István Gábor Takács is a human rights activist, videographer and trainer. He ran the Video Advocacy Program of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union between 2007-2015. He worked as a needle exchange program counselor for 5 years. He is author of several articles on harm reduction and cameraman, editor, director and co-director of more than 700 online videos, among them longer documentaries, such as “Kostya Proletarsky” (2020), “Taking Back What’s Ours: An Oral History of the Movement of People who Use Drugs” (2020) ”A Day in the Life: The World of Humans Who Use Drugs” (2016), “Without Rights” (2009), “Without a Chance” (2014), “Room in the 8th District” (2014) and “The Invisible” (2011). Since 2016 he works at the Rights Reporter Foundation, where besides producing films, he is training activists in video advocacy.
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.
Check out our new infographic on Romania, where the poor health services provided for injecting drug users lead to increased shared needle use driven by new psychoactive substances. All of this has caused a surge in new HIV cases, and the revival of tuberculosis among people who use drugs.
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 recent closure of the largest needle and syringe exchange program in Budapest raised a lot of concerns. Read how the leader of a similar service, ArtEra, sees the changing landscape for injecting drug users in the Hungarian capital.
Do the recent structural changes to Portuguese harm reduction services threaten the stability and integrity of the country’s system? Our local EDPI partner, APDES, guides readers through this issue.
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!
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.
Life can be particularly challenging for girls living with addiction in Serbia. Read the call from our Serbian partner organisations, for a gender-sensitive approach to helping substance users.
