In terms of joining the global movement,
another very concrete way to do this is to join the support "Don't Punish Campaign."
This is a global campaign that calls for
stopping the punishment and criminalization of people who use
drugs and other vulnerable people who are involved in
the illicit drug market and the scale-up of health and harm reduction services.
The campaign has been running since 2013 and the important moment in
the support "Don't Punish Campaign" is the 26th of
June every year when there is a global day of action.
The 26th of June is actually the UN day against illicit drug trafficking and drug abuse.
And on this day,
many governments have used it as a moment to reinforce harsh messages around drugs.
In fact, China has sometimes used the 26th of June as a day to execute drug traffickers.
The reason that the support "Don't Punish Campaign"
has a global day of action on that same day
is because we want to jam the message of the 26th of June.
Take it back and say "This is a day when governments need to stop and think
about what harm is being caused by current policies and what needs to change."
In the first year,
we had 41 cities join the support "Don't Punish
Campaign" in terms of doing actions as diverse as
dances and talks and street art and that culminated in 2016 when
there was about 160 cities around
the world where people took part and had the actions on that day.
So, one very concrete way for you to get involved is during
the campaign and plan action for the 26th of June and join the movement.
So a good way into campaigning around harm reduction and
drug law reform for students is to engage in organizations
like Students for Sensible Drug Policy which is
a student organization focused particularly on changing the laws around
drugs and also an organization called Youth rise which is
an organization or the people championing harm reduction.
So that can be a good way in.
Some young people choose to engage directly in the drug user movements when we have very
much welcoming of young people because for us as a drug user network,
drug user movement, we need to encourage the next generations to come through.
For example, I'm working in the UK right now with
young ketamine users in a project called Ketamine Strike From
the Horse's Mouth where we as older ketamine users share our knowledge
with younger ketamine users to help them respond to the problems that they're facing.
So I think there's ways for younger people to
get involved in drug law reform and harm reduction.
And there's also ways that we as drug users can reach out
to our young peers and engage them in our movements.
I think is such an interesting sector to work
and I sometimes pinch myself because I'm fortunate
to have a career in this work and really I think I would be doing it anyway.
When we, if you are interested at all in social justice,
I think you can't choose a more compelling area.
Drug users, I would argue
the most systematically and
institutionally stigmatized and persecuted community
in many societies.
And as a society,
we can get it right with drug users,
perhaps there's hope for humanity after all.
There's the obvious one which is the organization Students for Sensible Drug Policy.
I call them sensible students for sure because they are.
So that's an obvious avenue.
I would encourage people to look at
the input website and in particular the Vancouver Declaration.
This is explains the mission I suppose for
input and to become involved if they can.
If they are a drug user,
takeout membership application or join
the local network and become involved locally also.