The members of our global video advocacy network, Karina Muscarina and Brun Balanced produced a great video about how activists campaign for drug policy reform in Mexico – please watch and share!
The Support Don’t Punish campaign, originally launched by the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), has been consistently growing around the world. Every year we can see more people joining in on June 26th – the international day against drug abuse and illicit trafficking – to express the need for different approaches and models that provide support and solidarity, whilst moving away from the very harmful and stigmatising punitive laws and policies that have been the historical tendencies for the last 60 years under prohibition.
This year in Mexico, ReverdeSer Colectivo, in collaboration with the Drug Policy Brigade (Brigada de Política de Drogas), and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), organised a public forum, dialogue space, and free concert inside the campus of the university. There they invited students and young people, along with everyone else, to learn about the current state of the country, the war against drugs and drug policy reform advocacy at the global scale. This last year has brought many violent, unpredicted, and completely new events linked to cartel violence and illicit drug trafficking to the University, which was one of the main reasons behind the decision to carry out the forum on campus.
This is an effort to bring more attention, energy, and hands to build up the movement, strengthening the different community-based and peer-driven initiatives in Mexico and Latin America that are working to develop and evolve what we like to call a “full spectrum harm reduction perspective from, by, and for the Global South”.
In this video you can see some of the images from the event and listen to some of the key points that were presented by young activists, peer-educators, and harm reducers during the different discussions. We thank IDPC, Drugreporter, the volunteers and musicians that played in the event, and everyone involved for the time, energy, and resources that made this possible.
Peter Sarosi
