Péter Sárosi is the Executive Director of the Rights Reporter Foundation. He is a human rights activist and drug policy expert, the founder and editor of the Drugreporter website since 2004, the author of countless articles, co-author of books and director of films about harm reduction and drug policy reform. He was the Director of the Drug Policy Program at the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union between 2004 and 2015. He is experienced in working at international drug policy forums such as the Commission on Narcotic Drugs. He was twice elected to the Core Group of the EU Civil Society Forum on Drugs. He is the co-chair of the Eurasian Harm Reduction Network. He has been representing the Hungarian Harm Reduction Network at the government’s drug advisory body in Hungary since 2007. Peter also contributed to building a network of advocacy NGOs in Europe: the European Drug Policy Initiative. He provided technical assistance to several NGOs, and launched several campaigns on drug policy reform. As a member of the Drugreporter video advocacy team, he has produced videos about drug policy issues in a number of countries. These videos are now part of a unique online drug policy video library.
The legal regulation of drugs is more effective and just than prohibition. But does it really fix most problems? Not without social justice. (This article is available in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian)
Our movie gives you an overview of the crisis of harm reduction programs in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where harm reducers don’t receive support from the government but they keep doing their work and saving lives.
The Catalonian parliament has recently adopted a new law to regulate the cannabis market. We interviewed Òscar Parés, the deputy director of the International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research & Service to learn more about the cannabis reconquista movement in Spain.
Although it was without much fanfare that the European Commission, in July 2017, published the new Action Plan on Drugs (2017-2020), the drug policy community should celebrate it as a great achievement both for its progressive content and for the meaningful involvement of civil society in its preparation. [There is a Polish, Estonian, Hungarian and Serbian translation of this article!]
As of 3 years ago, Serbia stopped being eligible for funding from the Global Fund, which resulted in the closure of harm reduction programs around the country. Our movie gives you a glimpse of the desperate situation faced by injecting drug users in Serbia, and also explores the consequences of the closure of needle exchange programs in Belgrade, whilst trying to assess the current situation in the country!
The Indonesian president declared a war on people who use drugs. Community activists responded with a short video, explaining why the hate campaign launched by the government is ineffective and wrong. Please support their fight by watching and sharing this movie!
Last week the anti-NGO law came into effect in Hungary. From now on, NGOs receiving more than 26,000 USD per year from international donors have to register as “foreign-funded NGOs”, report donations, and attach a warning to every publication (read my earlier article here!). Although the government claims the law only aims to improve transparency, this is really just a fig leaf, designed to mislead the EU and to conceal the real purpose: to stigmatise and blacklist us. If you have any doubt about this just look at the new hate campaign launched by this administration against George...
Today, on the 26th of June, activists from all over the world are taking action against global drug prohibition under the “Support. Don’t Punish” slogan. Please read our interview with the coordinator of the campaign, Jamie Bridge, who is a senior policy and operations manager at the International Drug Policy Consortium!
The Sejm has passed a law that is intended to allow patients to access cannabis preparations. These preparations will be available in pharmacies on a doctor’s prescription, and the raw substance shall be imported from abroad. 440 deputies voted yes, two were against, and one person abstained.
‘Despite the fact that drug use has been decriminalised in Portugal, there seems to be a lasting resistance to framing drug use beyond public health and public disorder issues.’
