Dedicated to a lovely friend who told me to let my heart speak and that’s exactly what I’ll do here. I send my love and respect to all drug users organizations for their hard work and beautiful ideals. They have really changed my life.

They could be called dreamers’ visions, communal actsor counterattack revolutions as all of these ratingscould be equally justified. We simply call them activemovements tapped on the side of our brothers andsisters across the world who suffer a terrible, absurdlyharmful war and need our voice to publicly cry outloud that we are here to demand and get a fairer andequitable future for us and the next generations.Moreover, these massive movements born andempowered in more and more countries every day arethe silent commitment to each other that our slogan

‘Nothing about us without us’ is unanimouslydecided by all drug users organizations

Drug user activism is an achievement attributed to alldrug users around the globe who decided to stand upagainst the violation of their rights and the inefficientdrug policies and demand participation in our ownlives. Our involvement is conquered within years ofeffort, persistence and certainty that we are capable todrastically contribute to decision making by proposingmore realistic measures to address our community’sissues than the existing ones. Who says it’s easy toorganize a movement consisting of hundreds ofdifferent personalities, minds, attitudes, views,specificities and backgrounds? Who says it’s easy tostart a Union and suddenly get to handle a bunch ofboring and typical legal and economical procedureswhen you never had a clue of bureaucracy?

Who says it’s easy to mobilize so many frustratedand exhausted people who have stopped believing intheir power of making plans? And who says it’s easyto convince them after all, that in a hostile homelandthat makes them feel invisible and unwanted, theyhold the hope of change in the palm of their handsand in the sound of their voices? Not easy, not at all.BUT thankfully, some of this range of ‘mysterious’people who had never had a goal but finding theirdope, had a hidden ace in their sleeves beyond theirown knowledge: they had PASSION. Damn it, we’refull of it all over our blood. We passionate drug useractivists, take our role and our mission veryseriously. We want to change our world and we doeverything within our powers to make it. Our passionmakes us who we are.

It is clearly acknowledged that Europe isdivided in two levels of harm magnitude.Countries where drug user activism is olderand more prominent, usually have a moreflexible and debatable political systemconcerning drug policy, often accompanied byeconomic comfort to support HRinfrastructure and thus, have created a socialperspective more familiarized with the drugculture (e.g. Switzerland, Germany,Netherlands, Norway, Spain). Not that they’vesolved their probs.

Another group of countries with short historyin the DU movement or currently developingtheir forces, with separate political partieshaving no consensus on drug policy or evenworse, carrying discriminating and racistpositions towards drug users population,often accompanied by problematic economicrates, generate an immense social hatreddirectly expressed to DU who experienceunbelievable forms of harm brutality (Greece,Cyprus, Turkey).

Well, we didn’t discover America, you know all aboutharm. Harm is here, now and has many faces.Homelessness. No acceptance of DU or HIV+ peoplein hostels/shelters. No OST, Hep C or proper HIVtreatment in prisons. Inadequate syringe/needleexchange & distribution. No DCRs. No DU’s access tonaloxone. Strict prison sentences for drug users evenfor micro-quantities. Non-existent medical servicesand punitive rules in OST programs. Lack ofinformation and disrespect to DU by ‘experts’.Welfare benefits cut down. No occupationopportunities for DU in HR structures. Ignorance overnew cheap and dangerous substances. Neglect,stigmatization. No highlighting of the dangers ofinfections. No objective perception of the actual sizeof harm of the DU community. And so many more..

In Athens, it takes 4 years to be accepted in the OSTprogram. The program has neither medical norsocial services. If you’re an OST member, you haveno access to syringe exchange. The DCR coversvery limited needs. From this year, DU withhepatitis C, mental disorders and otherpathological problems are not entitled to welfarebenefits. Athens prison hospital of Korydallos, theprison hosting the biggest amount of DU convictsin Greece, was recorded by prisoner patients’camera bringing into light the terrifying conditionsthey experience: beds stuck one next to the otherwith no free room in-between, one’s head is closeto the other’s feet, cockroaches on the mattresses,

broken bathrooms, broken windows in theshowers leaving people freezing in winter, badfood and one doctor for the whole prison hospital.People amputated and developing gangrene, HIVpatients and one with Kapozi’s sarcoma, patientswith advanced cancer and heart problems, leftthere all alone waiting for their death and fillingtheir heads with handfuls of pills to keep themsilent on their beds…what do you think aboutthat? Who gives a dime about those DU and otherpeople rotting in Korydallos hospital? And I leftanother one for the end. When a couple of DU arehaving a baby, the hospital will not give them theirchild unless there is another clean person claimingto be raising it.

Harm Reduction means we accept there isharm. We believe this harm is not caused bydrugs themselves but by the governments andthe legislation that makes them illegal and us,drug users, criminals. And as criminals, we’realways prosecuted, excluded and presented as‘the bad’. In another context, we are absolutelyfunctional, productive and responsible people.That is what we expect from Harm Reduction.To become the counterweight to this modelcreated by the state and synthesize this othercontext in which DU will have a normal life.

First of all, OST. We definitely need more OSTprograms. There are countries that have complete lackof them according to their needs. We need to define thefunction of these programs. In Greece, we have regularurine tests and people are thrown out even forcannabis use. This is unacceptable. There should be auniformity in the regulation of OST programs andimplement it across Europe. Substitution in prisonsNOW! Drug use is major in prisons and some newlyarrested DU suffer badly so the need for OST is anemergency. We need access to full range ofmedications (methadone, buprenorphine, morphine,heroin) recognizing the right of free will to chooseourselves our treatment substance but also as a steptowards the acceptance of heroin as a legal substanceand its wider prescription. Our purpose is thedecriminilization of drug use, the formation of a safe,controlled drug market , the end of prohibition andsocial change.

Hostels for homeless drug users. Without a placeto stay, a DU cannot develop any interest for hishealth, damages his health and is completelyexposed to the risks of street life. Drugconsumption rooms in every country and to theextent they are needed. Countries are not only thecapitals, they also have rural areas or smallertowns where drug users live and need a placewhere they can make use with confidentiality andsafety. In Greek islands, we have hundreds of DUwith no HR structures. Access to syringes all dayand all night long. Syringe distribution mustbecome more regular, syringe exchange structuresmust be open as long as possible and automaticmachines should be installed in city areas.

You want this?

Or this?

You want this?

Or this?

We have to trust naloxone to the hands of DU. Wehave to stop deaths from overdoses with the hope thatan ambulance will come straight away, that there willbe naloxone in it and that the overdosed person hasenough time to make it. Naloxone should be in everyplace a DU is.

Among other things, we would like to underpin thevalue of DU active involvement and employment inHR facilities. In Greece e.g., only 6 DU work. They arestreetworkers and former DU. We believe WE shouldbe the ones that will run these places. Injecting roomsshould be ran by peers, syringe exchange and reach outgroups should be ran by peers, not only former DU butalso DU in OST. Our Union used heroin users todistribute some printed material and earn somemoney. OST programs could use their members asemployees according to their skills (as computertechnician, secretary, cleaner, outdoor work etc.) andenhance them in any way. We feel closer to DU, we areDU ourselves and a different balance would be created.

We consider it highly important to use ourempirical knowledge to train not only our peersbut also experts. Experts (counselors,psychologists, doctors, decision-makers) seem tofail to approach drug users and some of them oftentreat them with reservation and discrimination.Even though it is their job, they do not perform itwell. We could therefore have training sessions,discussions and workshops where this empiricalknowledge could be practically used and create amore user friendly environment but also openemployment positions for DU. Even in prevention,this knowledge is priceless. Schools, Universities,municipalities etc. could organize thematicsessions where we could break this distorted socialview and inform people with truths instead ofterror.

In closing, we request to give more light onHCV prevention and treatment. Hepatitis Chas become as the Swedish Union says ‘ahidden and forgotten plague’ and theinformation spread is not enough. We need ahuge European campaign, we need to raiseawareness, check the level of knowledge of themedical staff working with DU, make knownto public the progress of this silent disease, theneed for treatment and the new drugsavailable. Then, all these people asking fortreatment will put pressure on pharmaceuticalcompanies to reduce the cost. No more peopleshould die of HCV without any idea that it iscurable and they could have been saved.

There could be so many more things to say butthen, we would never leave this place. HarmReduction has the role to make DU’s life easierand to relieve them for the unbearabledifficulty to find a place to shoot up, to find asyringe right at midnight, to find an alternativeto their written off rights. We believe in HarmReduction, we support it and we wouldsupport it even stronger if we had the chanceas we do with everything we take over..withpassion.

Picture 1: Drug Users

Picture 2: Drug Users

We used to be likethis (1) and we’vebecome like thistoday (2). It alldepends on HarmReduction. Which ofthe two options doyou choose for us?