 My name is Abdul Rahim Rajayi. I am working as a program director at the Bridge Hope Health Organization. The drug is around 20 years old. In 17 years, I inject drugs. In 2010, the methadone came in Afghanistan by medicine. I had a very bad condition. They helped me bring it to the center. The first one, I was taking methadone. After that, I stopped using drugs. Now I take methadone a little. After that, I became a peer worker with him. This is the bridge, the famous one by the name of police officer. I come here for monitoring to see how our peer worker is working here. The first one is in France. The second one is in the Netherlands. Where is the second one? I am working as a surgeon here. I am working as a surgeon here. I am working as a surgeon here. Do you take drugs? No. I have no money. In Afghanistan, for injecting drug users who use heroin, we have a metadone. Unfortunately, this is not enough for drug users. We have 3 million drug users in Afghanistan. Just we have for 1,000 or 2,000 people this metadone. In Kabul, we have around 200,000 people using drugs. This is a problem for war. Many people go out from the country, they face many problems. Many of them start in Iran, especially myself. I started in Iran using drugs. Because I was alone, I faced many problems. I started using drugs. We die in 2-3 weeks. Even our parents get sick. For example, this is our age. We are not fasting. What should we do? This is my color. Because of the drug, we have a lot of time. We are not fasting. We are Muslims. We are not Qabristan. We are not Muslims. We are not Qabristan. We are not Muslims. We are not Qabristan. Because I am a drug user, I know what is wrong with drug users. They are always insulted and humiliated. Every time they come and collect drugs by force, they beat them. Communization does not allow us to help our community. We had a peer worker by the name of Haji Hussein. Unfortunately, he had an appendicitis. We brought him to the hospital to operate him. Unfortunately, they brought him back under the bridge. They let him die because he was HIV positive. They don't want to touch HIV positive. In 2010, I participated in the Vienna AIDS Conference. I met two percent here. One of them met Sotwell from input. The other person, Lungante from HIV positive India. When I came to Kabul, I asked Medisandumun to invite them in Kabul to have some training for us to build our group as an Afghan drug user group. When they came in Afghanistan, we had around one week training. We built an Afghan drug user group. I became a leader. Now that I am a drug user activist, I have special respect for my family and community. We have established an HIV network in 11 provinces. In 2010, the first time the drug user came to the street, 400 people came in the World AIDS Day. They had a demonstration. They asked from the government to have a right as an other community. We are very sorry that we can't do anything for them. They can build their own community. We are doing this for the people. We are doing this for the people. We are doing this for the people. I have a lot of friends from the government. They are all support. They can do nothing for us. I am just doing this for the people. When I was using heroin in my family they hit me and now my brother, my sister, everyone they respect me, they call me to come and be as a guest, this is very good for me. I didn't marry, because I faced a lot of problems, drug use, in Iran I was 12 years in jail, I can't marry. On behalf of the Afghan drug user I call, all activists around the world help us achieve our goal. We are asking all activists around the world to support the Afghan drug user group in Afghanistan because we are a new organization, we need to have support from another country. My name is Harjesan and I live in Tanzania and currently I'm working with Tanzania, a network of people who use drugs and also supporting the sister organization known as Salvej. Women and children from drug abuse. My life as a user wasn't easy. It got me dumped, got me unrespected, lost my dignity and even lost whatever I had at that time and even I could say that it made me heart the best people who loved me the most, especially my own mother. But what I can say and that I'm proud of up to date, she never lost hope on me and she always said that I know you can make it through. And finally in 2011 I made it through, though she was long gone. That was a painful experience to me. Outreach. Our language. I've been an activist since when I was back in school as I used to help other students. But being that coming from a lower mid family, I didn't know how I can help people but I had that passion inside to help many others. And what after being in the world of drugs, after losing everything, I kept on stacking and thinking that how will I be able. But then I said I can start teaching others, you know, and that's when I started talking about harm reduction before harm reduction came in country in 2010 lastly. Tanzania was the first Eastern African country to implement very good harm reduction programs like needle and syringe programs, methadone program, and also like engagement and involvement of people who use drugs such as us. We belong to the streets, the gharros, the camps, but then now we belong on the tables. And I remember I have one banner out of the banners that I've done during the period of being an activist and educating, informing the community of this banner that says from the street to the tables. And this has shown a great impact to the society in Tanzania and even abroad. MDM was supporting and the first drop in center of supporting people who use drugs was open in Temeke and lots of syringe, clean needle and syringe were provided to people who used to inject drugs and that made the number, prevalence of HIV dropped a bit in the community of people who inject drugs. And the support of methadone made it possible for people who inject and even later we advocated, we the first takers of methadone, advocated for all the people who use drugs to get access to methadone. And then we want that and anyone who needs methadone now can access it as long they go register and they can access methadone for free. And also people are supported to get ARVs and also we did advocate for amendment of the drug bill in 2011. So now if one will be taken to the court and will really say that I'm a user and this I've been caught with this, maybe one, two stuff, they can be taken to treatment and this is a great achievement. Thank you. Thank you. The mission and vision is to advocate for better behavioral changes and also to have good friendlier policies that will be supportive to community of people who use drugs and their families and to reduce the number of infections such as hepatitis, HIV and other related diseases. That is the main focus and aim on our work and to build a society with respect, dignity and unity. That is what I'm fully committed to work on. My name is Bruno Gonzalez. I'm still currently the chair of the board of directors of the International Network of People Who Use Drugs input and representative, regional representative for the Latin American network of people who use drugs, LAMPUD. I started using drugs very young. I started basically with alcohol such as normal here in Mexico and since I was 13 I started using basically everything. Because I was very engaged in substance use and drugs and like the drug scene and drug culture and pretty much all my life was around drugs since I was a teenager so when I kind of stopped using drugs due to heroin overdose so after my last heroin overdose when I was 21 I had a major nerve injury and so that meant that I couldn't continue doing what I was doing and so the starting point of being engaged with the drug user rights movement came to happen very naturally unexpectedly and without looking for it and when I started looking for work there was this opportunity to work collaborating with a youth perspective NGO on drugs and so that's how I got engaged in this idea of human rights advocacy, public policy and people who use drugs. The most important thing to tell about Mexico and drugs is that the general response is still based in torture compulsory treatment establishments and this idea of the sickness that people who use drugs pretty much in any way when it comes to illegal drugs are sick. It's seen as a disease of the mind. It's seen as something immoral and dirty. As a region Latin America still has a profound, very pervasive, all-invasive influence from Catholic kind of worldview and morals and ethics. Being drunk at the celebrations in small towns and indigenous communities are rural areas all around these countries which are very big countries sometimes they don't see alcohol as a drug let's say and then anything related to drugs is seen as a very negative dirty kind of thing unwanted, undesirable which is associated with deviates or sickness or something it's more like in the spiritual sense of the sin a lot of that influences policy frameworks a lot of that influences punitive penalties in every way so the amount of time that is added to crimes changes and varies under those ethics under those moral frameworks both this sense of moral high ground and the aspect of the real army military police state, terror state that is facing and engaging in armed conflict with the real presence of organized crime groups and criminals which are killing people for their own profit and benefit makes it very hard as the community of people who use drugs who is basically in between so in Mexico and Latin America's region I think that the most important barriers like the harsher difficulties that we found to establish or to build the drug use movement organized group or like the community or like the regional network event or national network has been this linkage this association, guilty by association with organized crime and cartel phenomena and presence and like narco culture and therefore there is this solution where automatically it turns into a potential hitman or like a scarier or like a very bad criminal who kills people and who like it's different levels or gradients of violence that are associated in the same way to the cultural perception of the person who uses drugs in Mexico and I would say in every producing country so it makes persecution and punishment and stigma harder and harsher so it is very easy let's say to fall down the cracks of the system and go into the penal system and judicial system and go into jail and prison not for being a user but for being charged as being part of organized crime groups In Mexico and Latin America as a region the successes or achievements that the drug user movement has had been profound changes in certain countries that have led to alternative policy exploration and like different regulatory systems to be introduced such as Uruguay and in Colombia and Argentina and Mexico now somehow because it's still bleak or it's still like lacking and it's still incomplete but the thing is that there has been just indirect superficial contact with the drug user movement so these things have happened because prohibition in the war on drugs has had a major impact in every other community and population and some of the advocates and policy advocates are people who use drugs it's a big region here I guess Latin America there has been many different approaches a very specific one here in Mexico that I've been collaborating with is the substance analysis program so for example having drug checking and substance analysis services for free for individuals who use drugs has produced change you know like it makes people aware of the possibility that it exists it makes people aware of the factual content of what they're about to use it makes people aware of a lot of adulterants and like the impacts of the war on drugs and prohibition and unregulated markets and it engages them in something that they can no longer ignore the drug user rights movement is about self-determination, autonomy the cognitive liberty basically and this idea of I am my own master right I don't need anyone deciding or defining what can I do with myself with my body, with my consciousness with my awareness on the other hand all of these conflicts and all of this confusion and all of these issues that are very intertwined that have to do with economics and that have to do with politics and that have to do with domination and power and control and these empires that declared war they say war on drugs is a war on people so basically they declared war on people but they can bank that war they can back up their decision and so I would say that the drug user rights movement for me is this idea of vindicating or like saving this principle of freedom, of autonomy and then on the other hand is bringing peace because the main enemy is the war on drugs like we need to organize we need to have representation we need to participate in this multilateral international kind of scene scenario because of the war on drugs I think that the major goals that the drug user rights movement wants to achieve here in Mexico and Latin America have to do with decriminalizing the individuals, the people so decriminalization and the other hand is this revival, recovery this recognition of plant-based technology and plant-based medicines and plant-based practices that were ripped or removed, erased, burned to the ground since the Colony the only very good tool resource, influence, positive influence that I can really think of is this new age kind of way of connecting the, you know old tribes and traditions the older ancestral kind of more present indigenous world views and knowledge of these things, drugs, plants psychoactiveness psychonotic kind of things with modern, you know, like drug users, people who use drugs other drugs, I guess, and sometimes the same drugs, but in this cross-cultural kind of way