Presentation of MD. Damir Bikmukhametov on new options of treatment for chronic Hepatitis C.

Presented at the regional seminar “Hepatitis C treatment in resource – limited settings: mobilize for a joint regional campaign!“ which took place in Kiev (Ukraine) on March 28-30, 2012.

The War on Drugs: Count the Costs campaign calls on governments and international agencies to meaningfully evaluate the unintended consequences of the war on drugs and explore evidence-based alternatives.

The Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) has published a speech by the DPA Executive Director Ethan Nadelmann who talks about the latest developments in the on the 40th anniversary of the war on drugs.

In November 2010 Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU) video advocacy team asked activists, outreach workers and service providers who attended the 8th National Harm Reduction Conference in Austin, Texas what harm reduction meant to them.

Exclusive interview of Evgeny Zakharov, a Russian journalist, with Yury Fedotov, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Executive Director, held on March 24, 2011 in the UN’s headquarters in Vienne, Austria.

After 10 years of zero-tolerance, the Polish Parliament has decided to reform the drug law. In April 2011 it amended the drug law in order to give discretion to prosecutors in deciding whether to prosecute small scale drug offenders. The new law now awaits to be signed by the President.

During IHRA's 22nd Annual International Conference 2011 in Beirut, Lebanon, the Eurasian Harm Reduction Network (EHRN) together with Scottish Drugs Forum organized a panel on Naloxone, the substance that reverses heroin overdoses and saves lives.

In 2009 the non-governmental organization "SPIN Plus" representing community of people living with HIV and drug users in Tajikistan produced a film on the situation with drug use and HIV in Tajikistan.

The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU) has created 4 short video messages to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. In the videos a Taliban leader, a Mexican drug lord, a Russian mafioso and the girlfiend of an American drug kingpin thank the UN for keeping drugs illegal. These videos are part of the HCLU’s campaign to raise awareness on the unintended consequences of the global war on drugs. In addition to that HCLU team filmed the Drug Lords in Vienna who came there to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.

In 2010 Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU) produced 127 videos. 91 of them are in foreign languages (English or Russian) and 36 are in Hungarian. Most movies are focused on drug policy, HIV/AIDS and human rights, rights of disabled people, freedom of speech and freedom of information, as well as on the issues of Roma rights. “Take Home Naloxone - The Right to Survive Overdoses”, Three short videos for the "Here I am campaign" and “The Prague Declaration - 7 Principles for Urban Drug Policies” are just few videos among a great number of well-known makings of the HCLU.

Watch the full length presentation by Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, the head of Open Society Institute's Global Drug Policy Program, that was recorded at the "Urban Drug Policies in the Globalized World" Conference in Prague, on September 30, 2010.

In the age of economical crisis there is a risk that European cities might sacrifice their unquestionable achievements in the field of drug policy and harm reduction. Pavel Bem, the mayor of Prague and a former drug treatment professional himself, recognized this current trend and the need to create a new platform to promote evidence-based, pragmatic drug policies among cities.

The video "From the Mountaintops: The Evolution of Swiss Drug Policy" by the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union outlines how the country successfully resolved the late 1980s problem of increased use of injected drugs through the introduction of an innovative national drug policy based on scientifically proven methods.

The winner of this years Red Ribbon Award, Timur Islamov Charitable Foundation (Russia) with the support from the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ITPCru) produced a short movie "TurboHIV” (Russian colloquial term for HIV/TB co-infection).

The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU) presents three new videos filmed at the XVIII International AIDS conference in July 2010. In one of the videos, former US President Bill Clinton calls for support of harm reduction [watch video here].

For anyone who wants to better understand the failures of prohibition, or who is looking for a refresher on years of research evidencing cost-effective, safe, and humane alternatives to the "war on drugs", the ICSDP presents 'Did You Know: The War on Drugs Edition'. Modeled after the viral YouTube series, DYN provides a fast-paced overview of the realities of conventional drug policies based on studies and reports from the United Nations, US Department of Justice, and a number of peer-reviewed journals.

Non-profit partnership to support social and prevention programs in public health “ESVERO” (Russian Federation) prepared a short video report about the 21st International Harm Reduction Conference in Liverpool. From April 25 to 29, 2010, the conference was the main meeting place as well as a platform for discussion for people who work or are interested in harm reduction.

"Liverpool: Back to the Roots of Harm Reduction" tells about the beginning and evolution of harm reduction story.

HCLU presents three uncut presentations from the 2009 Moscow AIDS conference by international and Russian experts on the legal analysis of the unavailability of methadone in Russia.

HCLU’s video advocacy team attended a press conference organized by the Russian delegation in Vienna at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), where the representatives of the world governments discussed the critical issues in international drug control policies.

After two decades, the US Congress has voted to lift a ban on federal funding of needle exchange programs in December 2009.

Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU) produced 70 advocacy videos in 2009; 26 were Hungarian and 44 were in a foreign language. The vast majority of films deal with drug policy issues, within the framework of the European Drug policy Initiative program.

The film “10 years after UNGASS 1998: The Eastern European Experience” was filmed during the Drug Policy Training on December 12-14, 2008 in Kyiv, Ukraine. The training developed in partnership with the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) was one of the first activities in the framework of new EHRN project “Pilot regional coordination of civil society drug policy advocacy in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.”

Produced by the Open Society Institute, International Drug Policy: Animated Report 2009 highlights some of the disastrous effects of drug policy in recent years and proposes solutions for a way forward. This film seeks to show that pursuing a "drug-free world" can lead to more harm than good.

Watch the report: http://www.soros.org/initiatives/drugpolicy/multimedia/drugreport_20090303

The video "A Drug-Free Sweden: By All Means?", presented by Hungarian Civil Liberties Union about drug-free policy of Sweden concludes that in its failure to provide comprehensive harm reduction measures such as needle and syringe exchange programmes, the Swedish Government is violating the right to health of people who use drugs, placing them at unnecessary and avoidable risk of HIV and HCV infection.

Altough harm reduction was not mentioned in the Political Declaration adopted by the high level UN meeting on drugs (March 11-12, 2009), 26 countries supported a statement made by Germany that interpreted the term “related support services” (a euphemism substituting harm reduction in the text) as harm reduction services. Other governments, like the US, Japan and Russia opposed this interpretation. A new video on this issue is available now at the website of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union.