugs field for over 35 years, most recently as Director of Communications for DrugScope. He was DrugScope’s main media spokesperson, managing editor of Druglink and has written extensively on all aspects of drugs and drug-related issues combining this with lecturing, public speaking and advisory work for government. He remains the managing editor of DS Daily.

The title for Harry’s lecture was:

‘The Needle and the Damage Done’; drug users, media and stigma

In it he explored:

• Popular culture representations of drug users.
• Why have these representations been uniformly negative? Is it just about the drugs?
• How for much of the past 100 years drug users have allowed interventions to be 'done to them' with little or any say in the matter
• How this has been changed in recent years - user movements at national and international level - even though fraught with problems - and completely hidden from public view.

The video recording of the lecture can be watched here.