Hallucinogens are known to affect cognition, perception and emotions; we still, however, know little about how these drugs produce their mind-altering effects. Hallucinogenic action is thought to occur by binding and activating a subtype of serotonin receptor, called the 2A. In this edition of Dose of Science, we look at a recent paper which demonstrates the role of this receptor during psychedelic experiences.

Vašek is a drug user; when he was younger, he played football for many years. He had a dream – to have a football cup for drug users. Watch this video of David Pešek from the Czech SANANIM Contact Centre about the Harm Reduction Cup 2016.

An image from the centre of Skopje: Children, barely five years old, walk around the park, holding a bag, pressing it to their faces from time to time to inhale. Healthy Options Project Skopje fights for available treatments for these kids thus for their lives.

“Instead of promoting harm reduction programs, journalists and other relevant actors use stigmatizing and discriminating terminology” Ognjen Martinović and Irena Molnar from the Serbian NGO Re Generation deconstruct the problem drug and terminological confusion.

While the federal government of Germany does not dare to change cannabis laws, cities like Berlin and Düsseldorf are taking over the lead in reform. We interviewed Georg Wurth, the chairman of the German Cannabis Association about the situation.

Scotland has witnessed a dramatic increase in overdose deaths and HIV infections among injecting drug users. Policy-makers in Glasgow are reported to be considering a proposal to open the first supervised injection site, in response to the epidemics. We interviewed David Liddell, the director of the Scottish Drugs Forum, to learn more about the situation!

This is Kyrgyzstan, a country with very complicated drug policy and a very active community of people who use drugs.  Watch this video produced by Drug User News at Drugreporter, about harm reduction and activism in Kyrgyzstan.

In this month’s Dose of Science, instead of focusing on a specific scientific paper, we present a biography of Dr Timothy Leary, the controversial psychedelic pioneer. Before he became the messiah of sixties’ counterculture, Leary was a professor of psychology at Harvard. In this piece, we trace his journey from straight academic to prophet of the psychedelic era.

The Civil Society Forum on Drugs (CSF), an expert group of the European Commission with more than forty members representing leading European NGOs, held its annual plenary meeting in Brussels last week. The Forum has become an important voice, but it needs more inclusion and funding from EU institutions.

Governments of wealthy countries will be meeting to discuss the future budget of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Romanian civil society organisations have sent them an open letter, warning of catastrophic consequences if they fail to allocate adequate funding for HIV prevention measures, in a country which has been badly hit by the epidemic.