The current drug policies are based on a punitive repressive approach to discourage drug use and illegal production and distribution of drugs. This policy has been proven not to be effective. The Aim of this project was to promote drug policies and drug legislation based on a public health and human rights approach. That will lead to a more humane and effective drug policy.
Objectives of the project were to:
- Continue with a strong presence of NGOs in the dialogue with the political actors and other stakeholders towards a more realistic and humane policy for drug users.
- Strengthen the Network and member organisations
This project was the result and expected continuation of the cooperation between the organisations in South East Europe which dates back to 2009.
The project was supported by the European Union through Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA) programme Civil Society Facility (CSF) EuropeAid/136-034/C/ACT/Multi. The project run for 4 years, from 2015 to 2018.
The project lead was organisation Diogenis, Drug Policy Dialogue from Greece with partners from the region: Aksion plus from Albania, Margina from Bosnia Herzegovina, NGO 4life from Montenegro, Prevent from Serbia and DPNSEE.
Results of the project include:
- Better co-ordinated actions of NGOs – broader than at the national level
- Better consultation of civil society organisations on the national level
- Larger network of strong member organisations (DPNSEE was created as one of the outputs of the project)
- Efficient and reliable structures of the Network
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.
