When shows like Last Week Tonight use our video clips, it reaffirms to us that our efforts are really worth it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
The Drugreporter video team has made hundreds of videos since we started in 2008. Our aim has always been to raise awareness of issues that are abandoned, or highly stigmatised, such as the rights of people who use drugs or sex workers. As filmmakers it is sometimes not that easy to get feedback on your work, or to see the actual impact your work makes. You hear from time to time that your video is used at universities, or that it influenced people to become activists, or that it opened their eyes to social justice issues. You also see your view counts on YouTube or Facebook, but it gets harder and harder to break through the noise of the millions of short videos published every day. But when you see your work on John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight show, you know you have been doing something right! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both Peter S\u00e1rosi and myself, the video team of Drugreporter, are great fans of John Oliver’s work. The way he and his team talks about important social issues is a unique blend of humour and compassion. You can imagine how happy we were when they asked permission to use a segment from the USA episode of our documentary film series “TAKING BACK WHAT\u2019S OURS! An Oral History of the Movement of People who Use Drugs.<\/a>”\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n We produced the 10 episode series in 2020, in cooperation with INPUD<\/a>, the International Network of People who Use Drugs. We organised 34 video interviews in 20 countries, to document the oral history of the international rights movement of people who use drugs. They used a part of the film that features Louise Bale Vincent<\/strong> from the North Carolina Survivors Union<\/a>, where she talks so touchingly about how US policies disconnect people who use drugs in every aspect of their lives. Check out the episode on Harm Reduction here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n