At the national harm reduction conference in Budapest,  presenters from Greece, Romania and Hungary reported that there are similar problems and challenges in relation to injecting drug use in Southern-Central Europe, but there are huge differences between government responses. Lack of political leadership is leading to growing HIV and hepatitis C infections among drug users all over the region.

Regulated medical marijuana has come out of the blue as a feasible alternative in Serbia, where overwhelming public support favours regulating hemp-based medicines. The promised draft law is still awaited, however, and will then require the approval of the national parliament.

This year, the Romanian drug law was amended in the direction of decriminalisation, though the law still retains imprisonment and fines as an option, while penalties generally discriminate against the poor and socially disadvantaged.

Watch our video interview with the man who discovered Mephedrone, the drug also known as Meow-Meow!

Bulgarian society seems to be in a state of apathy when it comes to decriminalisation of drug use. Neither a so-called “reform” of the drugs law (making it harsher than ever), nor an outrageous fine for the pro-legalisation Green party, was a loud enough wake-up call for Bulgaria to distance itself from the current punishment-based approach. Read the guest article from human rights expert journalist Krassen Nikolov.

The president of Turkey declared a war on drugs – but is it really what his country needs? Read our report from Istanbul! 

New Zealand decided to decriminalise sex work in 2003. Please watch our film and learn how sex workers see the impact of this law on their daily lives!

Our video features an interesting presentation by Pye Jakobsson about the origins of the so called Swedish model, the policy criminalising the clients of sex workers.

Read a report about our campaign for opening supervised injection sites in Budapest – and watch our campaign movie with English subtitles!

We recorded two important press conferences at the AIDS 2014 conference in Melbourne.