Video 7: The role of civil society

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Do curso por University of Geneva

Drugs, drug use, drug policy and health

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University of Geneva

Drugs, drug use, drug policy and health

1 rating

This MOOC is the first of its kind, since it addresses critical issues related to drugs from a multidisciplinary, health and human rights-based approach. Throughout the course you will cover a range of questions including what are drugs and why they controlled? What are the benefits and harms of taking drugs? How public health policies can address drug use? You will also learn about the intricacies of the international drug control framework and the negative consequences of widespread prohibitionist drug policies around the world. Finally, you will examine ways of furthering drug policy reform. The topics will be presented by over 40 speakers from scientific, academic and institutional backgrounds, spokespersons of civil society as well as people who use drugs presenting their views. By the end of the course you will have: - a strong understanding of the major health issues related to drug use and drug policy; - a clear vision of why drug policy is debated today; - and, if you so wish, you will be equipped to engage in the drug policy reform movement at your local or regional level.

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Module 6: The case for drug policy reform

Welcome to Module 6! Congratulations, you have made it to the last Module of the Course! This week focuses on how prohibitionist drug policies have failed and how it is time for drug policy reform. Some highlights include decriminalisation, legalisation and regulation being broken down for you, so that you really understand what the terms mean and how countries can move towards them in terms of drug policy goals. A big part of this Module also concentrates on how to get involved in the drug reform movement: you will hear from people who have intimate experience with this: from civil society actors working in the field to networks of people who use drugs; before being able to you, yourself think about how and what you could do to join the drug reform movement. By the end of this Module you will be able to: • Give examples of decriminalization and regulation of drugs and discuss outcomes; • Defend the involvement of civil society and people who use drugs in the design and evaluation of drug policies; • Reflect on and develop your potential role in the world drug debate.The final evaluation will consist of a peer – review, during which you will have the possibility to think about how what you have learnt throughout the course applies to the situation in your own country with regard to drug policy (specifically in relation to protecting human rights and promoting health); and to reflect on how people who use drugs are perceived and/or treated and consider what role you could play in this possible reform. Please don’t forget to go through the essential reading list and some of the optional additional resources available to you. We hope you have enjoyed the six Modules and look forward to receiving your peer-evaluations as well any feedback you may have. Best wishes,The Drugs, Drug Use, Drug Policy and Health team

Video 7: The role of civil society13:28

Video 8: The role of drug user groups8:42

Video 9: Would you join the drug reform movement?9:55

Video 10: What you can do?6:24

Conheça os instrutores

Michel Kazatchkine
Senior Fellow
Global Health Center, Graduate Institute for International Affairs and Development, Geneva
Barbara Broers
Professor (in Addiction Medicine)
Community Health Departement, Geneva University Hospitals
Aymeric Reyre
Senior Lecturer
Faculty of Medicine, Paris 13 University
Jennifer Hasselgard-Rowe
Researcher and Lecturer
Institute of Global Health, University of Geneva

The civil society is a very broad concept.

We don't know exactly always what is behind,

but what we can say is that there is many different people in the society,

many different groups, many different interests.

When we have an issue like drug policies,

which affects a lot of people,

a lot of different settings,

it is very important to involve all the stakeholders,

because what we can see in drug policy is that,

it's easy to see what's going on.

Everybody somehow knows that those policies do not deliver nice result.

But it's very difficult to find solution because drug is also a moral issue,

and we should always remember that it's a very strong moral issue.

So the experts, they can say whatever they want.

They can be right,

they can make tons of studies,

but they will not be heard if the society is not ready for it.

I always refer to Galileo for instance,

everybody knew at this time that the Earth was turning around the sun,

but just to say it was not possible to accept it.

So, even if you have data,

you cannot always convince the politics.

So the civil society in this debate can bring us what really matters,

what really happened on the field, who is affected,

who can have a problem with either drug use or drug policy.

Nowadays, maybe there is more of a problem with drug policy than drug use, in fact.

So, those people that are directly affected in neighborhoods,

like mother of a child who is dead by drug use,

a policeman that is losing hope with his job seeing that deal is always on the street,

all those people, we should hear what they say.

The challenge is to have some a common vision with those different affected communities.

In this sense, we can talk about civil society,

civil society teaming up and trying to coordinate to bring a change.

When I see my country Switzerland,

we have many experts,

we have many very brilliant minds.

But what really changed the situation in Switzerland,

was this kind of local coalition with different actors.

Local pharmaceutics, you know they don't want to be harmed by the drug user,

local grandmothers, you know they don't want to see drug use in the street.

Little children playing in the yard,

and so they don't want syringe in the kids place.

So, all these people,

they can gather together and then remind to the policy,

remind to our big leaders, "Hey, come on.

This is a real problem.

We are not talking about like some kind of

a crusade against what kind of a big evil or what.

It's just that products people are consuming them and it brings us problems,

and the policy we have to face,

that bring us problem as well.

So, wake up and try to solve this problem for us."

This local pressure really helped us to implement,

for instance, consumption room.

We did not implement consumption room only for the drug user.

Maybe, we professionals did that for this purpose,

but we did not convince that population for that.

We have to come with another vision,

to integrate all these forces in the society,

and then we develop another story that

the consumption room will bring safety and public order.

Then, it happened.

And it's always very interesting to see at the local level,

in the city level,

it's possible to find agreements on drug policy and almost everywhere,

every city, there is this capability to find pragmatic solution.

But when you climb the scale of the political process,

the region, or national level,

at national level, it's really hard to have a constructive debate,

because we don't talk about the problems,

we talked about ideas, what is drug?

Why people take drugs?

This kind of question, we don't have answers.

If you go to UN, then it's like the fireworks.

All they tell, " we are coming," but nobody

has ever experienced what it really means to live in

a neighborhood really affected by the problem of drug use or drug policies.

So I think the civil society should be more

respected and we should pay attention to what they say.

It's not scientific, it's full of ideology as well.

But at the end,

there are problems that we need to solve.

So, the civil society plays a crucial and irreplaceable role

in influencing the policies and in triggering the reform process,

whether it's Western societies with

democratically established values or in

societies where the democracy is not performing really well,

the civil society challenges the established norms

and proposes very practical solutions to how change

the existing policy environment in which the needs

of marginalized groups can be addressed much more effectively.

I think if we compare the role of the civil society in the West,

as opposed to some of the countries where democracy is experiencing challenges,

the role of the civil society is even more important for

the very reasons of claiming its space in the political dialogue,

proving its an incredibly important contribution to the well-being of society,

but they do encounter more challenges when they

engage in the dialogue with the government and policymakers.

Because their role as such,

as change agents, is not fully appreciated or recognized by the government officials.

That's why the fight for the space in non-democratic societies and

the fight for the opportunity to influence policy

and legislative changes is so much more complicated,

and that's where there's a lot of space for support

in-between the civil society in democratic settings in the West,

or with countries where the views at the government level are progressive,

and where the civil society from those settings,

where the role of the civil society is not fully recognized.

We do need to be building solidarity within the civil society movement,

so that we could engage with the precedent

resistant governments in a way that would be

not just influenced from within the countries,

but also from their peers at the governmental level from other countries.

But as I said, the role of the civil society is really to

be a troublemaker and the one not satisfied with the status quo,

challenging the established norms and generating the sense of the need

to change and then driving that change forward against or with,

depending on the situation, with the government.

I'd like to stress that the governments do

benefit from collaboration with civil society because

the resulting policies and their implementation always is much better when the policy

and the law enforcement is based on

a consultative inclusive process with participation of the civil society,

and most importantly with the people whom these policies directly effect,

such as the community of people who use drugs.

So, as I indicated in my earlier statement,

solidarity is critically important so that the civil society groups

who engage with drug policy reform don't feel isolated.

It's not going to be a successful movement if the movement is fragmented.

There are multiple players and

actors within the civil society and community of people who use drugs,

who need to come together and work collaboratively towards shared common goal

of more humane liberalized drug policy.

One of the solutions, for example,

within the Robert Carr Networks Fund, which I direct,

is the idea of incentivizing our grantees when they

apply to receive funding from

the Robert Carr Networks Fund to come together as part of the consortia.

To give you an example,

we're very proud that we're supporting

harm reduction consortium that includes drug user networks,

harm reduction networks, and drug policy networks.

It is this collaborative effort that makes the movement stronger.

I think, particularly going forward,

we need to broaden this partnership to include countries and the governments who

are pro-humane drug policies so that the civil society is

supported by like-minded governments and the government officials

from those governments work in collaboration with the civil society groups.

Only then, we can achieve

a stronger movement and

hopefully more impactful effect on drug policy reform process.

So, I heard sometimes when the governments

are at the UNGASS that they don't necessarily agree,

but they respected the work and this sort of tremendous effort

that was clearly present by civil society organizations.

Basically, what happens around drugs in the international space,

is something that has been in development now for decades.

So, it's like a big tanker.

It needs time, and it needs capacity,

and it needs ongoing discussing and pressure to start turning that tanker.

I have no doubt that that process really did happen and that again,

while we didn't get everything we wanted to get,

I think that that quality of work and that sort of

positioning of NGOs and others, also academics,

calling the international drug policy system out on where the failures are,

was very clear and it came through quiet impressively.

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