At its bi-annual gathering the European harm reduction movement addressed the multiple challenges of our time: rising populism, shrinking space for civil society, changing drug markets and changing needs of people who use drugs. Watch our film we produced at the conference!

The 6th European Harm Reduction Conference took place at the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, Poland, on 2-4 December 2024. As Alex Lakhov, director of the European Network of People Who Use Drugs (EuroNPUD) mentioned in his speech, to have this conference at this venue, built during Stalin’s years to represent totalitarian power, is a message of defiance. It would make Stalin furious to see that people discuss human rights under the roof of his former palace. Unfortunately it is not only the architecture of totalitarianism that survived but the spirit of Stalin is also alive and well. Civil society activists face the new threats of populism and repressive policies across Europe. The Drugreporter team filmed some key moments and interviewed several participants to learn how harm reductionists respond to new challenges in various European countries – please watch and share our conference video!

The conference marked the 20th anniversary of its main organiser, the Correlation European Harm Reduction Network (C-EHRN). On this occasion, the network published a report with the title “

“, highlighting a selection of key people and organisations. It is my honour that as one of the founder of Drugreporter, I am one of them. Happy birthday Correlation!

Opening Session + Polish Drug Policy: Persistence and determination towards drug law reform and putting people who use drugs at the centre.

Global paradigm shift: navigating human rights in drug policy reform

Medication assisted therapies in EECA: status and progress

Legally grey? Discovering loopholes in the national laws for drug checking services

Scaling up HIV and HCV prevention treatment and care in community-based settings

Think Global, Act Local – the important role of cities in innovating drug policy and practice + Wrap-Up Session

Satellite Event: Dealing with drugs II – Cities and the international pursuit of sensible regulation

How to regulate substances: detailed blueprints for local level experiments

Little things mean a lot: 6h European Harm Reduction Conference video highlights

The Expert Seminar on Cannabis Regulation aimed to address the evolving landscape of cannabis regulation within the European Union and its intersection with international drug control treaties. Organized by the Transnational Institute (TNI) and co-sponsored by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and the Global Drugs Policy Observatory (GDPO), the seminar gathered policy and legal experts from six European countries engaged in various forms of cannabis regulation, five of which are EU member states (Czechia, Germany, Luxembourg, Malta and the Netherlands) and one non-EU country (Switzerland). Also present were experts from the United States of America, where cannabis regulation is in full swing in states and discussed at the federal level, as well as other international policy experts and scholars in international law. Over the course of two days, the participants discussed the current state of cannabis regulation, legal tensions, and future scenarios for policy development.

Cannabis regulation, EU drug law, trade rules and the UN drug control treaties

As part of the BOOST Project, a series of webinars will be held in November for harm reduction organisations that are currently providing or planning to offer services in the fields of HIV and viral hepatitis.

The webinars aim to enhance the knowledge and skills of community-based and community-led organisations, helping them apply good practice models, tools, and methods to scale up integrated screening, testing, treatment and care for communicable diseases across Europe. Below we share the sessions, dates and registration links.

Community-led approaches to HIV/VH/STIs screening, testing, treatment and care for people who use drugs

Optimising data collection: a guide to COBATEST standardised data collection tools

Current best practices on community-based HIV/VH/STIs services

Improving linkage to care in harm reduction settings

BOOST’s peer-to-peer capacity-building webinar series

Recent years have seen a growing public and clinical interest in the potential therapeutic use of a number of psychedelic substances, including some novel and little-known substances. A number of jurisdictions outside the EU have begun regulating the use of psychedelics for medical and therapeutic purposes, while significant commercial interest has arisen in this area, evidenced through the appearance of so-called ‘psychedelic retreats’ in a number of countries. An increasing number of clinical studies are exploring the potential of a range of psychedelic substances for different mental health conditions. Some research appears promising; however, generalising in this area is difficult, partly because of the large number of substances under review and partly because of the wide range of conditions that are being studied. Taken together, these developments have given rise to questions at the policy level relating to the risks associated with the increase in experimental use of these substances, their potential to cause harm, and appropriate policy responses.

In Europe, there are now indications of changes in patterns of use of psychedelics, including an increase in unregulated and/or illegal practices in which these substances are used as part of a wellness, therapeutic or spiritually oriented intervention (EMCDDA, 2023). Some of these psychedelic-related practices and interventions appear to market their services by referencing the latest developments in medical research, either directly in relation to the substances or indirectly by providing links to research and scientific papers.

Due to the limited information that currently exists in this area, the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA, former EMCDDA) has launched a project to increase our understanding of key developments and respond to concerns raised by policymakers. These FAQs aim to respond to some of the key questions raised and provide a better understanding of ongoing developments in this field. While the focus of these FAQs is on the therapeutic use of psychedelic substances, additional questions have been added to provide important contextual information on related developments in this area, such as the prevalence and patterns of use of psychedelic substances in Europe, the presence of unlicensed and illegal psychedelic practices, and developments in clinical research.

EUDA publishes answers to the most frequently asked questions about the therapeutic use of psychedelic substances

This Policy Brief provides an overview of the state of the art regarding Drug Consumption Rooms (DCRs), exploring developments, challenges and needs in their work, as well as an overview of recommendations and examples of good practices for policymakers that wish to support these harm reduction interventions. The paper draws from the activities of the European Network of Drug Consumption Rooms [ENDCR] and, in particular, from the DCR Technical Meetings organised by the ENDCR and the European Union Drugs Agency [EUDA] in 2023 and 

, respectively, in Lisbon and Athens. These meetings gathered DCR representatives from all over Europe to discuss key updates, monitoring, capacity building and advocacy needs and plans.

Creating safer consumption spaces in Europe: Evolving contexts and implications for policy

The study aims to provide an overview of the range, scope and structure of care services for people who use drugs currently provided by drug consumption rooms in Europe. To this end, the study: describes the operational characteristics, capacities and services of DCRs in Europe, as well as their settings and client characteristics; and identifies recent developments in the operational characteristics, capacities and services of DCRs in Europe.

Drug consumption rooms in Europe – Operational overview

: The main aim of this webinar is to share experiences of interventions which support safety at music festivals and nightlife events.

: Music festivals are common in Europe during the summer and attract high numbers of participants, especially young people. They may last several days.

This webinar addresses current and innovative practices to make festivals and nightlife settings a safer and healthier environment for the participants and professionals involved.

Professionals from different festivals/countries across Europe will discuss their experiences, challenges and strategies to reduce risks and improve safety.

The EMCDDA’s approach to fostering safe festivals and healthy nightlife is to prevent risky behaviours by raising awareness on harm-reduction interventions.

Gabriel Borkowski, Dáth2 Psyhelp, Hungary

: EMCDDA opening remarks, panellists’ questions, guided discussion, Q&A.

Participants will respond to the following questions:

Can you describe the festival or event in which you intervene?

What are the typical behaviours your interventions address?

What are your strategies, challenges and success stories? What would you define as a best practice to be shared?

How do you see trends at festivals unfolding in the coming years?

Webinar: Safe festivals and healthy nightlife — sharing experiences among practitioners

Organised by the European Network of People who Use Drugs (EuroNPUD) 

The European Network of People who Use Drugs is pleased to invite you to the webinar launch of the "Community-led approaches to HCV testing, treatment, and care" resource, created within the framework of the BOOST project. This webinar is part of our series of resources on Peer Led Harm Reduction and is related to World Hepatitis Day marked on July 28 globally.

During the webinar, John Melhus, leader of the PLHR team, will provide an overview of the resource and discuss best practices for HCV testing, treatment, and care among people who use drugs in different European countries. Additionally, members from Norway and Portugal will share specific examples of their work in this field. The introduction will be presented by our partners from the Correlation – European Harm Reduction Network.

Looking forward to seeing you on July 31. If you are unable to attend the webinar, the recording will be made available at a later date.

Community-led approaches to HCV testing, treatment and care

Together with European elections, Slovenia voted last weekend on 4 consultative referendums, out of which 2 were related to cannabis. The voters convincingly supported the use of cannabis for medical purposes, while with regard to support for the use of cannabis for personal use, the result was closer.

The referendum questions were: Should Slovenia allow the cultivation and processing of cannabis for medical purposes on its territory? and Should Slovenia allow the cultivation and possession of cannabis for limited personal use on its territory?

According to the partial unofficial results of the consultative referendum (99.95 percent of the votes were counted), voters supported the use of cannabis for medical purposes with a two-thirds majority – 66,65% voted in favour while 33,35% were against.

Slovenia voted on cannabis cultivation and use

 is a voluntary, anonymous survey run by the Agency and its partners. It is one of the Agency’s targeted ‘leading-edge’ monitoring methods and a key ingredient in the EMCDDA’s responsiveness to the ever-shifting drugs problem. Web-based surveys have the benefit of reaching people who use drugs directly. They are quick and relatively inexpensive, provide new data rapidly and can help spot emerging trends. If the same questions are used, along with a rigorous translation process, then these surveys can also allow for cross-national comparisons.

European Web Survey on Drugs: patterns of use

This report is based on information provided to the EMCDDA by the EU Member States, the candidate country Türkiye, and Norway, in an annual reporting process.

The purpose of the current report is to provide an overview and summary of the European drug situation up to the end of 2023. All grouping, aggregates and labels therefore reflect the situation based on the available data in 2023 in respect to the composition of the European Union and the countries participating in EMCDDA reporting exercises. However, not all data will cover the full period. Due to the time needed to compile and submit data, many of the annual national data sets included here are from the reference year January to December 2022. Analysis of trends is based only on those countries providing sufficient data to describe changes over the period specified. The reader should also be aware that monitoring patterns and trends in a hidden and stigmatised behaviour such as drug use is both practically and methodologically challenging. For this reason, multiple sources of data are used for the purposes of analysis in this report. Although considerable improvements can be noted, both nationally and in respect to what is possible to achieve in a European-level analysis, the methodological difficulties in this area must be acknowledged. Caution is therefore required in interpretation, in particular when countries are compared on any single measure. Caveats relating to the data are to be found in the online Statistical Bulletin 2024, which contains detailed information on methodology, qualifications on analysis and comments on the limitations in the information set available. Information is also available there on the methods and data used for European-level estimates, where interpolation may be used.

European Drug Report 2024: Trends and developments

Webinar 4 – Fighting Disinformation and Moral Panics


June 18, 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Drug policies are often influenced by sensational media reporting that fuels moral panics about drugs and leads to the othering of people who use drugs. The spread of disinformation is a major barrier to drug policy reform, undermines basic norms and values like human rights and scapegoats civil society organisations. This webinar addresses strategies to fight disinformation in an age that is often characterised as post-truth. Participants will discuss what methods they use to educate the public about drugs and drug policies and how to defend civil society from politically motivated attacks.

South East Europe