 Can you explain us what is the Civil Society Forum on Drugs? The Civil Society Forum is an expert group of the European Commission consisting of 45 different civil society organisations in Europe all working in the field of drug demand reduction and it's an expert group on drug policy issues and provides feedback and advice to the European Commission. For example, when it comes to the development of the European drug strategy or the drug action plan but also when it comes to specific issues like vulnerable groups and when, for example, with the Covid-19 crisis we prepared statements as well. We have four different working groups currently. One working group is focusing on EU drug policy specifically. One working group is focusing on international drug policy so they're very much engaged in the Commission on Acotic Drugs and they also provide regular policy papers which support the European Commission in international drug policy issues. For IDPC it's been a really great way to engage with the EU on international drug policy issues in particular the EU's position at the UN. IDPC has been coordinating a working group on international drug policy advocacy and engagement and over the past few years we've been able to influence some of the positions that the European Union has been taking at key UN fora like the Commission on Acotic Drugs. The CSD is definitely a body that is worth engaging in for European organisations that want to do a bit more in terms of advocacy with the EU and European countries. We have one working group on linking the EU drug policy and also the work of the civil society forum to the national level and currently we have one working group which focuses on minimum quality standards and drug demand reduction and in the new mandate which has already started this group will be replaced by one focusing on cross-cutting issues and emerging issues for example gender specific issues women but also other vulnerable groups. We can only have good and effective policies if we base them on a knowledge and understanding of what's actually happening in the real world and I think that's what civil society can bring to drugs policy. First of all it's knowledge and understanding of the experience of people who are using drugs and people who use drugs are the same as everyone else it's a very extremely common form of human behaviour and as we know a really significant majority of people who use drugs it doesn't cause them any particular problem and then minority people who use drugs do become addicted and have difficulties and I think that leads on to the second kind of area I think civil society it's essential it brings its knowledge and understanding and it's linked to the first one it's around the context of drug use. If someone develops an addiction but they have good what we call you know social capital which basically means you have a job you have a home you have supports around you you have access to some kind of income and the response you might need or the shape of the response you might need would be completely different to a person who is from a much much more disadvantaged background. Again you can't have an knowledge and understanding of drug use and its impacts without understanding the context and again that is something that civil society is really a unique place to bring because our civil society groups they operate across all of those different contexts and bring an understanding of all of them and I think the third thing civil society really is strong on is bringing a knowledge and understanding of evidence-based responses and again that's really key. The EU has developed an EU drug strategy and an action plan which actually operationalises the strategy into more specific objectives and actions. All member states have committed to this strategy but that doesn't mean that they can be hold accountable for that. We really push member states to implement the strategy and the action plan and I think that NGOs and civil society play a crucial role in that. The EU drug strategy can be an advocacy tool for national advocacy and it can probably also hold national governments accountable for what they are doing in the field of drug policy. Racial drug policies could not exist without the civil society. However it's up to you to force it. It's not going to do itself because civil society active participation is only way how to assure evidence-based approach and clients oriented services so fight for it and finally because civil society involvement in drug policies is essential for successful intervention at local, national and also European level but you have to take care of. So civil society forum on drugs is your voice in European Commission. So use it. Can you explain the process of the adoption of the new EU drug strategy and action plan and how civil society was involved in that and what experiences you had from that process? So in principle the last EU drug strategy and action plan was civil society was very well involved and could contribute really in a very good way. The last strategy was developed by the Commission in first instance without really providing civil society with opportunities for input and feedback and it was also that the member states were not involved in the draft version and this actually caused some irritation or some criticism which finally made that the horizontal drug group under the German presidency decided to draft a new drug strategy and we are happy that the civil society forum was able to contribute to the drafting of this document. Can you highlight some of the most important recommendations which were adopted and accepted by the decision makers? Yes, so first of all the inclusion of civil society in the implementation of different services, mostly harm reduction services and also the strategy includes a provision saying that appropriate level of funding should be also provided to civil society organizations to make them able to involve in the provision of different services and what I personally think is very important is that harm reduction for the first time kind of deserved separate chapter so in this strategy it's not anymore included in the demand reduction under the umbrella together with prevention and treatment and recovery but it has its own separate chapter if I'm not mistaken for specific strategic priorities. Does the new strategy and action plan mention vulnerable populations? It does, it mentions several vulnerable populations mostly young people also their families families of people with drugs and women so in the context of treatment especially the special needs of women and the need for development and implementation of services which responds to the specific needs of women are mentioned. CSFD member organizations boast quite different views on the reality discourse in the drug policy representing a diverse group of experts to the EU commission. Apart from that, we at Wolcott stand for the separationist approach where women and men are not homogeneous groups with single aims and needs when it comes to prevention, treatment and recovery one size does not fit all. As a part of the civil society forum on drugs Wolcott has been working on putting the specific needs of women on the agenda of the EU through the civil society forum at Wolcott. Wolcott stands for a drug policy action plan to be designed from a woman's perspective to ensure that treatment of addicted women is respectful gender and cultural specific and trauma informed. We have actually succeeded in making these points a part of the EU action plan on drugs 2021-2025. Drug policy work within the framework of the CSFD last year have resulted in the report on the quality standards of treatment and quality standards of civil society involvement in Tarelia. Wolcott considers that the result of the civil society work in regard to the specific needs of women were reflected in the new priority areas addressed by the EU action plan on drugs published in 2020. This is a big step forward. What about those innovative harm reduction programs such as drug consumption rooms, drug checking services? So they are mentioned exactly in that way as you just said, so like innovative programs. There is no naming of drug checking services. There is no naming specifically drug consumption rooms. So the strategy calls for inclusion and development of these kind of services but doesn't say exactly what kind of services are considered these innovative services. I am happy to be as a peer worker and a community representative to the civil society forum on drugs. The civil society forum on drugs education prepares the most powerful drug policy advocates. It is 50 years since Richard Nixon declared the war on drugs a narrative that devastated millions lives and it is also 40 years since the first AIDS diagnosis and what followed after that and we still some lessons are not yet adequately learned. Lessons like the benefits from the meaningful involvement of the directly affected communities to the design and the implementation of policies that also directly affect our lives. We are advocating in a very hostile environment in a landscape of prejudice and social exclusions and we are practicing harm reduction sometimes against all odds. The work we collectively do in civil society forum on drugs is extremely helpful not only because it provides us with the appropriate legitimization as drug policy experts but also because it provides us with tools for an efficient national level advocacy. People with a lived experience are drug policy experts by definition and after so many years our slogan remains the same, nothing about us without us. We joined the civil society forum on drugs because we strongly believe in the meaningful involvement of civil society. Unfortunately, there are vulnerable groups that are invisible in our communities, in our societies and referring to children whose caregiver use drugs problematically, whose needs are totally unattended. The only options they normally might have are being separated from their parents with huge suffering for them and for parents as well and with negative consequences on both or being totally ignored, abandoned and stigmatized. There is also another group of vulnerable people whose voice is often not listened to and their difficulties underestimated and unaddressed. I'm talking about people in recovery, those who decided to keep using for many different, sometimes personal reasons but often do not have an identity and find it very hard to get their place in society. There are millions and millions of people in recovery around the world ready to give their positive contribution to society if they find welcoming and not judgmental communities around them. Similarly to the issues related to children's primary caregiver use drugs, also the necessity of creating conditions which are favorable to the full social integration of people in recovery should unify all the members of the Civil Society Forum on Drugs as all of us, I think, care about people with drug and social exclusion issues. Our organization, Parsec Cooperativa Sociale, has been interested in home reduction since the year 1990 and has been a member of the Civil Society Forum on Drugs, CSFD, for some time. For us, the Civil Society is the place where through discussion and participation we can change the structural causes of the problems that affect the lives of people who we ask of us. Looking at what causes harm also must include looking at harms that are caused not just by the drug use or the addiction but also harm caused by bad policies because, again, that has to be part of our knowledge and understanding as that policy isn't neutral. The Civil Society, we have to engage with policymakers because the kind of knowledge and understanding we have is essential to the process but we do have to engage with them in a way that's evidence-based but that also maintains that independent kind of critical voice. That's the reason we're there. The members come together once or twice per year and these meetings are covered and financed by the European Commission but, in principle, you can imagine if we really want to do meaningful work and do something with more impact we realize that we need more financial resources and support. We agreed to have, to put forward an application under the DG Justice Drug Policy Initiative Program. We have had now two projects, each of them for two years. The current project will end in 2022, January 22 and, unfortunately, we will not have any project funding afterwards but it also means that the CSFD, as it is now, will no longer be financed or additionally financed through the project funding and this is problematic because we have seen that we were so much more meaningful impacting in the past years. We could really do things and we are slightly concerned that this will no longer be the case so I think it is now key to discuss with the Commission and probably also with the Member States that they are willing to support the civil society, not only in words but also in acts or in actions. I sometimes have the feeling that civil society organizations in the drug policy field are somehow not seen or acknowledged as real experts. The same applies to people who use drugs that I think they are not seen as equal partners. When we talk, for example, about cancer, I'm sure it would be very normal to involve a patient organization and I always feel that in the field of drug policy but also in other areas linked to this we somehow have the feeling that we need to apologize for the fact that we want to provide input and knowledge. Politicians and policymakers need to acknowledge that at least and listen to what we have to say and what we have to share. So we have a right to sit at the table. We have a right to sit at the table and to be heard. Thank you.