DPNSEE President Nebojša Đurasović, Executive Director Milutin Milošević and Director of the Timok Youth Centre Goran Radisavljević visited Ms Žana Glavendekić, the Regional Project Officer for Drug Demand Reduction.
DPNSEE Executive Director Milutin Milošević, who is also member of the Working Group on Chapter 24 Justice, Freedom and Security of the National Convention on the European Union, spoke in the morning program of the K1 TV in Serbia. The topic was the Operation Desert Light, where authorities in Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates worked together to bring down so called drug “super cartel”.
The talk included also various other issues related to the drug policy in Serbia and wider.
The recording of the program is available (in Serbian) below.
The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) hosted the closing conference of its international cooperation projects with the Western Balkans and European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) region. The two-day event was held on 21 and 22 November 2022, in the margins of Lisbon Addictions 2022, Europe’s largest conference in the area of addictions.
The objective of the two projects is to familiarise the project beneficiaries with EU policies and working methods and to prepare them for consolidated and structured reporting to the EMCDDA.
Under the theme ‘Drugs beyond EU borders: emerging trends and preparedness’, the event focused on cross-border drug-related health and security threats in the Western Balkans and on drug markets and emerging drug-related challenges in the ENP region.
Over 80 participants – from 18 partners, EU institutions and other bodies – attended the meeting (in Lisbon and online) to discuss the results of this cooperation. Among others, experts took a look at the preparedness of health and security services in the regions to address the emerging threat of cocaine trafficking and use. DPNSEE Executive Director Milutin Milošević was among the speakers in the Moderated panel discussion: How prepared are the partners for emerging cocaine trafficking and use?
The meeting also provided a platform for partners to present work undertaken in the framework of the projects aimed at improving knowledge on the drug situation in the region and at scaling up responses.
In cooperation with the Portuguese national focal point (SICAD), the meeting concluded with onsite visits to: a commission for the dissuasion of drug use; a judicial police forensic laboratory; a community-based harm reduction programme; a low-threshold mobile unit for methadone distribution and a drug consumption room.
Visit to the GAT drop-in centre in Mouraria, run by the peers from the population of people who use(d) drugs
DPNSEE Executive Director Milutin Milošević was invited to speak today at the K1TV about the appearance of the captagon drug in Kosovo and potential treat to the region.
The third round of the Thematic Discussions of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) was held from 19 to 21 October 2021. The meetings were held as a hybrid event with participants joining both online and in person. It included thematic sessions on the implementation of all international drug policy commitments:
Thematic session 1: Increasing links between drug trafficking, corruption and other forms of organized crime, including trafficking in persons, trafficking in firearms, cybercrime and money-laundering and, in some cases, terrorism, including money-laundering in connection with the financing of terrorism, are observed;
Thematic session 2: The value of confiscated proceeds of crime related to money-laundering arising from drug trafficking at the global level remains low(20 October 2021)
Thematic session 3: The criminal misuse of information and communications technologies for illicit drug-related activities is increasing.
DPNSEE Executive Director Milutin Milošević was selected by the Vienna NGO Committee on Drugs to speak at the session as one of the civil society discussants. He highlighted the re-use of confiscated assets for social purposes and beneficial effect this practice has on strengthening community responses. He stressed the lack of transparency in the region of South East Europe.
Statements of other civil society representatives at the session are available following this link>>>. A record of the discussions can be found on the CNDBlog.
The new Civil Society Forum on Drugs (CSFD) held its first meeting on 6 October2021. This was the first meeting of this important EU expert group where DPNSEE participated.
CSFD had an exchange with the representatives of DO Home and DG Sante. Discussion was mainly about lack of funding for full capacity of the Forum’s work.
CSFD agreed on the working group framework. As the results, four working groups are created
WG1: EU drug policy
WG2: International drug policy
WG3: National drug policy
WG4: Emerging drug policy issues and cross-cutting issues
Forum elected DPNSEE Executive Director Milutin Milošević as Chair of the Working group 4.
Our Executive Director Milutin Milošević was guest at the morning programme of the K1 TV together with Director of the Office for Combating Drugs of the Government of Serbia Milan Pekić and psychologist Ms Vesna Tomić.
The trigger for the talk was result of a survey presented recently which shows that 17,7% of secondary school pupils use drugs while 14,1% of them is involved in drug trafficking.
The guests estimated that the target of the survey were sport fans, which are deeply involved in drug trafficking, and that resulted in so high number. Still they agreed that situation is not good.
Milutin presented official data collected by the Institute for Public Heath using the ESPAD methodology which are significantly lower. He also emphasised the need for multi-stakeholder, systematic, long-term approach to the issue of drugs.
The recording of the talk is available in Serbian.
Statement of the Minister of Health Dr Zlatibor Lončar that Serbia will regulate cannabis in line with the decision of the UN Committee on Narcotic Drugs triggered a lot of attention in the country.
Milutin was then invited for a talk with Prof Dr Vladimir Kovčin at the cable channel K1 where most of the attention was given to medical benefit of marijuana and possibilities to regulate it in Serbia.
Our Executive Director Milutin Milošević and Prof Dr Vladimir Kovčin spoke today at the Pink TV about regulation of cannabis (for medical purposes) in Serbia.
The recording is available at YouTube (in Serbian)
As part of the Serbian Visions Multicongress, organised by the German-Serbian Chamber of Commerce (AHK) from 1 to 5 February 2021, DPNSEE will hosted an online discussion “Cannabis – narcotic drug or/and medicine” on Friday 5 February.
Despite a very unfavourable time (Friday evening), 18 participants from Serbia, Croatia, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Slovenia joined. Most of them were from civil society organisations, but also we had those from the Office for Combating Drugs of the Government of Serbia and the Institute for Public Health in Serbia.
List of speakers included:
Milutin Milošević, DPNSEE
Nebojša Đurasović, Prevent, Serbia
Vlatko Dekov, HOPS, North Macedonia
Tomaž Koren, konoplja.org, Slovenia
The discussion was led around three main topics: how to regulate cannabis, medical value of cannabis (in the light of the new decision of the UN Committee on Drugs and Narcotics) and the latest developments in the region. Participants actively contributed with their positions and questions.
Recording of the discussion is available at the Serbian Visions Youtube channel.
