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.
Last August, the city of Zürich launched a pilot program that enables its citizens to legally purchase cannabis. We interviewed Dominique Schori from the Drug Information Center about the developments so far.
After decades of advocacy by civil society, the government finally approved the opening of the first drug consumption room in Slovenia. On this occasion we interviewed Katja Krajnc from the NGO Stigma, a leading harm reduction organisation in the country.
Roland Griffiths, a leading scientist studying psychedelics, passed away on October 16. The following article is as much a eulogy, praising his achievements, as a personal note about my own spiritual journey.
Scotland is a textbook case of how the toxic combination of growing social exclusion and poverty, the diversification of drug markets, and repressive, abstinence-only drug policies can lead to a deadly drug overdose epidemic. A new paper published by the Scottish government gives us hope that the country can now set an example to other states on how to give a compassionate and pragmatic response to the crisis.
Mexico is on the road to cannabis legalisation, but it seems this particular road is long and full of traps and barriers. We interviewed Zara Snapp, an activist and co-founder of Institutio RIA, a leading drug policy reform organisation in Mexico.
Drugreporter interviewed Nanna W. Gotfredsen, a street lawyer, activist, and member of the Danish Parliament about the chances of drug policy reform in Denmark at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in March.
In order to raise public awareness of effective overdose-death prevention methods, activists set up an unofficial drug consumption room in the middle of Helsinki.
The Drugreporter team attended this year’s 66th session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), the largest annual global meeting on drug policies. This is a preliminary written report with some personal impressions – the videos are coming soon. The article has French and Russian translation!
