Unlike other countries from the former Yugoslavia, Slovenia is experimenting with drug policy in order to improve the public health response to drug use. After almost two decades of advocacy and preparatory legal work, a drug consumption room (DCR) pilot project was launched in Ljubljana, in 2015, by the local NGO, 'Stigma'.
European Drug Policy
Would the Real International Community Please Stand Up?
Seeing the reluctance of world leaders, will civil society finally stand up for itself and say enough with the human rights abuses and suffering caused by the war on drugs? Read the opinion of Jerry Dorey, our volunteer. If you have an opinion on this subject, please send it to us!
Cushion Effect: How do We Deal With Austerity in Drug Policy?
The consequences of the economic crisis are threatening the continuity of the integrated intervention system that characterises the “Portuguese Model”. Read what our local partner APDES is doing to preserve the country's achievments in the field of drug policy.
Where Do Poles Inject? – The “Room for Change” Campaign in Poland
Public discussion of harm reduction in Poland – especially the country’s attitude to injecting drug users – is stuck in the 1990s. Read what needs to be done, in terms of the realities described by Polish drug policy experts, to save lives and lower the costs of treating users.
Cost-effective Yet Underfunded: The Harm Reduction Program of Odyseus in Slovakia
In Slovakia, the cost/benefit analysis carried out on a needle and syringe exchange program showed that every euro invested in C.A. Odyseus´s harm reduction program generated benefits worth almost three euros. Read what the figures show about why it’s worthwhile investing in harm reduction!
Harm Reduction: Stuck in the Transit Zone
Our new movie provides an insight into the state of harm reduction in Eastern Europe: A struggle for survival in a time of economic austerity.
Legal Highs Steal Your Life
In Poland, a ban on over a hundred new psychoactive substances coincided with a massive outbreak of poisonings related to the use of synthetic cannabinoids. The most pressing question must therefore be: Does an increase in prohibition do anything useful to protect our young people?
The New Civil Society Forum on Drugs Meets in Brussels
45 professionals representing civil society organisations working in the drug field gathered in Brussels to prepare advice for the European Commission and member states.
Republic of Georgia Cuts Back Its Street Drug Testing Program
Civil society activists welcomes the parliament’s decision to ease back on the world’s most restrictive on-street drug-testing program – but they say full decriminalization would be the real solution.
What’s New in Polish Drug Substitution?
Recent media uproar in connection with a new wave of poisonings from "legal highs" provides a timely opportunity to draw attention to the Polish system for helping drug-dependent people. Demand for new drugs is not only a problem of criminal law and the result of inadequate prevention measures, but also a problem of inadequate treatment, as a result of which thousands of people remain without help.