The Romanian Blue Cross launched a free of charge rehab service, which was not accessible before in the country. Read Stefan Iancu’s, a former user and present helper at Blue Cross, experiences and opinion about the situation of rehab services in Romania.

Folosirea în comun a echipamentului de injectare de către consumatorii de droguri duce la răspândirea bolilor infecțioase precum hepatita C sau HIV. Persoanele care locuiesc în zonele respective nu privesc cu ochi buni seringile aruncate pe stradă. Soluția nu poate veni de la poliție – arestarea persoanelor care consumă droguri nu reduce numărul acestor, ci îi împinge către comportamente mai riscante și la aruncarea seringilor cât rapid după folosire. Vechile metode de luptă împotriva problemelor legate de droguri nu funcționează. Aceasta este o campanie de găsire a unor noi soluții – de a fa…

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.

At the national harm reduction conference in Budapest,  presenters from Greece, Romania and Hungary reported that there are similar problems and challenges in relation to injecting drug use in Southern-Central Europe, but there are huge differences between government responses. Lack of political leadership is leading to growing HIV and hepatitis C infections among drug users all over the region.

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. 

Harm-reduction activists take to the streets of Bucharest to warn the authorities of alarming public health risks

We visited a street outreach program of  ARAS, an NGO fighting HIV among the most vulnerable people of Romania

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