The city of Paris has opened its first drug consumption room (DCR) last year, after a long political struggle. We interviewed Charlotte Mévil-Blanche, a volunteer at the Gaia-Paris DCR about their plans.

This movie is featuring the Global Ibogaine Conference that was held in Mexico in March, filmed by a member of Drugreporter’s new global video network and an alumni of our video advocacy training, Brun Balanced and his peers, Karina Muscarina and Gabriel Amezcua.

The Pride movement is about fighting social exclusion and discrimination – but what if the Pride organisers themselves exclude and discriminate against those who are in the greatest need of support – LGBTI sex workers? This is what happened in Budapest, where a workshop on sex work was banned from the festival.

The ‘cognitive impairment theory’ proposes that cannabis causes cognitive decline. The hypothesis has gained some support from a 2012 study, but a recent paper with twin participants strongly argued against the theory. Both studies agree on the association between smoking and cognitive decline. Where they disagree is whether the relationship is causal or merely correlation. In this Dose of Science we take a close look at the question. 

MDMA’s neurotoxicity is the topic of this and many future editions of Dose of Science. The question is not whether MDMA is neurotoxic in an absolute sense, but rather, what is the extent of the damage at various dosing regimens. Stephen Kish’s study [1] from 2010 aims to clarify the picture by employing a range of neuroimaging techniques and cognitive tests on a large sample while controlling for many potential confounding factors. 

Inside Luxembourg's drug consumption room – read the story of our guest author about drug policies in one of the smallest but most interesting countries of Europe. 

IFLScience, one of Facebook’s biggest science advocacy page recently headlined a study that “New Study Finds Marijuana Safer Than Alcohol Or Tobacco” [1]. While this is a catchy title, the paper only partially supports the statement. In this edition of Dose of Science we are going to take a close look at the original research article [1] to examine whether weed is really safer than alcohol.

Read about the great example of how the civil sphere of Portugal is joining forces to convince the authorities and public service providers to take harm reduction related to drug use seriously.

Portugal not only broke the taboo by decriminalising all illicit substance but also recognised the importance of on-site harm reduction in party settings. Read here how their holistic CHECK!N party service helps young people and others.

Recreational drug use is  common in party settings among Serbian youth– a recent large scale study concluded  – bringing further evidence for the need to make party harm reduction services widely available across the country.