The City Council of Budapest rejected a proposal from the government party, Fidesz, to abolish the city’s progressive drug strategy and to create a new, repressive strategy.
The Budapest City Council discussed and rejected a motion submitted by Alexandra Szentkirályi, the head of the ruling Fidesz party’s fraction in the capital, that proposed to cancel the Budapest Drug Strategy. The document, which was prepared by the Budapest Drug Council (BKEF), with the meaningful and broad involvement of civil society, was adopted in December 2023 by the opposition majority.
The Mayor of Budapest, Gergely Karácsony defended the drug strategy at the meeting by arguing that it is an evidence-based document that was modeled after the EU Drug Strategy (2021-25). He pointed out that the strategy reflects a broad consensus among professionals, who sent a letter in defense of the strategy to all representatives of the Council.
The strategy brought criticism from the government party because of its progressive elements, especially its full support of harm reduction, which comprises one of the four pillars of the strategy (the other three are prevention, treatment, and supply reduction). Ms. Szentkirályi, who announced in a Facebook video her intention to cancel the strategy, claimed that it is a “pro-drug” strategy while Budapest needs an anti-drug strategy, just like the national anti-drug strategy adopted by the government in 2013. She said the only acceptable approach is zero tolerance and she rejected harm reduction as “drug promotion,” falsely accusing the strategy of aiming to establish “many drug checking rooms” at dance clubs (in reality, the strategy only promoted an open social conversation about drug checking programs and supervised drug consumption rooms, as innovative harm reduction interventions).
Her accusations were echoed by the pro-government press, which published many articles on the subject recently. These media reports included much false information and distortions; for example, they claimed that harm reduction has proven to be a failed social experiment in Western Europe and drug consumption rooms created crime and nuisance (the opposite is true). Some articles, with homophobic rhetoric, also criticised the city for funding a counseling service for chemsex participants, operated by Háttér, an LGBTQ NGO.
Professionals of the Budapest Drug Council, who participated in the preparation of the drug strategy (including the author of this article), explained in their aforementioned letter to the Council representatives that the Budapest drug strategy is a comprehensive document with a balanced and integrated approach. Harm reduction, singled out by opponents, is an important and integral but one element of it. They also pointed out that it is actually the government that has the full resources and power to change the course of drug policies in the country but it failed to scale up access to prevention, treatment, and harm reduction in its 14 years of rule.
Hungary is one of the few countries in the EU where there is no current national drug strategy. The last one, the National Anti-Drug Strategy, adopted in 2013, expired in 2020. Although it had the hyper-ambitious and unrealistic goal to make Hungary “drug-free” in seven years, it has never been evaluated, and no new strategy has ever been prepared.
If it had been evaluated, many inconvenient issues would have come to the surface. For example, the dramatic cuts in the drug budget in the 2010s. The scapegoating and closure of essential harm reduction programs, including the two largest needle and syringe programs in 2014. The decline in drug prevention programs in schools. The destruction of the institutional framework of national drug coordination, especially the abolition of the National Drug Prevention Institute in 2016. The abandonment of poor, often segregated Roma communities with rampant new psychoactive substance use. The list can be further expanded, painting a disturbing picture about how drug policies were degraded and disintegrated in Hungary.
It is no surprise that when an opposition candidate, Gergely Karácsony was elected as mayor of Budapest in 2019, civil society saw a window of opportunity. As a result of years of advocacy, a new Budapest Drug Council (BKEF) was established, chaired by the deputy mayor and with the meaningful involvement of civil society. The BKEF decided to create a drug strategy for the city of Budapest. Unfortunately the COVID epidemic interrupted the preparations, and the work had only continued after the end of the pandemic. Meanwhile, the city provided some small, but still very needed funding for street outreach programs.
In 2022, the city contracted the Hungarian Society on Addictions (MAT) to conduct a study and assess the drug situation in Budapest as part of evidence-informed policymaking. The comprehensive study of MAT included an analysis of epidemiological data as well as focus group studies among various stakeholders to assess their needs. Based on the study, the working groups of the BKEF prepared a four-pillar (prevention, treatment, harm reduction and supply reduction) drug strategy. The document followed the structure and content of the EU Drug Strategy (2021-25), including a strong focus on human rights and evidence.
The city has a very limited role in shaping drug policies, especially after the government deprived it from much-needed resources. The healthcare and school systems are all centralised in the hand of the government. But the city can initiate professional dialogue between different sectors, organise training courses and conferences and create knowledge hubs. It also provides small but significant grants to some organisations that do street outreach to support the most marginalised groups of people who use drugs.
