 So, we are exactly five past twelve, so we can start our brief introduction on the summer school. We reached the tenth edition, it's a lot of time, past flying for us, and I will give this presentation with Isabel Flores, who is the secretary generally of our partner university. Here you can see one of the pictures of our nice groups. The next slide. So the European Drag Summer School was initiated in 2012 as a joint initiative between the MCDDA and the Schette University in Lisbon. Up to now, we trained 500 students from 62 nationalities, a lot of groups of very interesting people, you will meet some of them today. Next slide, please. So what are the learning objectives and the activities we propose to our students? The overall objective is to learn together how to apply evidence for decision making. In doing that, we also show the strengths of the weaknesses, especially of the evidence, and we show the synergies that the European Union has in place. The lectures are about two main topics, health and security, and in doing that, we clarify what is intended by the balanced approach, the European balanced approach to the problems of drugs. We use the MCDDA key indicators and the contents produced by our colleagues at the MCDDA, and we merge with the students' presentations. So people come and share what are their projects and how they can use the information from the summer school to enhance their careers. And then we have the study visits, in particular to the Portuguese Commission for Disvision, for outreach programs, method on mobile units. You can see some pictures in these slides, and then a harm reduction center, and more recently to a mobile drugs injecting room. Next slide. The course includes tests and evaluation and credits. We have a 360 degrees evaluation system. We have daily working groups, and at the end of the course, students voluntarily can take a test that gives to them six credits. Then there are satisfaction questionnaires by students, and also the faculty and the keynote speakers are asked their impression, and we really change and base our programs yearly on these comments from all the participants. The next slide. The faculty is composed by mostly colleagues from the MCDDA, but also we always have keynote speakers from the different disciplines interested. So public policy, epidemiology, medicine, criminology, psychology, and here is a list of some of the colleagues I'd like also to take an opportunity to greet, starting with Bernersiep, past presidents of the International Narcotic Board. We had, as a guest speaker, Alex Stevens, University of Ken, Alex Baldaquino, presidents of International Society of Addiction Medicine, Anneming Kuhn, Eva Hawk, Florence Mabilot from the Pompidou group, Gabriele Fischer, also member of the MCDDA scientific committee, João Gulao, the drug coordinator of Portugal, who is also at the center of the concluding debate on the drugs policy in Portugal, Keith Anfries from Stanford University, Lara Tavoschi, Marta Torres from Barcelona, Owen Bowden-Johns, chair of the advisory council of the Museums of Drugs, Robert West, former editor-in-chief of Addiction, who has always been present to our training, to our summer schools, Sabrina Molinaro from the National Research Council in Italy, and others that we don't have space to mention here are part of this family. The next slide. Scholarships are available. The Isquete, the partner university, offers scholarship covering 50% of the total fee, and this is based on merit travel costs and the GDP of the candidate countries. But we have also other types of grants offered by the IPPS Isquete, and there are two neighboring countries projects with the participation of the MCDDA, Europe for Monitoring Drugs and IPA-7 that are also offering scholarships to their partner countries. And then there are agreements with the programs for early career researchers with scientific societies, like, for example, the European Society for Prevention Research. The next slide. The program, every year we have a theme. For example, this year we will talk mainly about responses for vulnerable groups. It's composed of two weeks, last week of June, first week of July. In the first week we talk about drug problems like burden of disease, drug characteristics, drug use, harms, and responses, while the second week is more about policies, laws, market, and the use of evidence for decision making. And then we have a concluding debate with Mr. João Gulau, talking about the application of the Portuguese approach to drugs policy. And then we always have a social program. You can see one of the picture. Students in general have an intense social networking number of events here in Portugal, and they follow up through the social network, getting in contact and undertaking initiatives together. The next slide. The organizers, Isabel Flores, she will meet in a moment. Catherine Murie, fundamental, she couldn't be here today for a competing commitment, but she's assistant professor at the Nova University of Lisbon. And she was really one of the initiator of the summer school with other colleagues at the MCDA. I only joined, we only joined in 2015, if I'm not wrong. The next slide. So this is the distribution of our students. We really covered all the continent with 62 nationalities represented. The next slide. Here, Alessandra, represented where our students come from. You can see Portugal is highly represented. Sorry, Portugal and Europe is highly represented, but not only. We had students from the United States, Brazil, Canada and more. Pakistan, India, everywhere, more. Sorry, the next slide. And now I leave the floor to Isabel to talk a little bit about the partner university. Thank you very much, Merica. Thank you very much, all of you for being here for us. It's such a pleasure to be co-organizing this initiative for 10 years. So we've joined at the beginning and curiously the beginning of this summer school is our first activity in the institute. Did you know that, Merica? So we are, yes, we are also celebrating 10 years this year. Fantastic. Now, just in March. And summer school was like our first big event. So we're so proud to join this initiative. And we always learn so much from this fantastic team of organizers and all sorts of people that cooperate in this initiative. So the Public Policy Institute, that has IPPS, has this mission of bringing university and policies stakeholders together. So what we really do is we try to bring knowledge from university to policy stakeholders and the other way around. So the knowledge that is built in the terrain to be used by our researchers. So this is a perfect example for this where good practices join theory and we kind of interchange knowledge. We've been partners since early days. And I think this is a moment where we can really share practices and we can contribute for the improvement of policies in this area of drugs all over the world. And the feedback we gain from our participants is that following the course they take with them different views and some of them really get to the terrain. So the next slide, please. So fundamentally, our role is not scientific here unless we are the breach. We really act as the breach. I brought you Rodrigo and Cristina who are the people who really make this happen. They really work very hard for everything to work both on a physical manner. And nowadays on this more world in a square manner. But it's been a very interesting experience and a very outreaching experience online. Course is the we miss the parting and we miss coffee breaks and talking in the corridor and going out for dinner and having this beautiful sunset drink at the office of the drugs, the European drugs office in Lisbon. So we very much go through the organization of logistics and we manage the exams and above all we certify. So we certify this two weeks of intense work. So thank you very much again and it's such a pleasure to be here. I wish you a wonderful session and of course a wonderful summer school which is coming in one month more or less. Yeah, exactly. Very fast, we're almost there. Not even one month because it starts end of June. So exactly two or three weeks. So it's very, very fast coming. Thank you Marika, back to you. Thank you Isabel. So Isabel mentioned already in this partnership you are very creative. So last year when we were obliged to have the online edition of the summer school we realized that there were a number of participants saying good that it is online because otherwise we couldn't afford being two weeks out of work, two weeks out of home, etc. So we decided that from this year, 21 already, we had also a winter school that will remain always online independently from the pandemics and then the summer school will hopefully resume his face-to-face editions from last year. So as Isabel said, the end of this month we will have a new group starting still online but will be hopefully the last summer school online. I thank you everybody. I leave the floor to Alessandra Bo who will be the chair for this webinar and I will also close my camera to leave more space to see the others. Thank you very much. Alessandra is to you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everybody for coming. Thank you for our guests here. So this is the 12th webinar that we are organizing at the EMCDDA on the 11th of June celebrating 10 years of the summer school. I thought that was really nice numbers for us. And so today we will be talking about the summer school and disseminating the European balanced approach on drugs through training. And we've invited ex students of the summer school to share with us in a very informal way. So no presentation. My next slide is the last one that you will see in this session. We're really just to discuss with them and we have. So Daria joining Daria Piacentino joining us from the US. She's a visiting fellow in clinical psychoneuro endocrinology and neuro psychopharmacology in NIDA. We also have Irena Molnar. She's the executive directors of regeneration in Serbia and foundations council member at Yoda as well as steering committee part of the steering committee of the Eurasian Harm Reduction Association. Shimon Bogorzelski is a policy officer at the DG Home at the European Commission in Brussels. We also have Rachel Petesh. Hopefully I pronounce this well. She's an operations manager from St. George University of Beirut. So she's joining from Lebanon. And last but not least, Anton Gomez Escolar. He is a project manager at the international drug, in the international drugs project area for energy control and NGO based in Spain. He's also senior expert at the Commission on Global Drug Policies of UNAT and scientific analyst and advisor on psychedelics at Midasin Innovation and Mind Leap Health. So what are we going to do now just for our audience to know? We have really two questions that I will ask to our guests in the order that I've introduced them. So Daria for you to know that you'll be the first one to go. And as I said, really informal conversation to discuss about their experience at the summer school. The first one will be about the way in which their participation in the MCDDA drug summer school supported their career development. And the second one, it's about the way in which the balance approach is reflected in your work and what is the legacy of the MCDDA on their vision of the future of drug related issue. But we start with the first one. It's the easier one, I think, about how the summer school have supported your career or have influenced or had a part in your career development. Before I let you speak, Daria, just let me stop sharing so we all see each other. And yes, please. Thank you so much. Alessandra. Hi everyone. So yes, I was a participant of the MCDDA drug summer school in 2017. And so first, a bit of background. So I'm an addiction psychiatrist. I train in Rome. I hold a PhD in neuroscience and a master's in medical statistics. And so when I attended the MCDDA drug summer school, I was in the last year of a psychiatry residency. And I think that the program shaped my career in three fundamental ways. And that's what I'm going to tell you about. So first of all, I think that before attending the drug summer school, my view of addiction psychiatry was mainly shaped by textbooks and academic papers. And it was mainly theoretical. And I think that obtaining the drug summer school broadened my views and rightfully so. And it exposed me to the real world, the world of practice and the world of the complex policy challenges that Europe faces, but also in general, more extensively the whole world faces. Because right now I'm in the U.S., I've been working. As Alessandra mentioned, as a visiting fellow for three years at NIH, specifically at the joint lab of NAIDA, National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcoholism. So this, I think, was the main lesson I learned. And as Marika said, we have real exposure to injection sites to the real world of drug users. Second, I think that MCDA gave me exposure to scientific experts, not only from the MCDA, but also from other fields, researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and I had never had that exposure before. So that was enlightening, that was exciting. And it also gave me a wide network of contacts with other professionals that some became friends. So we have here Irena and Irena and Rachel were both together with me at the MCDA drug summer school. So that's amazing. We keep track of each other. Even during the pandemic, it has been so important. I think it's a great support system in general. And I think this is great. We really kind of keep track of each other. And the third thing is that MCDA inspired me to take my career to the next level. It really pushed me, I think it was fundamental because in applying to a position at the NIH and moving to the United States, in that, soon after I attended MCDA drug summer school, I, in 2017, then soon after I finished my residency, I applied and moved to the US. So thank you. This is great. This was great. Thank you. Well, that was good to know. Irena, can I ask you then? Hi, yeah. Thank you, Alessandra. Thank you, Marika and everybody else for the warm welcome and for inviting me to be a part of this event. I'm at most happy to see two of my fellow alumni from the summer school. And yeah, it's been amazing to follow what you girls have been doing since the summer school. Yeah. So as Daria also started, I would give you a little bit of background. So when I applied for the summer school, actually Cecile Martel from Maritov's department of the MCD-DDA, she used to be, I'm not sure if she's in that department, but she actually promoted summer school to me since she was aware that I have a hold master in social anthropology and also political science and European integration of Western Balkans to EU. So when we discussed my interests, Cecile was up for me applying for summer school and I did. So at the time, I was working in drug policy network Southeast Europe and I was foundation council board member of Utah Organization for Drug Action in Europe, which I'm still in that position. And yeah, I've been a lot of, I was participating in the process of establishing the new drug policy and the current strategy and strategy and action plan on drugs in the Republic of Serbia, representing young people, representing harm reduction and representing community. And it's been really important for me to get on that part of the EU being able to discuss one on one and in group with European and other world experts on what actually being in the European Union means for us because I come from Serbia and how actually our national laws are going to be harmonized within the EU laws in order to become, in order to respect the process that we have to and in order to become a member of EU family as we are on that way. So in the terms of what summer school offered to me, that was really one of the most valuable things I took with me in Serbia. And after I came back, I became executive director of the geo regeneration, which I worked before for seven years. And I also was a part of the working groups and still am and have developed a lovely cooperation with the Ministry of Health and Office for Combating Drugs in the burning questions that we are having in Serbia. And that cooperation also that cooperation also is something that I kind of brought from Portugal in order because I kind of learned what are the types of discussions that I should have with my government in order to bring the most of what I learned and most of what we have back home. So yeah, thank you once again. Thank you. For that opportunity. Thanks. Thanks Irina. Thank you a lot. May I ask now then Simon. A very recent student. Yeah, I just learned that you were in our online summer school last year. Yes. So I guess I'm the test case for the winter drug school for the online only version. So if I may, my name is Szymon Pogorzowski and I work for the unit on organized crime drugs and corruption. This is part of the law enforcement and security directorate within the directorate of the law enforcement and security within part of the migration and home affairs director general, which is part of the Commission, European Commission also known as DG home. Now DG home mainly focuses on security and migration. However, the drugs policy is very special to us because we are in charge of coordination for broad aspects of drugs policy within the European Commission. Now that goes way beyond security and includes prevention, harm reduction, capacity building, health, research and many others. The day to day management of drugs policy within the European Commission takes place in the framework of inter service group on drugs policy where more than 20 commission services, the European External Action Service and EMCDDA, the colleagues from the drugs agency, the monitoring center for drugs and drug addiction regularly meet to discuss topics relevant to drugs policy. At EU level, if we go beyond the European Commission, the drugs policy is coordinated at horizontal drugs group, which is a council configuration called working group where all member states regularly discuss and take action on issues relevant to EU drugs policy. And this is a gathering where key decisions are taken in this regard. The horizontal drugs group meets every month or two and it's preceding are chaired by the council presidency. Currently the Portuguese authorities, I think the name of the chair was mentioned before, but this is to say the world of drugs seems to be a small one. I know some of these faces that you mentioned from the horizontal drugs group. And given the scope of the drugs policy, member states are typically represented by the ministers of interior relevant to what we used to call supply reduction and ministers of health the demand side. And the key stakeholder for us in the European Commission is EMCDDA, the monitoring center for drugs and drug addiction, which is the center for European expertise on challenges relevant to illicit drugs. We also work closely with Europol and other relevant stakeholders. And at international level the relevant bodies in this regard are the United Nations notably and the Commission on Mercotic Drugs. And so the EU efforts at international stage are complementing what we do at the EU level. And one important stakeholder to consider in this regard is civil society and we cooperate strongly closely with civil society mainly through the Commission expert group civil society forum on drugs. Now this introduction I would say it's relevant because to answer the question of of what's to answer the question in the panel this participation of the EMCDDA in the EMCDDA drug summer school allowed me to develop a coherent a complete view on all aspects of drugs policy, which is very much needed to have a background to have a context of the various elements of the drugs policy that we do in the European Commission. So the lectures workshops and discussions provided in the drug summer school are indeed an excellent to give overview a solid overview of various aspects of of the issues at hand in the field of drugs. Thank you so much. Thank you very much Shiman. I mean literally I have goosebumps because it's so rewarding to you guys because you know we do it when we put enthusiasts better to show you know what the results it's really nice to hear about your results. Anyway let's stick to the program Rachel can I ask then you how the summer school has influenced somehow or contributed to your career? Definitely thank you again for having me among the panelists. I'm very happy to see you again all of you. It was really a great opportunity for me to to come in person before COVID when we were in along with Irina and Daria. So a little bit of how did I get introduced to the program. So it was I was really recently appointed to my position at the Ministry of Public Health at the National Observatory on Drugs and Drug Addiction. We were setting it up so and I was freshly graduated from my Masters in Public Health in Epidemiology and Biostatistics. So it was kind of like a whole new field jumped over my shoulders and I was introduced from the first day that I started my job at my assignment. We met with colleagues from EMCDDA Sondri and Gonzalo and they introduced the program to like really help in getting me more into the the field of exposure and more from the technical aspect and some administrative aspects of course. So when I came and and definitely the part the fun part is there we met colleagues we stayed connected became friends it was really a great opportunity there but of course a career perspective it gave me a big push first to like have the necessary tools to provide support in my work back in Lebanon. This was very fundamental to my career. We got to publish afterwards several reports and within the summer school after having the exposure and with the connections of the EMCDDA and the Ishkete provided so we're able to like send the reports for review and to help out in all the like kind of put them as achievements at some point of that phase. More than this it actually helped also shaped my vision and perspective on how such an issue is being handled at not only a national level but at a global level because the mix of candidates of students we were students there is really like you get to hear the different perspectives from everywhere what issues are they having are they common issues can you solve them together so that we can hear different perspectives from other colleagues in different countries how they are handling their own tasks so this was really a big plus to push my career forward. I am a bit now shifted towards not really focused on drugs or substance use but it's still like formed the necessary like perspective on things so I'm it gave me this overview for on from the health management perspective which really pushed me forward beyond my like expectations in my career to handle like big projects at a national level and more of a regional level sometimes in short. Excellent really good to know my congratulations thank you excellent so last but not least Anton please tell us. Hi hello well thank you Alessandra my name is Anton Gómez Escolar and I part I took part in the European Drugs and Reschool of the year 2018 I applied both at the European Drugs and Reschool and to be a trainee at the MCDDA but my first intention was to attend the the European Drugs and Reschool and thankfully I was accepted in both so it was a great opportunity for me to to learn a lot and to improve my my career at the time I applied for it I was heavily volunteering on harm reduction field with different and the organizations that were providing information and drug checking in in music festivals and other venues and also providing services in the area of prevention that was the specific topic of my year at the European Drugs and Reschool I just graduated from a master in international relations and also a master in psychopharmacology and illegal drugs so I was very keen to to explore this space and get the most out of all the knowledge that I could get from from drug policy and how the how European how European Union was working in in this regard at the time and thanks to all the knowledge I get from there I could broaden a lot my my knowledge on how the how the European Union and the different countries approach the topic of drugs and drug policy it gave me a better understanding of the European drug policies and the role specific role of the MCDDA and the balance approach which is something we will talk about later and it also gave me a lot of new ideas on where I could direct my my professional development after it and get me a lot of networking opportunity which is something of extreme value I would say from the European Drugs and Reschool this opportunity to to to get together with with other professionals and people that is interested in this field and exchange views learn a lot from other regions of the world because as Marika said before this is not only an activity for Europeans it attracts people from different regions that can also learn and share their point of view and their experience from their own countries I would say it also wider my perspective a lot which for me is very important because thanks to this I could I was appointed as a member of the Global Drug Policy Commission on UNAT the National Spanish Addiction Network and help them with all the topics that are related with European drug policies that that I think are crucial for for how we approach the drug issues in in Spain it also helped me to understand the importance of prevention human rights public health and above all the the need for evidence when it comes to developing or proposing any any policy advocacy or try to get something to become law and to become an impact in people's daily life so in I would say it was extremely extremely helpful and above all it was very fun very educational and I would say that I'm really looking forward to have an alumni event thank you thank you thank you very much duly noted for the event we will try to organize it we were discussing it beforehand also with Marika but okay so thank you all for for this first round let's go and then to the second round it's a question that I personally really curious to know because the one thing that I'm noticing here many of you mentioned it's it's the global reach of this summer school which I think it's absolutely enriching and also the fact that we are reaching out to young professional that will shape up the future of what we're talking now the drug policies and drug interventions so the second question addresses partly this and is in which way the balanced approach is reflected in your work and also what is the legacy of the MCDDA on your vision of the future of drugs related issue and so if we start again from Daria sure yes so I'm really happy to reply to this question because I think that so the European balance approach is in I think is in real harmony with what I do now at NIDA and also with the NIDA paradigm of addiction and I think the main legacy of the MCDDA and more specifically the drug summer school for me is to is basically what we can do more in terms of like community-based efforts to prevent substance use and harm reduction so I work in a lab so my perspective is basically a development of new treatments and this is like NIDA's focus but what I'm very proud is that this year for the first time we had so every year we NIDA sponsors the what is called the National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week which is a week dedicated to linking teenagers with experts and science based information about drug and it's a great idea there are many initiatives but I was very happy to see that this past year thanks to the contribution of many colleagues and myself it was very successful in educating teens comprehensively by also mentioning scientifically proven harm reduction techniques that for example can keep teenagers safe if they ever choose to use drugs or if they're around someone who does and for me that is a great legacy because I really took what I knew from what I learned at the MCDA Young Summer School and managed to kind of integrate the European approach with you know what I know from that with what happens in the United States because that's where I work so I think it's really amazing how we can you know integrate approaches excellent excellent thanks Irene? Yeah thank you Alexandra uh yeah what you just mentioned is uh youth and since I have been working and representing youth since the beginning of my drug policy career I can say so that is now almost 10 years long uh yeah I can proudly say that yeah we as a youth in MCDA Summer School some of us really took an effort on an international stage for example in at CND at United Nations and I have been following with some of my colleagues that I've been alumni at the MCDA Summer School and it's been great because we did learn a lot of things in how European union functions but we also got influenced by for example in Canada or stories from the States and we even though we didn't have chance to work maybe on some of the projects we did and we are continuing developing and discussing and brainstorming the ideas on how we can based on evidence that we see in our communities improve things on a policy level influencing the better service provision for example in my case service provision and harm reduction back to my community in Serbia so yeah based on that yeah I think that youth and future generations of European European Summer School are going to shape up things and trust me I know a few of young people who are really into learning, into getting to know people into getting the most of the things that you offer and I believe that the future is going to be bright for all of us and I believe that the younger generations are specifically keen. I think that as I work with young people and I lead now a team of 22 young professionals that are mostly from disadvantaged communities but also researchers and professionals and the key target population representatives I can honestly say that I did pass some of the legacy of summer school and some of the things that I learned in specifically discussion with the older professionals that usually young people do not really know how to do so basically yeah being somebody for them to look up to I can probably say that youngsters are going to rock our world Looking forward to that thank you Dana Simon Yes thank you so this is to say that for me the most important element of this EU approach which I strengthened through the drug summer school is the concept of evidence-based integrated balance and multi-disciplinary approach to the drug's phenomenon which also incorporates gender equality and health equity perspective so this approach which aims to protect and improve the well-being of society and of the individual to protect and promote public health and to offer also a high level of security and well-being of the general public so this is very important that it goes beyond the bramble of security and there is a complex set of issues at hand here especially and I'm saying it working for law enforcement and security directory now this is to say that the the drug summer school was also helpful to me a bit more personally because I'm an economist by training so I'm not necessarily a drug's expert as such as many of you if not most here in this virtual room but my main responsibility is to actually link the drug policy objectives to funding instruments and to support the European funds these policy objectives so what I learned in the school was was very helpful to set this evidence-based balance and multi-disciplinary approach to the drug's phenomenon now the second part of your question on it comes to legacy there is this concept of train the trainer in the project applications that we often see and this is to say that to pass the knowledge we learn and by saying we would we have as a concept is that we try to send a colleague from European institutions every year if possible to this year EMCDA drug summer school so the colleague in that case me in this first virtual session of the of the school learns what he or she has to learn and then passes the knowledge forward in the echo of the of the European institutions by by giving it's myself a training on the key elements that that I learned and I can say that we will try to continue doing so also we hope to see a colleague from the european institutions be the commission or perhaps the external action service in the subsequent years to come and this colleague will try to gather these elements back home and to take it into account when driving the EU policy in in in the context of of drugs thank you thank you shimon that's really really nice to hear and of course colleagues are always welcome and I like this echoing or trainers of trainers aspect of it all I think we really mean it as a as a goal Rachel your turn thank you thank you again alessandra that's to add up to what my colleague said but of course there are a lot of resonating ideas together uh so back to Beirut uh there was I think a big step forward um and the whole like substance use drugs policy issue at at the national level we've made a lot of progress along with the national mental health program we're leading on that with the the strategy on substance use so we got to implement several strategic objectives again the drug summer school helped me be very well equipped to really implement many components of the the strategy that we had to put along with the main stakeholders um of course with the help of a pump you do group who were on board all the time to uh really fund this initiative because we really had no evidence whatsoever uh like publicly available for uh for sharing at at the national level so it was really some groundwork some basic work that we moved on really um uh like we had a big shot ahead and we were ahead and also reforming some of the uh at the low and policy level but unfortunately things got really messed up recently with the political uh situation and now that it has moved a bit slower on the agenda at the government level however at the non-government level the NGOs are really active uh so there are there are several uh NGOs that are really benefiting from those uh reports that were published one of them is also related to uh highlight the gender issue we had some uh research on the women's um like how how are they affected in general in Lebanon what are their needs with uh who are um being like in rehab for substance use disorders so uh we tackled several aspects and uh there were uh laws so an act was issued in 2018 if i'm not mistaken to like deepen allies uh harm reduction um so there is still some activity on the non-governmental level that the uh stakeholders are benefiting from but it has slowed down a bit on uh the like national agenda okay thank you Rachel i hope things get better soon we hope so Anton oh sorry oh no just a sheet please please please last comment uh regarding like the balanced approach as well um i wanted to comment on uh really the importance of bridging this um theory to practice when we visited the centers uh Moraria in and uh the several drop-in centers in Portugal we had like really hands-on experience and this is this was fundamental to really have those concepts stick in uh in our heads to apply it wherever we are like for now for example we're developing the curriculum for the Faculty of Medicine and there is a component like related to public health substance use so kind of from a managerial level uh well i'm looking at i have this like big perspective now and i can know where to integrate what and this is this was really um i think the take-home message that i got from your mcd from the drug summer school excellent thank you thank you Rachel um so we move to Anton tell her well uh to me this idea of uh balancing public health with public safety and known as balanced approach is a very important take-home message one probably one of the most important messages that i got from the european drug summer school and my experience at the mcd a um and it also comes hand hand to hand in my opinion with uh this idea of the importance of having very good evidence to be able to provide evidence-based policies because this field of drugs tends to be like very prone to sensitive analysis uh movements and populistic policies and this is extremely harmful when it comes to to the approach of drugs and especially to the drug users themselves and the human rights so this idea of having a balanced approach in the core of the european drug policies and trying to build this on top of really nice evidence-based policies is probably the most important orientation that we could have um as as different countries and in different governments uh going to myself um i now as a community manager of international drug projects at energy control i try to to take this approach and to and to understand better how this european union drug strategy builds on this idea of the balance approach in order to provide the best solutions possible and to suggest the best possible international projects so we can we can fit on this idea and this strategy as and have interesting international projects that could be that could be useful for for drug users in in regards to harm reduction and to improve their their well the quality of life and and their safety um and i would say all all this is uh is crucial for for the way we understand the drug problems now in in europe and thanks to this uh to this experience that we had at the at the european drug summary school we could learn better what are the fundamentals uh of having a very good balance approach in order to have a better public safety public health and uh go away from from some areas on some countries that are having more uh populistic-based policies or less uh or that are less based on on on good drug evidence or public policy excellent excellent thank you i mean i'm i'm really proud now of being on organizers of the summer school and i especially like that i mean one of i mean the main legacy is really the balance approach that is the one thing that i think we should all be proud as a as europeans in terms of drug policy but i especially liked your mention of evidence i think all of you mentioned it and um marica is back online but with marica we are managing the best practice portal where we are stressing since 10 years the importance of evidence and collecting it and promoting it so really thank you marica back to you yes there is a one question a difficult question from from guz cruz from trim bush institute in the netherlands asking perhaps you can give a good example about how evidence has influence policy that is has promoted evidence-based policy i think all of you more or less mentioned something but would you like to to to answer this question please irena yeah the most recent event in order to answer that question i would just explain the most recent event that also is something that more recently we're working with the women who are using drugs in cases of violence and since five months ago we started doing that project because we felt in a field that women who experienced violence and did have connections with drugs or or anything similar alcohol for example they didn't have anywhere to go to so when we ask the information from example the office for commenting drugs or the ministry of health there is no single document or single data on drugs so that accepted they are sex workers and that was the research in 2013 so when we did in our first place we did the policy analysis and then went to shelters and social care facilities that usually work with women who are experienced violence to ask them you know feel like what do you need do you have do you have these cases do you need some guidance some help do you know anything about drugs in the first place so what we received as a response is that from 1548 social case workers none of them received any training on drugs drug use and associated issues so therefore right now I'm proud to say that the protocols are being drafted and the gender equality law is being accepted and few of the comments that we have on the protocols in work with the women who are drug users are being in place and soon I hope by the end of the year the shelters officially run shelters will be available for them as well so this is just one small example on how actually we didn't ask people who are actually working with them what do you need because protocols are in place the law is in place but practice is something that always concerned me when it comes to Serbia so what I learned also partially because of the participation in the summer school that practice and policy doesn't really is not really a same thing and then we need to go and meet those people out there ask them what do you need to better do your job what is the thing is that the knowledge the training the experience what is that so yeah luckily this is how we managed to do one of the things that we are right now so yeah basically the experience is something important thank you this is illuminating I think it touched upon the problem of implementation of interventions and also listening and getting closer to our customers anybody else wants to answer this the the person who requested is very satisfied with your with your answer Irena but if there are any other examples we would like to to hear them I could share an example of how evidence shaped or influenced one like policy but it was also more more than evidence so the start is the collecting the data and putting it there but also advocating for it so it is it was a collective effort that led to and spend over several years to really depenalize the harm reduct the use of substance so in our law currently in Lebanon if anyone is caught by the police officer like just for substance use not for substance like dealing or trafficking they are penalized by the law so this was like worked for many years to really depenalize the use of substances and send the people to rehab because at the emergency room sometimes people were really afraid of reporting to the emergency department or emergency room because they were afraid to get caught by the police so this was a really big issue to work around that fortunately there were a lot of advocate for that cause it started by like having advocacy groups but then like one thing led to the other with the existence of evidence and with like having those reports out data publicly more publicly available for lobbying for used by several actors and several actors coming together really helped in making that decision out this is one aspect of influencing the policy there were other like really revising the whole drugs law in Lebanon but it's still the comment sections are still in the comment because things have taken a different course now and the agenda and the parliament is different now but there is more awareness I can say at the at the government level that we need to rely on evidence for the decision made a lot of politics in that part and I'm talking from my experience at the government level but sometimes it's easier to implement and faster to implement probably small policies at like some NGOs or a center on a private part so I hope this was another example for you an excellent example also also letting us know that these are continuous process you never reach your ultimate goal is a continuous and and a very comprehensive process anybody else wants to to contribute to these bringing examples Anton very briefly I would like to mention that is very interesting how the experience with alternative models like the one that was done by Portugal especially in the early 2000s is a set a good example and a good evidence base for for new countries or new regions of the world to follow decriminalized approaches and other alternative ways of treating of managing drug problems that now can be considered evidence based because they are building on the evidence that is being provided by this policy practice in other countries and this is an interesting example on whether the evidence that is is bring by political new adventures can also be used as evidence for new political developments in the area of drugs that are not considered in the first place and later become really good examples on whether to have effective drug policies that protect public health and and human rights thank you Irena I have just one small remark as we're talking about the evidence about the data we're collecting that we should always be careful how we are keeping that information how we're interpreting that information because as we in most of the cases we always have as a researcher we always have the good intention we always have improvement in our mind but we also need to be careful that we concern all of the ethical issues possible that somebody might use it opposite of what we firstly thought so for me specifically we had I think one of the discussion on ethics in summer school and I think I brought it since then and we're always discussing that issue on if we are doing the research how data will be used how it will be processed usual researcher discussion but then we are also discussing how results will be used then can that jeopardize the key part of the population that are working with are we disclosing something that can possibly make them more vulnerable than they already are so these are the questions that are developing in my mind since then and I always just when we're talking about evidences when we're talking about data I always have this small remark to have in our mind because not always everybody has a good intention so does that if there are no other contribution on the question on evidence this last annotation by Irena brings directly to another question that is not really in the context of this webinar but I think it's still interesting to get and it is about the emergency the covid-19 emergency that has created a lot of troubles especially to our vulnerable target population but also gave some new opportunities and I think it links with what you were saying Irena because for example all the use of technology and even what we are doing here now it would that costed time and travels and so it is much easier but still there are some ethical considerations that need to be brought in mind so can you touch what are the opportunities and challenges that the recent emergency has brought in your career because we had as EMCDA we had reports on what has happened in Europe due to the emergency but it's interesting to know individually what this has brought and how it can be reflected in the future when hopefully this emergency will be who wants to start so thank you again Shimon Pogorzowski European Commission I think one example very concrete and perhaps helpful to some of the participants of today's virtual meeting of how we practically are able to address and how we are trying to address the emerging challenges in the related to the phenomenon of drugs is that through the instruments that we have a place the toolbox that we have a place one of the tools that we do is the call for proposals so we publish every year every two years depending on the fund a number of initiatives funding initiatives that the candidates the future beneficiaries can apply for and in there specifically in the conditions once the pandemic hit we entered the elements related to the new phenomena new challenges and new ways of addressing these phenomena and by doing so we encourage the applicants to address these emerging challenges such as for instance our online outreach to both elicit drug trafficking but also prevention and harm reduction measures that could be some of them in certain cases in certain aspects provided support that even strengthened by the online means so we we do already see this resonated well with the with the applicants and let's say we we can adjust to a good extent the funding that we have available and member states can do that as well so this is one way of addressing this new phenomenon thank you yeah one of the remarks that the participants in the summer school always give is that we are very lucky in europe to have these synergies where we have the evidence where we have funds for research that also draw on the evidence and the existing gap so it's really recently our director said drugs are everywhere presenting the idea and i would say and professionals interested in drugs are everywhere as well and they really have an opportunity to merge their knowledge for for activating some synergies any other experiences anton you were very active on during the covid-19 emergency we saw you also with the suit of the red cross if i'm not wrong yeah well i was involved in in the response here in spain in the in the hospital that were built for for the pandemic and everything and also as a harm reduction professional here i we we suffer and we also had the opportunity both at the same time of adjusting our way of working because this covid-19 was such a big change in our operate operative way of working especially the outreach the outreach and the and the possibility to to connect with the population of drug users in different areas that were not the the parties or the or the places where we would usually find them but it was interesting because in one hand we lose part of the of the usual connection with them but in the other we get to explore new ways as as you were mentioning technological measures social networks very challenging experience but it also bring us these opportunities of finding ways to keep the contact with drug users that are not the traditional ones also there is a big opportunity when it comes to data data collection for for these evidence-based policies and for these well for for having conclusions to to the to do studies as well because using technological means helps you to analyze and to have a better knowledge on who is receiving your message if if there are like implementing changes in their daily habits because of the message so you give you as a whole set of new tools Simon was mentioning that increases the the possibility of you to to extract information of on on whether your your usual way of connecting with them is is effective is not and what are the things that must be kept after the covid pandemic as good practices for for a future to stick to them anyone else that wants to to mention something I think Alessandra has spotted a question from the from the audience already yeah oh there is a question actually from the audience so I will save mine afterwards is if harm reduction has become an established part of Spanish policy I think it's for you Anton I hope no I think Spain has a very nice orientation towards harm reduction there is a very strong social network and a lot of social organizations that are working on harm reduction right now especially in in the field of nightlife harm reduction and party night harm reduction that those are probably the ones that have been more hit by the pandemic has anyone could understand but thanks to to the to the national drug policy consists of the planetionals over the rogas that is the the Spanish national body on on drugs it has been supporting harm reduction more and more I would say in the in the last decades since the the 80s when when everything started with the heroin pandemic here and the the first harm reduction policies got to to get into place and there was evidence coming from them showing that it was a very effective way of preventing the spread of of infectious disease especially and also to preventing deaths and there were also some policies connecting the well the possibility of people in prisons to have a better better healthcare and prevent them from relapsing after leaving the prisons and all this was a very very nice basis for starting a better approach to harm reduction in the in the next decades that is the one that we are seeing now and we feel that even though we still would like to have more resources we are very welcomed by by the population and and by the by the users and we are quite effective in in the in our message gets to the to the to the users and and all of this is thanks also to the to the support of of of the government and and the different governmental agencies that are increasingly supporting harm reduction not always but most of the time we have this this collaborative work towards public safety and safety of drug users so in I would say that yes we're having like a more established harm reduction approach in drug policies here in Spain thank you Ale your other question from the my other question because it's a burning question that I had since we started thinking about it about this webinar with Marika because because of of you actually because as I mentioned before you are the young generation out there of of practitioner what we call practitioner in the drug field and inculct an even with even younger generation like you Irena and so my question is what do you think is the future for drugs and I mean I think everything you know we are witnessing I think really a big change you know these these agency was set up in the 80s so with the heroin and that is as a change we are witnessing a bit to think more normalization of drug use we presented on Wednesday the new EDR so our report and Marika mentioned it our director said drugs are everywhere not just in terms of the market being resilient to COVID no COVID they're still there but also I think in the terms of use we all know and we are monitoring also the changes in the cannabis policies cannabis regulation around the world so what do you think where are we going if I may Anton please I think drugs well the problem on drugs that we just what is the common approach that we have towards drugs as a problem I think there is a general shift on the way the people is perceiving this this problem let's say because for a lot of time we have had a lot of moral approaches to drugs and ethical approaches to drugs that were stressing whether this was more are you right or more are you wrong or but I think more and more this a little bit more scientific a more secular way of seeing life and issues is getting into the populations and people are starting to see drugs as what they are there are tools that can be very helpful but they can also be helpful in some situations so we're having more of a neutral approach to drugs and I think this is translating into the policy level little by little and we're having these movements of that are asking for decriminalization for regulation and even in in some cases for medical use or even recreational use for some substances as you mentioned like cannabis so in my opinion I think the future of drugs holds a slow but steady movement towards regulation in some areas of the world that are becoming more secular when it comes to approaching these these these issues and probably this is going to end up with having a regulated market with this with a very strict way of accessing it like it is or it should be with with some substances pharmaceutical substances right now as an example but not the kind of war on drugs approach that we were having in the last years that if we if we go to the evidence it doesn't make sense when it comes to public safety public health and economic expenditure criminal criminal problems all of this I think is showing us if we are neutral enough to see this data without any moral implications that we need to change this model and I think this is little by little getting into them into the population and probably into the into the government's vision it looks like we have lost Rachel any other contribution on this Rachel is back good any other contribution I can shortly say that they are totally agree with what Anton said for the global level and global situation with the drugs as we are seeing in the past 10 years a really big change so yeah I only believe that it is going to continue developing in that way and with more knowledge and more possibilities to learn that will be even more successful in ways that we are like as as a human race we are safe in what we're doing but for region that I come from so western Balkans in Serbia I honestly believe and want to believe that future of drugs in western Balkans is actual acknowledgement of harm reduction in the first place actual improvement of treatment and services offered to people who are using drugs and lowering the stigma and discrimination that we face every day as well as possibility to have drug checking services as we are witnessing MPS also in western Balkans so it's a huge difference between Serbia and Spain and yeah I'm thankful for the opportunity to learn every day from the colleagues such as that kind of world thank you any anybody else wants to to say something on this future of your profession okay I would like just to very briefly mention the big thread that now this nationalistic and populistic movements in some areas of the world is bringing to the drugs area because some of them are using a lot of sensationalistic drug policies that are from the past let's say and some of them are becoming so what I was mentioning is most for the for the western world right now but we don't know other parts of the world might be going in a different direction so I just want to clarify that thank you so if there are no other comments by the other participants we can probably look towards the conclusion I really would like to thank you a lot for having spent sometimes with you with us today it has been quite difficult to select a few participants we cannot have webinars for many participants because really all the students who has who have passed by the summer school have been very very interesting and having great and interesting careers so we will look for having more opportunities to meet you to let you meet our audience and yes you cannot get some conclusions because it's an open question because there is a lot of discussion around you represent very different professions witnessing the fact that this is a complex problem and so it's impossible to simplify with some statements and today we miss our director Alexis Gousdel who is always great at finding concluding words I don't even try I thank you all we will have the next EMCDA webinar on issues around prisons with Linda Montanari as a chairman so I will spread the link and I will share the information thank you very much everybody