Hasn’t heard the term “pwud” before.
Can’t see any improvement over older terms tbh.
I'm assuming you mean drug user, or drug misuse or do you mean other older terms?
Sure not all people who use drugs will like it and maybe the phrase will change, but at least it's recognising I am a person and I don't need to be ashamed of the fact that I use drugs and that's all there is to me. We do need a way to be able to talk about people who use drugs collectively due to the specific challenges they face, but of course language changes all the time and there are problems with people first language potentially.
At the risk of going on a tangent so many people still use the words like junkie, crackhead, kethead, zombies, or any other stigmatising language that is often used by the press, society and services to reduce people to their substance use rather than seeing the whole person.
And those words above particularly Junkie, Crackhead and Zombies are usually used to describe people who are from poor working class communities that use particular substances that already face a huge amount of discrimination. It is not very often leveled at people who use those substances but can maintain certain levels of living and have access to better health care.
Like even the word clean can be really problematic even though it is often used by people who have been, or are going through making changes to their substance use. I knew someone who would talk about being clean, but when they were emotionally dysregulating they would talk about how disgusting and dirty they are due to their substance use that was mainly linked to unresolved trauma that they had not had the opportunity to work through. They were not dirty because of their substance use. That is the sort of stigma that words can reinforce and I think it is important to pick apart sometimes.
When people from a particular group start to use language themselves as a part of taking control of it that is different. I'm not saying these words could never be used, but language matters.
I’m not sure it’s semantic range is useful enough to be a substitute for anything*, but if it is a term intended to be considered non-pejorative in place of a previously used pejorative term, then it’s a euphemism.
* - I looked up the term and it said pwud referred to “people who use drugs for pleasure, medicinal or other reasons”, which seems to include just about everyone.
Exactly. The vast majority of people use drugs so why do we consistently label people who use drugs that are illegal as different and what barriers does that put Infront of them being able to access the correct support. Why don't we call coffee drinkers drug users? They might sometimes describe themselves as an addict on a self depreciating way, but it doesn't hold the same weight and history that it does for someone who uses an illegal drug. (And some people self describe as an addict and find that empowering which is also fine to be clear.)
I have to do a lot of explaining to people about how Alcohol and Caffeine are still drugs it's an uphill battle at times.
Edit; just saw your edit - I'd contest the last bit drug abuse is a contested word too, but I've written enough.
