 My name is Dirk Scheffer. I'm from Germany based in Berlin. I'm 52 years old and since 25 years a part of the German drug user movement I started using drugs when I was 17. I was one of the pure opiate users. I did my stuff and then I have to go to jail for a time and then I got a huge new opportunity to work for the jazz network and that was the main part of my turnaround. Ariel has been a drug abuser. Not drug addict, not drug user, a drug abuser. My name is Aril Knutson and I'm the leader of the association for humane drug policy in Norway. And that's a drug user organization. I've been using illegal drugs, still illegal drugs since the 80s. I was 15, 16 years old and until 1992 I was in what they call institutional drug treatment. I have been to drug treatment again in 2014 to 15 and in 2017. My name is Jörgen Kier. The organization I represent is the Danish Drug Uses Union. On Danish it's warfighting. My personal drug use career started when I was 23 years old and I'm 67 so 44 years ago. I've been on hearing mainly. We are lucky in Denmark that we have access to white hearing which is not usual in many other countries. So it's possible to snort and I have snorted for the whole of my career. That's an old one about shooting and hand washing and it was the first of these pictures which is paid from the government. It was also a success for us that they paid something like this. The Jazz Network is one of the oldest drug user networks all over the world. This year we got our 30s anniversary. Yes, then for the J for Junkies, the E for X user and the S for Zubstituirte. That means people in opioid substitution treatment. It was a time when Nancy Reagan started their campaign Say No to Drugs and we did it in another way and said Say Jazz to Drugs and Jazz with NJ in the beginning. Our first picture is a picture of the Jazz Network. We did that 25 years before in the end of the 90s with the upcoming of HIV and AIDS drug users came to German AIDS organization and asked for support in knowledge because many drug users didn't know a lot about HIV at that time and the German AIDS organization did some seminars for them. During one of these workshops they found the Jazz Networks. They said we put our activists together and we build a network of people who use drugs, people in opioid substitution treatment and former drug users. From that day on German AIDS organization was the main supporter of drug user movement in Germany. All groups in the different cities have the same name. They all call Jazz normally and we have 20 to 25 of them and that is one thing which is very motivated for many people that they see it is not only one group with 5 or 10 people it is a whole network all over Germany. We got 180 members and then we got 350 around. They support Jazz. They support the groups but they are not members. That's a picture of Jazz activists during the 25th anniversary in Cologne and that's the oldest lady. She's about 80 but we have also younger ones as you can see. Since 1960s we had open drug scenes in Oslo and in many other cities in the 80s with the just say no area Reagan. We started criminalizing much more putting more and more people to jail up to lifetime in prison for using and possessing drugs and then we started to have very many drug overdoses and Norway has for a long time been one of the three countries in Europe with the most overdoses and it was when the HIV epidemic started in the 80s that we started to turn around and look to Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands and started very very careful with some harm reduction efforts. This comes in different colors so we don't share needles. This is Naloxone. This is the antidote for heroin and other morphine medication. We're giving out and training people to use this nasal spray or antidote. So if you come and find a person that has had a heroin overdose you can save their lives in seconds. You can't come to a humane scientific based drug policy without speaking to those who use drugs. We know what it's about, we know what are the good things to do to create a better society for us and for you who lives with us. In 1996 we got the first drug user organization that was a part of the temperance movement, the drug abusers organization and that was all until the harm reduction movement came. So this is ascorbic acid. Most of the heroin in Norway is made for smoking so you have to put it in water and boil it up with some acid to make it injectable and when we don't hand out ascorbic acid they use citric acid which is much much stronger and creates more harm. So this is harm reduction, pain reduction and it's white powders in these little bags and it's called acid so the police don't like very much. We go out with this, hey you want some acid? It sounds like we're doing something criminal but this is very important. A lot of the harm reduction efforts is because of the signals coming from the drug users and what we needed but there was an organization representing them opposing harm reduction. So we needed more drug user organizations so we started up in 2006 and now we are five drug user organizations. Working for drug users' rights, promoting harm reduction like needle exchange, consumption room, heroin prescription and also substitution program. We're having a big switch campaign in Norway to inspire injecting drug users to start smoking heroin instead of injecting. It's a little hard but we're making big progress in this campaign so it's very important to us to have these smoking foils so they can choose to smoke when they want to try to smoke instead of injecting. And from this year we're handing out more single smoking foils than needles. Just this year it's passed each other and when we go to the riverside and backyards and so on we don't find so many needles anymore, we find smoking foil. So the culture is changing and where Naloxone treats heroin overdose this is prevention. The drug users' right movement in Denmark started in 1993. It was basically a user group of methadone users. The government has been fair funding us and we're still fairly funded and we have the most fantastic premises. We participate in meetings in the city and social ministry and health organization and health authorities and we dine together almost every night. It is an honor to be representing 13,000 injective users and you have to do that properly you have to have clean clothes and speak properly. In the beginning Jazz was kind of a radical opposition something like that. Very rough and a little bit chaotic and they were against things. In that time drug users got no rights in Germany and it was very important to show them that is not our drug policy in Germany. We were not invited from responsible political leaders and we were outside of the drug service system so we changed our attitude a little bit and we tried to bring things on our own way. That's one of the first posters we did in Germany from the German AIDS organization. The meaning is you didn't get AIDS when you use heroin because you get AIDS if you didn't get a clean needle and we did that poster. The government sold and we have to put it in the rubbish dump. They said that this is an advertisement for heroin use. But now the times changed and now it is possible to do things like that but in the former days in the 80s it was not possible. We did some brushes, our own brushes with our own experience of substitution treatment of HIV treatment and other things and from that day on many people saw us in different ways not only as the rough and rude drug user they saw a little bit more that we are also interested to change the local conditions for people who use drugs. Now we are included in many very important working groups on political level and that's the only chance to change the things in Germany. That's the only chance we have. So we had a rally up to the parliament and on our wake up we were told in 2008 that we should not just go up to the parliament we should be invited in as an interest group like anyone else in our society. When I grew up, drug users those who used alternatives to alcohol were treated like enemies of the society and were never seen as resources. It was just so unfair. Our society is much better than that on most areas so we needed drug policy reform. We were in the debates and we were doing good we are speaking, we are debating, we are writing the Norwegian people really liked that that's why all this price is because people liked us when we went into the media because we did a good job. Our strength in Norway is that we are what you call a diplomatic we are pragmatic and we are tolerant for other people's views we are not fighting each other we are cooperating with each other so we have got together and made some serious impact on the drug policy reform and we are listened to by the politicians if you are a drug user representative you are an advisor to the leaders working with them with mutual respect, always mutual respect that's the key. We need to stop criminalizing vulnerable drug users and if you use drugs well you might think about what you're doing but if you have problems with drugs you don't need punishment, you need help. The biggest thing this last year is that when all drug user organizations agreed that we must stop criminalizing drug users then the health minister answered us in the media and said okay when all of you oppose criminalization then I must be for decriminalization of use and possession and that is why we are now entering a drug policy reform in Norway based on the model of Portugal The response however will not have to be criminal and we propose that it should not be but instead you should as the person who uses drugs have to meet for a municipal calcium unit The Norwegian proposal aims to change the fundamental reactions of authorities to persons using drugs It's an example of how states at their own discretion can adopt humane policy measures based on a public health oriented approach We welcome the approach taken by you in Norway On behalf of our office I welcome Norway's new proposal on the drug reform which we recommend to move away from the punitive approach to supportive approach in addressing drug situation Thank you very much, my name is Arjen Knudsen leader of the association for humane drug policy in Norway I'm a drug user activist and we wrote this petition that Ben Töger told about and after this the civil society in general and the drug user organizations have been included in the work and I remember Mr Hey how we were standing outside the parliament with posters and banners and yelling at the government and the parliament and we didn't go get nowhere and when we were included we had this cooperation now we are getting into an evidence base and human rights based politics so this is just so fantastic and Ben Töger, thank you so much We have been discussing this for over 20 years we have been disagreeing you had right, I had wrong We really need to give people more help we don't need to punish people The civil society has been the driving force for this reform I was against this reform for like 20 years and have been in many many discussion with the civil society but they convinced me that this is the way forward because they had the best argument and the best facts and also the best personal experience By the way that's the German chancellor Angela Merkel she was invited by the 25th anniversary of our organization and as you see she came One of the main achievement we did in Germany was that we are included now we are included in the most important working groups and they ask us for meaning before they took decisions Jazz was part of the movement to implement drug consumption rooms in Germany another thing was that we were closely included in the new law of opiate substitution treatment to get more doctors into treatment and more patients into the treatment The Jazz network did a safer crack kit and the main thing is that each drug user who want to use crack got their own pipe in their pocket it's a lighter, it's a chewing gum a little bit water to cook the cocaine a spoon and the pipe and a small information about crack use From the beginning on the Jazz network voted for the heroin treatment in Germany we did that also in the end of the 90s and now since 10 years we got heroin treatment in Germany we have 800, 2000 people inside heroin treatment heroin treatment is that you get diamorphine, you get it as a pure medical substance in a doctor's office you can shoot it or you can take a pill and that is what many people want they want the substance, the real substance and not opiate substitution treatment with methadone because they want to have the feeling and the rush they know from former days and now with the heroin treatment in doctor's office we can provide the substances who work for them in a clean environment it works very well last week I got a call from the doctor of the heroin treatment in Berlin and he told me that a quarter of them are now in business they have work now and that is a huge success I consider one of the largest successes with equipment for injection is that we have access to it free and that was introduced in the late 80s more or less because the prostitutes could bring HIV, AIDS further on to Mr. Hansen and it wasn't good so they introduced the bags with all the equipment you need for pure injection and today we see that we have two drug consumption rooms in Copenhagen and they save life almost every day we have worked for that idea for 15 years before it took action the users doesn't have to be in a backyard or basement or dirty staircase they can walk into these drug consumption rooms and there are nurses to take care of them if they get an OD another thing which also took us 15 years was to get here in on prescription as is at the moment we have a clinic a few hundred meters from here where the users can turn up at 9 to 11 and again by 15 to 17 and get an injection of pure founds with gallerine if it wasn't for the HIV issue we would still be considered as just enemies of the society we would still criminalize anyway unless you quit using drugs if there wasn't for the drug user movement you would have much more forced treatment we would not have syringe programs to prevent HIV and hepatitis C we would not have the drug consumption room in Norway we would not even have the substitution program in Norway we substitute heroin with methadone and buprenorphine for 8,000 people and then we got a science that was showing that this was much more effective much better for the society so now we're in the injection room that has turned into the drug consumption room and it has been open in Oslo since 2005 it's around 130 injections every day and there was more than 1,000 registered and here they can inject in a safe hygienic environment so no one has ever died overdose in the drug consumption room in the world ever so this place it saves very many lives now we have a very big syringe program in Oslo we hand out up to 5,000 syringes every day and we have that all over the country and we have 8,000 people in substitution treatment to next year we will have a heroin prescription program so we're turning heroin from deadly criminal narcotics to legal life-saving medicine we are suggesting and forming now a new model to see if we can substitute also amphetamine cocaine and MDMA the kind of addiction we have still the open drug since people are living in harshness it's terrible, a lot of people are still dying and a lot of thousands I guess 4 to 8,000 in Oslo are living in very critical health conditions all these drug related deaths we know we could be preventable that's why we're fighting for a new drug policy the opium has 73 alkalines but the big farmer thought that if they made it 99% pure and selected diamorphine then we would be happy we're actually more happy with the one we have here which are produced in the Golden Triangle and it has 60 to 80% pureness but it also has all the alcohol in it so it's having a better buzz I've always been open with my drug use so I hadn't had to hide anything drugs are illegal and that's the worst problem we have you can get arrested for having one or two days dose in your pocket and you will be fined we are not having the same human rights as ordinary people we are criminalized because of our drug use and the drug that we favor is polluted it's all from rat poison to sugar the states should take over the market and regulate so called illegal drugs that way we could secure that they were healthy or as healthy as possible clean and accessible from the pharmacies if we could walk in at the pharmacy once a week and pick up our weekly dose life with me is much easier and that's one of the political ideas we have to work on I bring this poster from an international Hamburg action conference with me to Germany in our office it's about drug policy at the Philippines very impressive poster in Germany the presence are full of people who use drugs and a third of them from 60.000 people who are in prison in Germany a third of them are drug users Germany is a very rich country and drug users and are not rich persons but they are safe in different ways most of them got an own apartment or they live with others together and they got monthly their salary from the authorities it's about 500 euros or something like that that's not much but when I saw the conditions in other countries where the social system is not that well equipped as in Germany our social system and also our health system all treatment in Germany is free of costs if you want to have HIV treatment or tightest treatment or OST you didn't have to pay for it and we are safe in a way we are excluded in a way socially excluded but the government and also the authorities they care about drug users in a way not always in that way we want that they are going with us to regulate illegal drugs but in Germany and in most other European Western European countries many drug users have a solid basement to live I really never suffered any of those negative consequences because I am who I am and I need respect like alcohol users like tobacco users I'm just feeling very lucky that I live in Norway and doing this and that don't live in Russia because no one would listen to me or respect me in any way or I wouldn't have no human rights Norway is a unique democracy and open society so it's not just us drug users that have done a great job it's a great society that has rooted us in all the processes and all the political development we had great politicians and we had great individuals who has fought this fight for many years we have great people in the media who has let us express our views and cheated us with respect my engagement in the IJAS network maybe were one of the most important because when I started to work with jazz things changed a lot I got the chance to go into opiate substitution treatment my lifestyle changed a lot I still use drugs when I want to use drugs but working with the network gave me another idea of my own life what I want to do and the goals I want to reach and the thing that people showed me that I could be responsible for something was one of the most important things in my life people get older and older I'm 52 and I think on the average is also close to 50 in Germany of the drug user movement I think the challenge is to invite younger drug users to work politically and on the safe help organization level to keep our movement alive it is one thing to do a drug user movement in Germany under clean and not that well paid but under safe political conditions and not that rich countries in developing countries we call that drug user movements work and they are alive and they doing a wonderful job and under very bad and poor conditions we have begun to cooperate much more with each other we are in European network of people using drugs we are an international network of people using drugs we use in social media to stay in contact with each other we cooperate on big conferences and we travel around the world meeting each other and that's quite new all the organization can commit to the international network of people using drugs that's the glue that sticks us together it's important to be consistent to have demands but also to be realistic we are not a fighting organization we are an interest organization and as such we cannot fight but we can argue and that's what we are supposed to do if you dream and you work persistent on it you can make dreams become true