A struggle for making medical cannabis legal in Poland: an article by Iga Jeziorska on our new video produced by Paweł Libera and the Polish Drug Policy Network.

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.

Używanie tych samych strzykawek przez wielu użytkowników prowadzi do zakażeń, takich jak WZW typu C albo HIV. Wyrzucone igły leżące na ulicach nie są mile widziane przez mieszkańców. Rozwiązanie problemu nie leży w rękach Policji – aresztowanie osób uzależnionych nie zredukuje ich liczby, ale spowoduje, że będą używać w bardziej ryzykowny sposób, oraz że będą wyrzucać igły na ulice naszych miast. Dotychczasowe metody przeciwdziałania problemom narkotykowym nie działają. Jest to kampania mająca na celu znalezienie nowego sposobu na rozwiązanie tego problemu – zapewnienia pokojów służących do b…

Sharing of injecting equipment by people who use drugs leads to infections, such as Hepatitis C or HIV. Discarded needles on the streets are not welcomed by people who live in the area. The solution does not lie in the hands of the police – arresting people who use drugs does not reduce the number of drug users, but pushes them to use in a more risky way, and to discard their needles as soon as possible. The old ways of fighting drug problems don’t work. This is a campaign to find new solutions – to provide room for change.

Our new report (PDF) aims to assess the various policy responses to new psychoactive substances (so called “legal highs”) in five European countries – Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Serbia – , from the perspective of researchers, service providers, law enforcement officials and activists working with the most affected communities of people who use drugs. 

Videos of a conference organised by Drugreporter at the European Parliament on new psychoative substances.

The former president of Poland, Alexander Kwasniewski apologized for supporting the criminalization of drug users in his speech at the opening session of the international harm reduction conference

Watch and share our movie to raise awareness on the human rights consequences of the global war on drugs! Read more >>

There is no consistency in our policies on drugs – says Ruth Dreifuss, the former president of the Swiss Federation

Video reports of the Count the Costs campaign events organized by the European Drug Policy Initiative in 5 European cities