Civil Society Demands Balanced EU Funding for Drug Policies

Civil society organisations sent an open letter to the EU Commission to criticise the new call for drug policy grant proposals that almost only focuses on law enforcement and excludes harm reduction.

C-EHRN sent an open letter to Ilva Johanson, Commissioner of Home Affairs, and Floriana Sipala, the head of the Drug Unit of the EC, to address this issue. The text of the open letter:

“We write to you on behalf of Correlation – European Harm Reduction Network (C-
EHRN), representing 158 civil society organisations (CSO) working in the area of harmreduction drug policy in Europe. C-EHRN is part of Foundation De Regenboog Groep
and, as such, is also represented in the EU Civil Society Forum on Drugs.

Together with the undersigned networks, we would like to express our concern and
disappointment with the current call of the Internal Security Grant concerning better
law enforcement in the area of illicit drug trafficking. We believe this call does not
reflect the principles of an evidence-based, integrated, balanced and multidisciplinary
approach to the drugs phenomenon and is not in line with the Drug Strategy of the
European Union. The call has a narrow focus on law enforcement interventions, with
no objectives to improve complex public health and social services, including harm
reduction.

For several years, the members and organisations we work with have benefited from
the EC JUST Drug Policy grants launched by the European Commission. These
grants demonstrated the balanced, evidence-based and multidisciplinary approach
to drug policies in accordance with the core principles of the European Union. They
provided an excellent opportunity for civil society organisations working in the field of
drugs to cooperate internationally and exchange knowledge and good practices.

When the Drugs Unit was moved from the Justice Department to the Internal Security
Department, civil society organisations were promised that this would not affect the
balanced and multidisciplinary approach to drug policies of the EU Commission.
However, the apparent shift towards law enforcement and crime prevention proves
different – with social and public health aspects slipping off the agenda.

The Internal Security call lays only limited emphasis on drug demand reduction and
none at all on harm reduction. At the same time, no other EU Programme took over
this responsibility, leaving drug demand and harm reduction behind, without any
opportunity for EU funding and support.

This is an extremely concerning development. EU funding has become increasingly
important in recent years because of the emerging funding crisis for harm reduction,
especially in the Eastern part of the European Union. Since the 2008 economic crisis,
funding for harm reduction has constantly been declining in most Member States.
Several essential services operated by CSOs have been closed down or curtailed due
to budget cuts and the retreat of international donors.

On top of the funding crisis, CSOs experience a shrinking space for civil society in
several Member States, where governments are increasingly hostile to those
organisations that receive international funding or work with marginalised groups of society. With decreasing national and local funds, direct funding from the European
Commission was often the only funding opportunity to improve advocacy and
innovation in the harm reduction field for many organisations. This opportunity is now
lost.

DG Home is the department within the EC responsible for developing and
implementing a balanced, integrated and evidence-based EU Drug Policy. Such a
balanced approach requires that funding mechanisms are available for all drug policy
areas and not only for law enforcement and crime prevention programmes.
We, therefore, call upon the European Commission and DG Home to reinstall the
funding mechanism for drug demand and harm reduction to ensure a balanced and
evidence-based drug policy also in the future.

We look forward to your response and hope for your continued support for civil
society in the area of drug policy and harm reduction.”

Signatory Networks & Organizations:
AIDS Action Europe [AAE]
Drug Policy Network South East Europe [DPNSEE]
EU Civil Society Forum on Drugs1
EU HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis and Tuberculosis Civil Society Forum
Eurasian Harm Reduction Association [EHRA]
European AIDS Treatment Group [EATG]
European Network of People Who Use Drugs [EuroNPUD]
Forum Droghe
Harm Reduction International [HRI]
Federation des Acteurs en Education en Promotion de la Sante de Guyane [AGRRR]
International Drug Policy Consortium [IDPC]
International Network of People Who Use Drugs [INPUD]
MAINline
Positive Voice
Red de Atencion a las Adicciones [UNAD]
ReShape
Youth Organizations for Drug Actions [YODA]

Open Call: C-EHRN Expert Groups & Consultations

As part of our 2022 work plan, C-EHRN is working with different Expert Groups and will organize consultations addressing a variety of topics. With this open call, C-EHRN would like to invite all its members and partners to engage and participate in these Expert Groups and Consultations based on their interest and expertise in any of the following areas:

  1. Hepatitis & Drug Use
  2. Coverage of Harm Reduction in Europe
  3. New Drug Trends
  4. National Harm Reduction Networks
  5. Harm Reduction in Prison and other Custody Settings
  6. Integrated & People-centred Care Models
  7. Community-based & Community-led Research

If you wish to participate, we invite you to express your interest and share a brief description of your area of expertise [max. 100 words] through the following email: administration@correlation-net.org before the 31st of July 2022.

New Steering Committee Members

We are happy to announce the New Steering Committee members!

Based on the results of the voting process and the specific profiles developed for this selection process, the following candidates have been elected: Tony Duffin, Daan van der Gouwe, Roisin Downes and Perrine Roux.

Also, C-EHRN would like to take the opportunity to thank all the members that submitted an application. Also, to emphasize the high level of expertise and the excellent applications received for this election.

 

In the coming days, the newly elected members will participate in its first Steering Committee Meeting. In this event, they will have the opportunity to meet the current remaining members and to connect with those who leave their seats.

C-EHRN would like to invite you all to join us in congratulating the four new committee members. We are truly excited to start working with them!

Request for Proposals

As part of an Operating Grant for our activities in 2022, C-EHRN is looking for different
experts and consultants and strongly encourages professionals within the Network to
submit proposals. Due to funding regulations, we specifically invite candidates from the
EU Member States, whose GNI per inhabitant is less than 90% of the EU average.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES OF THE CONSULTANCY
1. To conduct a scoping review of current literature and methodological guidelines for the
development of community-based and community-led research.
2. To collect and analyse good practice examples (at least 5 cases) of community-based
and/or community-led research projects in the field of harm reduction and drug use,
preferably in the European context
3. To organise an online consultation/focus group with experts in the field to assess
critical factors for the development and implementation of community-based and
community-led research
4. To conduct interviews with selected experts in the field to complement desk research
for points 1 and 2.
5. To prepare a report (20 to 30 pages) and a policy brief with recommendations (3 to 5
pages) based on the outcomes of the online consultation, the good practice examples
collection and the literature review.
6. To participate in the C-EHRN Expert meeting, to present and discuss preliminary
findings and collect additional input for the report.

HOW TO APPLY
To be eligible as a consultant, individuals must comply with C-EHRN’s Mission and Vision,
which you can find at the following link:
https://www.correlation-net.org/mission/
.Applicants must submit a short letter of interest and a CV. These documents should
reflect the candidate’s competency to complete the consultancy, including references to
the requested skills, knowledge and professional experience.
Please, submit this information to administration@correlation-net.org until the 27th of
May 2022, 23:59 CET. In the subject line of your e-mail, please indicate the Reference
Number, the title of the Consultancy and your name:
Reference Number | Consultancy Title | Name & Family Name
Note: if these documents are not submitted in full, the application will not be considered.

MORE INFORMATION
For more information, contact administration@correlation-net.org.

View the full call for proposals here

C-EHRN SC Elections

This coming May the Steering Committee (SC) elections will take place and we want to ensure that our committee is as diverse, motivated and well informed as it should be – to become a crucial voice in guiding our journey. As a C-EHRN Member, you are eligible to submit an application for this process either as an organization OR as an individual. The deadline for submissions is Thursday, May 12th 2022.

As per normal practice outlined in the Terms of Reference [ToR], half of the current Steering Committee members will rotate and half will remain. This means that, for this election, we are looking to fill 4 positions.

What is the Steering Committee?
The Steering Committee (SC) is one of the most important governing bodies of C-EHRN. The major goal of the SC is to facilitate the fulfilment of the Network’s mission by developing and supporting policies, strategies and operational implementations in a nutshell, the tasks of the SC involve:

  • To initiate the discussion on specific issues, related to activities and/or critical issues.
  • To represent the Network at European, regional and national meetings and conferences, including the interaction with multilateral organisations and political bodies.
  • To advocate and negotiate on behalf of the Network interests in the various working fields on European, regional, national and local levels.
  • To develop, implement, monitor and evaluate future plans, priorities, projects and activities of the network in consolation with various stakeholders in Europe.
  • To review and decide upon the planning and execution of annual action plans.
  • To provide technical guidance on the Network priority areas in relation to their specific field of experience.

Who is currently a Member of the Steering Committee?
After this rotation, Alina Bocai, Marianela Kloka, Christos Anastasio and Peter Sarosi remain as Members of the SC. C-EHRN would like to express its gratitude to all rotating Members of the SC for all their commitment, contributions, support and passion for the Network. Thank you Tuukka Tammi, Dirk Schaefer, Jose Queiroz and John-Peter Kools. 

Interesting! But… am I eligible to apply?
All C-EHRN Members can stand for election and are eligible to vote. However, outlined by the ToR, C-EHRN Management Team “may develop a specific profile for the vacancy in the SC, in order to ensure a balanced composition of the SC in terms of experience and expertise”. To complement the expertise and experiences of the current members of the SC, on this occasion, we would like to call for SC Member applications from any of the following areas:

  • Youth and young adults [under 30 years old] working in the field of harm reduction or related drug policy field.
  • Harm reduction professionals working in any of the following areas: drug-checking, safer nightlife, festivals or other recreational settings.
  • Harm reduction professionals providing services for people of diverse sexual orientation, gender identity and expression and sex characteristics; people living with HIV; or sex workers.
  • Drug policy professionals with a strong advocacy experience both at national and international levels.

Equally, C-EHRN would like to strongly encourage proposals of candidates across all the spectrums of lived experience of drug use, gender, sexual orientation, sex characteristics, involvement in sex work, homelessness, ethnic origin, age, physical or neural ability, migratory background, religious belief or responsibility for dependants.

Sounds like a good fit! How do I apply?
Applications are open from now until Thursday, May 12th  2022. To apply, you are required to complete this application form (click the link) and this form of consent. Once completed, you can submit all everything by email to administration.co@correlation-net.org

What’s the timeline?
The timeline for the elections is as follows:

  • Deadline for applications | Thursday 12th May 2022
  • Publication of candidates | Thursday 19th May 202
  • Voting | 19th May – June 1st 2022
  • Announcement of results | Thursday, June 2nd 2022

Great! However, after reading this, I still have some questions
No problem! If you have a question, please drop the C-EHRN office an email at administration@correlation-net.org

Request for proposals – consultants and experts

As part of an Operating Grant for our activities in 2022, C-EHRN is looking for different experts and consultants. C-EHRN strongly encourages professionals within the Network to submit proposals and apply to any of the following consultancies before the 29th of April, 23:59 CET

C-EHRN2201 Consultant to monitor and evaluate the process, outputs and impact of the Network activities.
C-EHRN2202 Consultant to support the writing of a C-EHRN Technical Report and an Activity Report.
C-EHRN2203 Consultant to support the development and implementation of C-EHRN’s capacity-building activities.
C-EHRN2204 Consultant to support the writing and editing of publications.
C-EHRN2205 Consultant to prepare a report and a policy brief on integrated and people-centred care models in harm reduction.
C-EHRN2206 Consultant to prepare a report and a policy brief on harm reduction in custody settings.
C-EHRN2207 Consultant to prepare a report and a policy brief on national harm reduction networks.

Due to funding regulations, we specifically invite candidates from any of the following EU Member States to apply: Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia.

More information? administration@correlation-net.org

C-EHRN Podcast Series #2: Harm Reduction and Broader Development of Societies

Harm Reduction is not only a set of practices, strategies or approaches to support the needs of marginalised and underserved communities. As such, it is also a human rights movement for social justice. Moving away from responses that solely focus on individual [health] behaviours, harm reduction also brings attention to the impact of social determinants on health.

We talked to Tony Duffin of Ana Liffey Drug Project, Beatrix Vas of Youth Rise and Marta Borges of Social Emergency Unit, Portuguese Institute for Social Security. Following the opening session The Development of Drug Policy and Harm Reduction at the 5th European Harm Reduction Conference in Prague, we discussed advocacy, decriminalisation, and health inclusion, with our guests.

“We manage to be gatekeepers and not human rights services because we put so many questions to let people in that we end up keeping them out. This is the type of advocacy, we have been working on.” says Beatrix Vas.

“How we work with people and how we view people should be changed.” adds Tony Duffin.

And, Marta Borges tells us about how the situation has been like since the arrival of decriminalisation, the “holy-grail”, in her country, Portugal.

Enjoy listening and tell us what you think!

#HRAtWork #HarmReduction #EHRC21

Harm Reduction @Work: What a blast #EHRC21 was!

One of the participants shared her feelings after #EHRC21 with the phrase; the better the high, the bigger the comedown. We have waited long enough to have such a get-together, and it was a blast.

The Conference had a record number of participants. Over 400 people from 43 countries, including people from outside Europe such as the USA, Russia, Canada, and Lebanon, gathered in Prague from the 10th to the 12th of November. Overcoming the difficulties posed by the COVID19 pandemic, harm reductionists remained upbeat until the last minute. Even participants from afar continents like Australia, Africa, South America and Central Asia were hoping they could travel, until the very last minute. Staying positive is a trait we all share in the field of Harm Reduction, after all. To enable a wider audience, we also live-streamed some of the sessions with over 150 viewers.

The sessions were chaired by 28 representatives of organisations from across Europe. There were 116 speakers covering extensively urgent and current topics in the human rights movement of people who use drugs, sex workers, people experiencing homelessness and other marginalised communities. Just to name some. The biggest downer during the Conference was having to choose what to attend during parallel sessions because everything was equally exciting. 

Apologies for all the statistics but is this not absolutely incredible that the Conference thrived in such a fashion? So here comes a toast to all harm reductionists in the world.

You rock! Harm Reduction goes on!

..

Could you not attend for whatever reason?
See below ideas on how you can do a thorough follow-up:

The online discussions during the conference can be tracked down in social media with the hashtags #HRAtWork and #EHRC21, in case of arousal of curiosity 🙂

We are now busy uploading all shareable online. In the meantime, HERE are images from the Conference and HERE is the video teaser from the Conference done by the amazing Drug Reporter foundation.

Last, but not least important, either subscribe to our newsletter to not miss out on the news or follow us on social media via @CorrelationNet.

We would like to wholeheartedly thank all the Conference partners, chairs partners, speakers and participants for their time, energy and support in making the #EHRC21 memorable. Together, we will move the unmovable.

#IDUD21: International Drug Users’ Day 2021

Every year on 1st November, among many organisations, C-EHRN celebrates International Drug Users’ Day by showing solidarity within the harm reduction world, aiming to raise awareness about the importance of community-led harm reduction and peer involvement and advocate for the rights of people who use drugs.

Alongside other vital initiatives, this year, there are two campaigns to which we would like to draw your attention. 

INPUD campaign: #PowerOfPeers 
As Aditio Taslim, the INPUD Advocacy Officer, states, the COVID-19 pandemic has provided us with more proof that in times of crisis, the community responds first by extending solidarity and supporting each other through challenging times. Nevertheless, still, they are the ones that are under-funded, under-invested and excluded.

The #PowerOfPeers campaign messages boldly highlight:

By joining the Campaign, you can help add bricks to the goal to end the War on Drugs with full decriminalisation of drugs with no sanctions.

Check here for the INPUD campaign toolkit to get inspired and, accordingly, to inspire others.

UNAIDS Call-to-action
On this very day, you can also answer the call by UNAIDS for action against the criminalisation of people who use drugs and for community-led harm reduction programmes. Their call aims to end inequalities and AIDS by fully involving communities of people who use drugs to achieve legal reform aimed at decriminalisation and in the organisation of harm reduction programmes at the country level.

Lastly, as you might be well aware, the 5th European Harm Reduction Conference will occur next week between 10-12 November in Prague. The programme includes extensive highlights which are co-organised by representatives of people who use drugs and peer-led networks. 

Below are only a couple of the sessions that will touch the groundwork and offer plenty of discussions and knowledge exchange: 

  1. Workshop 3 | C-EHRN & EuroNPUD: A starters kit for testing in the community by the community
  2. Satellite II | UNODC HIV/AIDS Section – HIV prevention, treatment and care among & with people who use stimulant drugs
  3. Plenary Opening Session | Drug policy and harm reduction embedded into the broader development of societies in Europe
  4. Major Session 1 | Drug policy decriminalisation
  5. Major Session 4 | Key issues during the pandemic: naloxone and overdoses
  6. Parallel Session 2 | Peer-led Harm Reduction
  7. Parallel Session 3 | Girls Power in HR2
  8. Parallel Session 7 | Supporting person-centred choice
  9. Parallel Session 8 | NPS and mental health
  10. Parallel Session 10 | Objects or Subjects?
  11. Major Session 5 | Peer work and research

Did you know that there will also be live-streaming sessions?
Check out their list and register here if your calendar can be shifted to open room for those you fancy following!

Support.Don’t.Punish.: The burning need for an approach that rejects the violence of criminalisation

As the 2021 Global Day of Action on 26th June approaches, the sudden realisation of the end of the first half of the year hits agendas as well. It states the need for creating more realistic resolution checklists boldly. It is the same sidestepping for everyone, from individuals to governments.

What is said vs What is done and What ought to be.

50 years ago, when the United States launched their #WarOnDrugs, their recreational checklist has triggered a series of tragic events that defined the decades until to this day. Evidence and empathy have been parked firmly whilst a backdrop of political expediency and bigotry took on the stage. Conclusion? Marginalisation, extremism, criminalisation, punishment and stigmatisation rather than advancing our communities’ health, human rights and well-being.

Every year, on 26th June, the Support.Don’t.Punish. campaign mobilises in reaction to this violence and this loss to build sustainable alternatives. Even last year, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the mobilisation took place with the same spirit of care and determination.

This year will be no exception.

Below is a list of things you can do and share:

Share information
Support.Don’t.Punish. channels will be sharing regular information to prompt reflection and action.
Follow and share Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the Day of Action’s website.

Join the Photo Project
With over 10,000 entries, the Photo Project is proof of global solidarity. Not yet in there? Print the logo, snap a photo and send it over by e-mail. Invite your networks and colleagues to do so too.

Organise & mobilise!
From big conferences to mural-painting to small ‘open house’ days, there are quite literally hundreds of ways to join the Day of Action. Check the campaign’s Bank of Ideas for Mobilisation for inspiration and make sure you are part of the ‘Supporting organisations’ list.

Plan your mobility action now and join the crowds to make the message louder and stronger.
Let’s #UndoTheWar