Support. Don’t Punish is a global advocacy campaign calling for better drug policies that prioritise public health and human rights. The campaign aims to promote drug policy reform, and to change laws and policies which impede access to harm reduction interventions.
The campaign aligns with the following key messages:
- The drug control system is broken and in need of reform
- People who use drugs should no longer be criminalised
- People involved in the drug trade at low levels, especially those involved for reasons of subsistence or coercion, should not face harsh or disproportionate punishments
- The death penalty should never be imposed for drug offences
- Drug policy in the next decade should focus on health and harm reduction
- By 2020, 10% of global resources expended on drug policies should be invested in public health and harm reduction
On the occasion of the 26 June also the United Nations’ International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking the Global Day of Action of the Support Don’t Punish Campaign is organised in more than 150 cities in the world.
The Drug Policy Network South East Europe coordinates activities of the campaign in South East Europe, where our member organizations are pushing actions in countries and cities with activities that vary from the film screenings and street actions to public debates and dialogues with the different government bodies.
Annually, the campaign was organised in 10 countries, in 11 cities, by more than 20 organisations and 200 volunteers, through more than 40 activities, reaching up to half a million people through variety of action, public and social media.
For the launch of the Global Day of Action, DPNSEE organised the “Kick-off event” every year to mark the start of the campaign in South East Europe.
More about the campaigns is available from DPNSEE webpage following links to pages for 2017>>>, 2018>>>, 2019>>>, 2020>>>, 2021>>>, 2022>>> and 2023>>>.
The overall purpose of the project was to ensure stronger participation of SEE representatives in the European Harm Reduction Conference. Specific objectives of the project included:
- Improve and extend partnerships in South East Europe
- Provide organizational and logistic support to SEE representatives at the Conference
- Organize a SEE side-event before EuroHRC
- Support linking of the SEE participants with various networks, EU agencies etc.
- Envisage and agree on models of long term co-operation in the region.
DPNSEE supported both logistically and content-wise participation of 35 representatives of 10 countries of South East Europe and the Conference and organised a successful pre-Conference regional meeting.
Aim of this project was to document the acute funding crisis facing harm reduction services in Balkan states and South-East Europe, with the aim of influencing the policies and actions of the Global Fund and other donors. The project lead was the International Drug Policy Consortium. The project was supported by the Open Society Foundations.
Drug Policy Network South East Europe was partner in the project, with the role to implement one of the three main parts: The identification and documentation of case studies of opioid substitution therapy stock-outs or shortages, service closures or reductions in coverage, and other critical issues experienced by civil society partners across South-East Europe related to transitions away from Global Fund support.
Through interviews with key stakeholders and desk-based research, DPNSEE gathered information, experiences, feedback and recommendations from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo*, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia. The material was collected in November – December 2017.
The outcome of the project was published the document Addressing the acute funding crisis facing harm reduction services in South-East Europe. It was presented during the South East Europe Meeting held in Bucharest on 20 November 2018, prior to the 4th European Harm Reduction Conference.
The document is available following this link>>>
