drugs - policies and practices, issue no. 2, june 2014

DRUGS – POLICIES AND PRACTICESYear II, Issue 2, June 2014, ISSN 1857-8926, Free issue

Issue’s topic:

Drugs and Law

Interview: Jaka Bitenc, Slovenia Cannabis Social Club (SKSK)

The public opinion has changed a lot since 2010. The media have started to write about the benefits of cannabis. It happened for the first time in Slovenia, that a civil campaign managed to gather 28.000 signatures for three draft laws – we made it all together!

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Impressum

DRUGS – Policies and Practices Year IINumber 2June 2014

ISSN 1857- 8926

Free issue

Published by:Association HOPS – Healthy options project Skopje Address: Hristo Smirnenski 48/1-6, 1000 SkopjePhone: +389 2 324-6205Fax: +389 2 324-6310e-mail address: [email protected]

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Drugs – Policies and Practices is a publication of the Association HOPS – Healthy options project Skopje. This magazine is free of charge and for distribution.

Editorial Office

Editor in Chief Vanja Dimitrievski

Editorial BoardVanja Dimitrievski Vlatko Dekov Irena CvetkovikjZharir Simrin

Translated in English bySuzana Shterjova Tosheva

Photography Social Marketing - HOPS

Gpaphic design Social Marketing - HOPS

ПечатиDataPons

Drugs – Policies and Practices is open for cooperation with all those interested in sharing attitudes to pro-mote the humane treatment of people using drugs. If you want to submit an article or help the magazine in another way, please contact us in the following address:

[email protected]

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Contents

The death of the actor 3

Legal regulations concerning drugs

4

Slovenian Social Cannabis Club – SSCC 10

Drug policies and legislation in Southeast Eu-rope

13

Visiting the Portland society for health, organi-zation carrying out policies and harm reduction programs in Vancouver – Canada 17

Are you in control?????! 22

I love drugs, but I hate its consequences! 24

What makes you happy? 28

Pedagogical support for children with drug us-ing parents

32

Ganja can kill you, only if „Alphas“ catch you 35

Conference: Availability of the Hepatitis C for drug users in RM – good practices and chal-lenges

37

Recently banned substances in the category of opioid drugs and psychotropic substances 40

We recommend 42

Latest publications about drugs 42

Brief news

43

Attitudes presented in Drugs – Policies and Practices does not necessarily re-flect or conform to the attitudes of the publisher HOPS – Healthy Options Project Skopje.

On February 2nd this year, the actor Philip Seymour Hofmann died from heroin overdose. Another fatality that could have been prevented.The media and social networks were brimming with moralizing and judgmental statements criticizing Philip for his drug use.However, there were only rarely criticisms of the US government that called it forth for responsibility for its immoral drug policies and its attitude towards drug using people. The possibility that Philip would still be alive today is commensurate to the country’s human rights-based drugs policy. Namely, in countries where implemented drug policies emphasize prohibition, the role of the police and penalties instead of prevention, treatment, re-socialization and harm reduction, mortalities such as this one are by far more numer-ous than in those countries where drug issues are considered with health and social issues as priorities. That’s why there is a large probability that Philip would have still been alive today if he had the chance to use legal injection rooms such as those in Australia, Canada, Norway or Switzerland, for example, where injection with fatal consequences is impossible, or if he had the possibility for a treatment with medical heroin such in Germany, Switzerland, Denmark etc. Also, the likelihood of him receiving naloxone would have been far greater, thus effectively managing any case of overdose. He didn’t have any of these options, because his govern-ment’s policies didn’t make them available. That is why the policy of war against drugs is inhumane, ineffective and only increases the suffering of people using drugs and their families. One more thing concerning the media. Fatalities happen every day. Please inform and write about them, too. Please write not only of the number of death cases but also of the life stories as you did in the case of Philip. Yes, not everyone is a movie star, not everyone is a celebrity, but in Macedonia alone, there are around 10.000 drug-injecting people who share their destinies with Philip before his death. They are our co-citizens, neighbors, brothers, sisters, friends, acquaintances. In Macedonia, none of the programs I mentioned above are available, just as naloxone isn’t. Should we wait for somebody we know to die, before we start talking and writing about the problems?

Vlatko DekovDrugs - Policies and Practices

The death of the actor

Pursuing a Master’s degree in so-cial policy, has a thirtheen years of experience on drug related issues; currently working as a manager of CEDR – Center for Education, Documentation and Research within HOPS. He has developed most of the harm reduction programs in Macedonia. He is activist for human rights of marginalized communities and member of several national and international committees and bod-ies for drugs, HIV/AIDS and human rights.

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Evidence shows that penal measures alone, regardless of their strictness, fail to achieve their aim of reducing drug use. Moreover, in many cases, laws that criminalize drug use lead to negative consequences, such as stigmatization of people who use drugs, viola-tion of human rights, difficult access to treatment and re-socialization etc.

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Legal regulations concerning drugsVlatko Dekov

Having in mind that drug use can cause serious damages both on individual and on societal level, states across the world implement diverse strategies to prevent or decrease these consequences. In most countries in the world, the production, possession, sales or purchase and use of drugs is banned. The international legal framework is based on three conventions for narcotic drugs and psychoactive sub-stances (dated 1961, 1971, 1988) brought by the UN, and signed and ratified by UN member-states. As stated in the 1988 Convention, with its ratification, countries undertake to carry out sanctions for the production, sales, transport, distribution or purchase of forbidden substances as stipulated in the 1961 and 1971 conven-tions.

All three conventions enable the sig-natories to carry out measures for treat-ment, education, post-treatment care, rehabilitation and social re-integration for those who have committed drug-relat-ed crimes, and are dependent on drugs themselves. Although varying interpreta-tions exist, conventions don’t contain any specific articles or detailed provisions re-garding the criminalization of drugs and they leave open the possibility for flexible national policies in terms of sanctioning personal drug use.

Still, most signatory countries ban the production, sales, transport, procurement and use of drugs. Also, a large number of states criminalize the use of drugs such as Russia, Georgia, Singapore, China etc.

In 2008, the Executive Director of UN-DOC – the UN Office on Drugs and Crime pointed out these negative consequences of the international drug-related legal framework, which has proven to be rather restrictive.

Evidence shows that penal measures alone, regardless of their strictness, fail to achieve their aim of reducing drug use. Moreover, in many cases, laws that criminalize drug use lead to negative con-sequences, such as user stigmatization, violation of human rights, difficult access

to treatment and re-socialization etc.

On the other hand, in some other coun-tries, such as Portugal, Czech Republic, Holland, Spain etc., focus is placed on public health, social policy and human rights, and laws do not criminalize the use

of drugs. In 2013, Uruguay went a step further and legalized production for per-sonal use, but only for marihuana. Name-ly, its citizens, once licensed, can choose between these three options: to produce up to 6 plants a year by themselves, to be-come members of a marihuana social club where jointly with other 15 to 45 mem-bers, they can raise up to 99 plants a year, or to buy 40 grams a month from licensed pharmacies.

Some countries, such as several federal units of the USA, legalize only the medical use of marihuana, or allow the founding of social clubs of marihuana users (Slove-nia, Belgium etc.), who can jointly grow or possess marihuana for personal use. However, movements and initiatives for law changes towards decriminalization of the possession and use of drugs, as well as legalization of marihuana are ever more increasing, probably encouraged by the results of these policies, which were comprehensively discussed in the previous issue of Drugs – Policies and practices.

Macedonian experiences

In Macedonia, the possession for per-sonal use is not a crime, and drug use is considered a misdemeanor against the public order and peace and is financially penalized. More specifically, in Macedonia possession for personal use is decriminal-ized. What is considered a crime is the possession for sales. However, in practice, possession is most often treated within the frames of the Criminal Code.

The editorial board of the Drugs – poli-cies and practices magazine, carried out a phone and internet survey for this issue, in order to get an idea about the attitudes of Macedonian citizens on these two ques-tions:

A huge revenue-generating black market has been created around drugs, exploited by powerful criminal organizations.

Geographic replacement of the production, i.e. any successful action against drug production in one part of the country or a region in the world cre-ates the so-called ‘balloon effect’ and induces increase of drug production in another part of the country or the re-gion. Production doesn’t decrease, only moves around.

Substance replacement – this is when certain actions and strategies lead to decrease of production and demand of a certain type of drug, dealers and people who use drugs transfer to a new type of drug, often multiple times more damaging than the previous one.

Criminalization of people who use drugs increases their marginalization and stigmatization which leads to a ob-structed access to health and social ser-vices and decrease of their productivity in society.

Are laws wi th in the in teres t o f c i t i zens?

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In Macedonia, the possession for personal use is not a crime, and drug use is considered a misde-meanor against the public order and peace and is financially penalized. More specifically, in Macedo-nia possession for personal use is decriminalized. What is considered a crime is the possession for sales. However, in practice, possession is most often treated within the frames of the Criminal Code.

drogi - politiki i praktiki

1. Do you consider drug possession ex-ceptionally for personal use should be punishable by law?

2. Do you think that marihuana use should be legalized?

The phone survey included 1095 inter-viewees, on a representative sample se-lected according to gender, age, ethnicity and place of living.

90,5% of the interviewees stated that drug possession only for personal use should be punishable by law, 6,9% con-sidered that this should not be a punish-able act, while 5,3% didn’t know or didn’t want to answer the first question.

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At the question about legalization of

marihuana, 83,7% of the interviewed

stated that they were against legalization,

9,3% stated that marihuana should be le-

galized, and 9,7% didn’t know or didn’t

want to answer.

In age group distribution, the largest

percentage of surveyed who were in fa-

vor of marihuana legalization were people

aged 18 to 29 (13,5%). According to their

place of living, marihuana legalization was

mostly supported by the interviewees

from the Skopje (16,2%) and the South-

eastern region of the country (12,5%). It

is exactly in the South-eastern region of

the country that the support for banning

the legalization of marihuana use is the

least (70,8%). The remaining 29,2% are

people who either support legalization, or

don’t know or don’t want to answer.

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There are other indicators that have not been assessed or measured at all, or have been so, but only rarely. For example, the suffering and emotional pain of a child whose parent is imprisoned under the Law because he possessed marihuana for personal use. How do you measure the influence of the Law that criminalized the use of drugs on the suffering of this child, on its psychosocial development and growth without a parent (because he is in jail)…

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paigns happened promoting the legali-zation of marihuana, the most intensive ones being in the last 10 years, and the results being visible.

to CNN, were pro marihuana legalization. The biggest increase, of 10%, appeared last year, and analysts think that the rea-son for this was marihuana legalization in the states of Colorado and Washington.

This is a huge difference in comparison with the first research by Galup carried out in 1969 when only 12% of all interviewees supported legalization, and in 1987 when only 16% supported it, according to CNN. In the meantime, in the USA several cam-

The same two questions were posed at an anonymous survey which was pro-moted via social networks on the internet using a Google-based survey. The survey was filled in by a total of 288 interview-ees. The results from this survey differed largely from those of the phone survey. Namely, 79% of the interviewed in the internet survey thought that possession solely for personal use should not be pun-ishable by law, and only 15% thought that it should be.

At the question for legalization of marihuana use, 249, i.e. 86% answered that marihuana use should be legalized, while only 21 interviewee, i.e. 7% were against legalization. Other interviewees didn’t want to answer (1%), didn’t know (5%) or had no opinion (1%). It is clear that internet surveys are not representa-tive and their weakness is that they are answered only by those who had the pos-sibility to learn about the survey and were motivated to participate. Also, age-wise, interviewees here were younger, with an average age of 30,5 years, which is char-acteristic of internet users and it is usual that younger people favor marihuana le-galization. This conclusion was confirmed by the phone survey results. On the other hand, one weakness of the phone survey was that these sensitive questions were asked via the phone which decreased the probability for providing an honest an-swer. Still, I will refer to the relevance of the phone survey, although I am deeply convinced that it does not express the ac-tual situation and the attitude of the Mac-edonian citizen.

For comparison, I will mention the example with the dynamics of the public opinion regarding the marihuana regula-tion in the USA. This year for the first time, a research showed that most Americans, 58% according to Galup, 54% according

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Although varying interpretations exist, conventions don’t contain any specific articles or detailed provisions regarding the criminalization of drugs and they leave open the possibility for flexible national policies in terms of sanctioning personal drug use.


Активистот и одгледувачот Хуан Ваз, сликан во својата градина (прилагодена за затворено одгледување на марихуана) во Монтевидео.

GALLUP

I believe that all of us who professionally work on drug related issues must be much louder, in order to point to the need for change of laws and to be actively included in their drafting. Now is the real moment to remind ourselves about Charles De Gaulle’s statement „Politics is too seri-ous a business to be left only to the politicians“.

are stigmatized, decriminalized etc. There are other indicators that have not been assessed or measured at all, or have been so, but only rarely. For example, the suf-fering and emotional pain of a child whose parent is imprisoned under the Law be-cause he possessed marihuana for per-sonal use. How do you measure the influ-ence of the Law that criminalized the use of drugs on the suffering of this child, on its psychosocial development and growth without a parent (because he is in jail), on learning and on its conduct at school, the influence on the possible rejection from its school mates because they don’t want to be friends with a prisoner’s child etc.? This is just a segment of the questions rarely asked when certain laws are being enacted.

Having in mind all the seriousness of the laws regulating drugs, enacted by pol-iticians, we must ask ourselves if our poli-ticians take into account all these negative consequences of the laws they vote for. I am not convinced in that, and this is why

Ethical and social dilemmas of crimi-nalization

The success of a drugs policy from the aspect of personal health is often times measured according to prevalence, i.e. the number of people who use drugs, the number of dependent people in treat-ment, mortality, co-morbidity and other indicators.

From a legal and criminal point of view, success is measured according to the number of prisoners, the number of drug-related crimes and offences, the number of newly registered users etc. However, the assessment of one policy in the specific case the criminalization of the use of drugs will be complete if social and psychological indicators are also assessed. Namely, what number of people who use drugs have found a job, how many of them have founded a family (although I person-ally don’t think that founding a family is ant criterion for success in life), how many are accepted by society, i.e. whether they


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Јака Битенц е активист на Словенечкиот социјален клуб за канабис - ССКК (Slove-nia Cannabis Social Club - SKSK), кој заедно со другите членови нa Kлубот се бори за промена на законската регулатива за канабис во Словенија, за која вели дека е бесмислена, како и на поголемиот дел од Балканскиот Полуостров. Тој користи масло од канабис за да се справи со последиците од дијабетес, од кој боледува во последниве 23 години. Во продолжение ви го пренесуваме разговорот со Јака, во кој тој поопширно зборува за сопствените искуства со медицински канабис и за дејноста на ССКК.

SLOVENIAN CANNABIS SOCIAL CLUB (SKSK)

INTERVIEW WITH JAKA BITENC, ACTIVIST IN SLOVENIA CANNABIS SOCIAL CLUB (SKSK)

I am an activist, a father, a human, fighting for his health and also for the health of others in Slovenia. At the moment I am part of a team that is touring around Slovenia and informing as many people as pos-sible about the benefits and useful-ness of cannabis. We are tying to change the laws, which are pretty much the same all over the Bakans and do not make any sense.

Who are you? What are you doing? What is your personal experience with medical cannabis, and what do you feel are the differences when comparing regular medi-cations (pharmaceuticals) with medical cannabis for your condition.

I am an activist, a father, a human, fighting for his health and also for the health of others in Slovenia. At the mo-ment I am part of a team that is touring around Slovenia and informing as many people as possible about the benefits and usefulness of cannabis. We are ty-ing to change the laws, which are pretty much the same all over the Bakans and do not make any sense. I use cannabis because I’ve had diabetes for the last 23 years and my body doesn’t absorb insulin sufficiently, so I have no other healthy al-ternative. At the moment I use only 30% of insulin, because insulin kills off all the healthy beta cells in our bodies. I assume that this is being done on purpose by the pharmaceutical industry to get as many insulin addicts as possible.

The hash (cannabis) oil, that we do, is helping me in many ways. First of all, it calms down my body by lowering the adrenaline levels so I can think more clearly. It also stimulates my pancreas to produce the insulin on its own and by do-ing that it indirectly lowers my blood sugar levels.

Of course, the most succesful therapy is wholesome, taking care with a proper diet, energy frequencies etc.

Can you notice a difference in the Gov-ernment’s and public opinions regarding medical cannabis, between the time prior to the start of SKSK’s activities and now?

The main motive to found the SKSK was most certainly my diabetes, for as long as I have it, I had to suffer injecting

insulin with those needles, which was kill-ing me and making an addict out of me.

I did not have any legal problems, apart from the fact, that I had to make many adjustements to the club statute before the office was satisfied with the result. The opinon of the governemnt on the other hand is clear, self supply is not allowed, we should be happy to be able to inform the public. Here in Slovenia, it is like in most places around the world. We have secret agents and all sorts of stuff people see in the movies.

The public opinion has changed a lot since 2010. The media have started to write about the benefits of cannabis. It happened for the first time in Slovenia, that a civil campaign managed to gather 28.000 signatures for three draft laws – we made it all together!

What is your membership policy and how many members SKSK have?

Members of our club are only medi-cal patients. We cannot afford any other policy untill the law is changed. The num-ber of memebers is increasing daily, so I cannot give an exact number, but I can say there are more than one thousand pa-tients in the club.

What is the main goal of SKSK?

The aim of the club is to help medical patients, whom the official medicine can-not help as well as to change the law in such a way that it will allow self-supply of Cannaibs here in Slovenia.

Can you say something more about the activities of SKSK?

We have meetings with patients, we

give lectures on cannabis history and medical use as well as presentations of the draft laws around Slovenia. Similarly, we help patients from abroad. We help establish small cannabis clubs around Slo-venia and are trying to live in a parallel system, because we are not satisfied with our official position.

Can you emphasize some positive exam-ples of medical cannabis use?

Cannabis is proven to heal 105 dis-eases, meaning all autoimmune diseases. It is very important to start the therapy

In terv iew wi th Jaka B i tenc (SKSK)

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“The aim of the club is to help medical patients, whom the official medicine cannot help as well as to change the law in such a way that it will allow self-supply of Cannaibs here in Slovenia.”

as soon as the diagnosys has been made. cannabis oil lowers the blood sugar levels, holesterol levels, blood presure levels, it dillutes the blood and improves our sleep, our digestion – which is essential fot the treatment of HIV and different cancers. This is only one part, for cannabis con-sumption has too many beneficial effects to list them all in a short answer. We would need to explain the endocannabinoid first, the most complex metabolic mechanism of our bodies...

What is your opinion regarding cannabis and our future?

There is no turning back any more. We are getting new evidence each and every day. The future is bright and we are op-

timistic.Во периодот кога го водевме разговорот со Јака Битенц, членовите на ССКК спроведуваа интензивна кампања за промена на законската регулатива за канабис во Словенија. За жал, нивната иницијатива беше одбиена од законодавците во Словенија, но како што вели Јака, тие не се откажуваат од борбата.

Interview by Žarir Simrin

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“Members of our club are only medical patients. We cannot afford any other policy untill the law is changed.”

„Cannabis heals, trust nature!” - Jaka Bitenc

Director of Diogenis AssociationThanasis Apostolou has studied at the University of Athens and the university of Amsterdam, has worked as staff member of the institute “Kerk en Wereld”, in Drie-bergen, Netherlands (1972-1976) and the Orthodox Academy of Crete (1976-1977). He was direc-tor of the Centre for migrant work-ers from the Mediterranean sea in Utrecht, Netherlands (1977-1989), has been member of the Dutch Parliament for the labour party (1989-2002) and has worked as consultant on drug issues (2002-2010). He is director of Association Diogenis (2010-today).

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The motive for this project was the idea that in the development of drug policy in the SEE countries, civil society involvement must play a positive and decisive role. Non-governmental actors in the field of drugs have to have a say in shaping drug policy and to exercise influence on drug Legislation.

Drug policy and drug legislation in South Eastern Europe

Thanasis Apostolou


The motive for this project was the idea that in the development of drug policy in the SEE countries, civil society involve-ment must play a positive and decisive role. Non-governmental actors in the field of drugs have to have a say in shaping drug policy and to exercise influence on drug Legislation.

Some characteristics of the situation of drug policy and drug legislation in the countries of South Eastern Europe are presented in this study followed by rec-ommendations. They can be summarized in the following points.

a. There is a discrepancy between adopted drug strategies and their implementation in every day practice

All SEE countries have adopted a Na-tional Strategy during the last decade. The majority of them have also adopted Action Plans for the implementation of the Strat-

egy. According to the national strategy of all SEE countries, NGOs and civil society should play an important and active role in policy making, mainly in the field of treat-ment and rehabilitation, but also in harm reduction. The actual involvement of civil society and NGOs is, however, rather mar-ginal, although efforts are made to im-prove it. In practice there is a gap between strategies and practice. Harm reduction is accepted in de drug strategies but is not enshrined in national legislation; harm re-duction services are appreciated, but they are financially dependent on grants of ex-ternal donors; rehabilitation programmes are recognized as essential part of drug policy, but they have still to be developed.

It is pointed out that strategies and ac-tion plans must be evaluated and practices that are not effective have to be changed. Most of the countries do not have yet for-mal evaluation mechanisms. Evaluation will help the relevant authorities to make changes where necessary and introduce innovative practices that meet the needs of those concerned.

b. The application of criminal law is harsh for drug trafficking and in cas-es of drug possession for personal use is diverse and often inconsistent.

Criminal Justice systems of South East-ern European (SEE) countries are based on different traditions and the response to the drug issue proves diversified. Devia-tions are wider in the area of smaller-scale violations of drug laws, while penalties envisaged for drug trafficking have more common characteristics being extremely harsh. In several countries however, re-gardless of the strict scope of legal pro-visions, the penalties actually imposed by courts are less stringent.

In general, SEE countries could be de-scribed as indecisive on issues regarding

decriminalization of possession of drugs for personal use. This is an extremely cru-cial issue in the further development of drug policy, since this issue usually deeply affects the lenient or harsh treatment of the user-perpetrators within the criminal justice system. Decriminalisation of drug possession for personal use is heavily dis-cussed, but several attempts to introduce it in national legislation has failed. Further research and study of the current practice concerning possession for personal use, must be a priority in the future agenda of the countries of the region, in order to relieve the criminal justice and the peni-tentiary, system.

c. The prison population over the last years has increased; the living condi-tions are poor and there is increasing drug use in prisons; medical care in-side prisons is inadequate.

For the majority of the countries, the living conditions in detention facilities are very bad because prisons are over-crowded. This is a common problem and a general endemic characteristic of the correctional systems of the majority of the countries.

The problem of drug-use in prisons emerges clearly through the national re-ports. There is diversity in the provision of treatment programmes for drug depend-ent prisoners. Medical care inside prison is provided for all prisoners by medical staff while help from other medical institutions and NGO programs can be provided only outside the prison. It is possible to divert drug users from prison into community-based treatment for drug addicted perpe-trators of drug-related offences, though diversion mechanisms combined with treatment programmes (suspension of penal prosecution, execution of the sen-tence/probation/ conditional release from prison) are currently implemented on a

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In 2012 Diogenis Association took the initiative to set up a project on Drug Law reform in South East Europe. In cooper-ation with the organisations of the drug policy network in South East Europe and researchers affiliated with researches in-stitutes and law faculties of universities in South East European countries, a re-search has been carried out that result-ed in the publication “Drug policy and Drug Legislation in South East Europe”.

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http://www.diogenis.info DRUG POLICY AND DRUG LEGISLATION IN SOUTH EAST EUROPE

The problem of drug-use in prisons emerges clearly through the national reports. There is diversity in the provision of treatment programmes for drug dependent prisoners. Medical care inside prison is provided for all prisoners by medical staff while help from other medical institutions and NGO programs can be provided only outside the prison.

very limited scale.

d. There is support for alternatives to incarceration of drug offenders.

All relevant stakeholders support alter-native measures to incarceration of drug offenders. They are convinced that alter-native measures will result in a reduction of incarceration and minimization of the negative consequences of criminal pros-ecution and short-term prison sentences to drug addicted persons. However, social re-integration programmes are almost ab-sent. For the majority of the SEE coun-tries, the strategy for social reintegration can be characterized as either incoherent or only nominal and there seems to be a long way to go for the implementation of such policy. Consistency requires that a policy in favour of alternative measures to incarceration needs to be followed by implementation in practice.

e. Relevant authorities and state rec-ognized agencies and service provid-ers are reserved towards drug law reform proposals, while NGOs are in favour

The relevant national authorities and the state recognized agencies and service providers are cautious in their reactions concerning proposals for policy change. Reform proposals are very often consid-ered to be contrary to the international

conventions. Governments and parlia-ments are making use of the room that exists in the international conventions to introduce new ways of facing the problem, but they are hesitant to speak about re-form of the current drug control system.

NGOs express clearly the wish for re-form in several areas, especially the de-criminalization of possession for personal use and the wish to enshrine harm reduc-tion services in the national legislation. For the intravenous drug users, supervised drug consumption rooms are considered as necessary prevention measure to avoid the spread of HIV. NGOs are, however, concerned about the general attitude of the public that is reserved towards de-criminalization.

f. The economic crisis is a real threat for treatment and harm re-duction services

Although in most cases, especially in recent years, governments assisted by NGOs have made great progress in broad-ening their harm-reduction policies and the services offered to drug users, obsta-cles mainly related to the lack of financial resources –and, to a degree, to a culture of mistrust and phobic societies– have greatly suppressed programs and ini-tiatives for needle and syringe exchange and the establishment of supervised drug consumption rooms. The shift of interest towards this direction is, however, a par-ticularly important development which will greatly influence developments in drug policy in SEE, especially under the effect of the wider relevant European policy.

Under the burden of the economic cri-sis, treatment and harm reduction servic-es –along with the health issue in general, medical & pharmaceutical care and other social benefits– is pushed in the margins of central policy, while the severe reduc-

tion of funds seems to already have a dramatic impact. Most of the SEE coun-tries now face an unpredictable future on financing treatment and harm reduction programs, as many are (or were) spon-sored by the Global Fund, while most are no longer eligible to receive new funding. If National governments are not going to finance these services most of them may cease to function due to lack of resources.

g. Cannabis production and use is dominant in all countries of the re-gion.

Cannabis cultivation and use is domi-nant in all the SEE counties. Large quan-tities of cannabis plants are detected, uprooted and confiscated by the law-en-forcement authorities. At the same time there is little debate about cannabis re-form. Initiatives in some countries in the region have not resulted in serious politi-cal consideration of the issue.

h. Unbalanced Spending of Financial resources

Broadly speaking, the available re-sources for drug supply reduction and drug demand reduction is not balanced. The national strategies present a com-prehensive view in which the elements to reduce drug demand and supply of drugs are balanced. However, in practice there are difficulties in implementing this bal-anced approach. Some say that this is due to lack of budgetary resources. Oth-ers point out that it is a question of priori-ties and policy orientation. Lack of human resources and financial support for treat-ment programs is a significant issue; it is necessary to allocate increasing amounts of money from the state budget for treat-ment services provided to drug users.

Assesment

15drogi - politiki i praktiki

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NGOs express clearly the wish for reform in several areas, especially the decriminaliza-tion of possession for personal use and the wish to enshrine harm reduction services in the national legislation.

... there is a gap between strategies and practice.

Darko Veleski holds a BA in so-cial work. He currently works on his MA thesis within the postgraduate studies at the In-stitute of Sociological, Political and Juridical research, in the field of human resources. He actively works as a coordina-tor of the outreach activities of the HOPS – Healthy Options Project Skopje, where he previ-ously worked as a social worker at the drop-in centers.

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... one of the main features of Vancouver which makes it globally prominent are the hu-mane policies for help and support of homeless people and other socially marginalized communities.

Visiting the Portland health society, an organization carrying out harm reduction policies and programs in Vancouver – Canada

Darko Veleski

www.hops.org.mk

In August/September 2013, I had the exceptional possibility to travel to a two-month study visit to Vancouver, Canada within the programs for help and sup-port of homeless people and other so-cially marginalized communities there. Vancouver is located on the west coast of Canada, on the Pacific Ocean. In the city itself there are 603.502 inhabitants, and together with the suburbs it comes to around 2,4 million inhabitants, which makes it the third most densely inhabited place in Canada. The town itself leaves the impression of a cosmopolitan commu-nity because when visiting you get the im-pression that people from all the races and nationalities live there. Because it is one of the largest ports in the western part of North America, trade is a developed eco-nomic branch which allows its inhabitants to be proud with the access to the fresh-est and most delicious food which is then distributed inland.

In addition to its beauty, when visit-ing Vancouver you cannot but notice the presence of a large amount of homeless people. But, one of the main features of Vancouver which makes it globally promi-nent are the humane policies for help and support of homeless people and other so-cially marginalized communities.

During the study visit, I was a guest of the Portland Health Society, known for one of its most developed harm reduc-tion programs in the world, but also for the projects to help and support homeless people. In addition to the programs of my hosting organization, I was able to meet other organizations and programs which provide help and support to different so-

cially marginalized communities.

In this text, I will focus on the some of the most remarkable projects I was able to visit and practically experience how it looks like to work in them. All the harm re-duction projects are located in down town east side.

Insite

Insite is a legal drug injection place. There, drug users can bring their own drugs and inject it in a specially designat-ed space. The center has a well trained team comprised of medical staff, commu-nity representatives and activists whose task is to overview the whole process, and help during „injection“ if the patient can-not inject himself or asks for such kind of help, as well as to prevent the possibility of a potential overdose. This center has around 1000 visits a day, and around 500 overdoses are prevented annually. Since its founding, no mortality has been reg-istered.

Insite is well known and accepted by people who inject drugs because it offers them the comfort, safety discretion, i.e. they can use drugs without being seen by other people. If somebody tries to in-ject drugs in public, the police refer him to Insite. The center also has a chill out room, where clients can get coffee and juice, and sometimes even food. Within the centre there’s a possibility for working engagements to those interested from the community, for a half working time, which increases their confidence and responsibil-ity towards themselves and towards the community.

Onsite

Onsite is a drug detoxification center lo-cated in the same building with Insite. It is a treatment facility for people who want to reach full drug abstinence. It has a Transi-tions Ward where clients who have passed detoxification are located, while waiting for the social workers from Onsite to find accommodation and/or job to them, which would help in their re-socialization.

It’s an interesting idea to accommo-date a detoxification center immediately above the Center for safe drug injection. At Insite’s entrance you can regularly find drug users, as well as drugs. Knowing this, people in detoxification know that they can get drugs at the very entrance of the building, and this creates an additional pressure in overcoming crises during de-tox. On the other side, people using drugs at Insite know that if they want asking for detoxification, they can immediately get such a treatment in the same building. In any case, Onsite marks great results in the support for detoxification.

VANDU

The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users is a small organization comprised of former and current drug users, whose purpose is improvement of the quality of life to drug users.

Employees at this organization have weekly meetings on which many active and former users are present, to discuss current problems of the community.

I would like to point out that at VAN-

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It’s an interesting idea to accommodate a detoxification center im-mediately above the Center for safe drug injection. At Insite’s en-trance you can regularly find drug users, as well as drugs. Knowing this, people at detoxification know that they can get drugs at the very entrance of the building, and this creates an additional pressure in overcoming crises during detoxification.

Репортажа

...at VANDU’s request, whose Center is located on one of the busiest streets in Vancouver, speed limit on the street is limited to 30 km/hour. The reason for this is that some of the drug users tend to cross the street away from the zebra crossing, which used to cause many car accidents.

DU’s request, whose Center is located on one of the busiest streets in Vancouver, speed limit on the street is limited to 30 km/hour. The reason for this is that some of the drug users tend to cross the street away from the zebra crossing, which used to cause many car accidents. This exam-ple is an indicator about the influence this organization has on the city’s authorities, but also about their understanding for the needs of drug users.

„Stanley“ hotel

The „Stanley“ hotel is a place most frequently accomodating drug users. It has 70 rooms and works 24 hours a day. It accommodates homeless drug users. Accommodation is free of charge and is available to those who need it most. Peo-ple accommodated at the hotel are taken care of by a team that helps them with

food, regular medical treatment etc.

The Portland health society needle exchange outreach team

The basic task of the outreach team is distribution of sterile injecting equipment, as well as collecting used up equipment. The team works 18 hours a day. Morning

activities are comprised of a walk through the city and collection of used equipment that has been thrown on public areas. The team is well known in town and citizens can call their number and report the need for clean up. Afternoon and evening activi-ties are most usually comprised of needle exchange at specific locations. Locations, depending on clients needs, are agreed by phone.

Once weekly, the team visits Abbots-ford, a town around 1 hour drive from Vancouver, but administratively on the ter-ritory of Alberta, where drug use is regu-lated under stricter laws than the ones in Vancouver. Drug users and homeless peo-ple are forbidden to stay in the streets in Abbotsford and don’t get any help from the town, so they most often live in the nearby forest and the visit of this field team means a lot to them. When visiting this community it was very interesting to see the improvised homes in the forest and their creativity to equipping them with beds, TV sets on solar energy etc.

VSH Stop team

The VSH stop team is comprised of outreach workers whose responsibility is to provide social help to homeless people, among which are accompaniment, accom-modation in institutions, housing etc.

Washington Needle Depot

The Washington Needle Depot is a project intended for drug users who want to remain anonymous.

The premises this program occupies are on a less frequent space, a back alley, where drug users can use the injecting equipment without being noticed. Also, if they have used equipment, they can leave it there.

New Fountain Shelter

This shelter center serves homeless drug users above the age of 25 works from 19:00 to 09:00 the following day. It has a special part for women if they request separate accommodation. It is interesting that within this shelter center there’s a special area in which marihuana and crack smoking is allowed for the ac-commodated ones, who don’t need to go out of the centre to use these drugs, dur-ing their night’s stay.

Drug Users Resource Centre

This center has at disposal several rooms for different activities, services and possibilities for drug users such as: movie projections, music therapy, kitchen, a meeting room, creative workshop, discus-sions and lectures space, showers, wash-ing machines etc.

I hope that I have managed to paint a picture to our readers about part of my experiences from this study visit, although it is only a segment of what I had the op-portunity to see. My visit to Vancouver convinced me even more about the suc-cess of harm reduction programs and the ways in which they can improve the qual-ity of life of drug users.

From what I could see, I can confirm that most of these projects would help drug users in Macedonia. For example, Skopje has no shelter center in the center of the city where homeless people and drug users circulate most often. There is no single object to house homeless peo-ple. And of course, if there was a legal injecting spot, drug users would be better protected, the waste used injecting equip-ment in public spaces would decrease, and the wider population would thus be better protected.

Репортажа


20www.hops.org.mk

Trave logue

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The center also has a chill out room, where clients can get coffee and juice, and sometimes even food.


1 You’re going to the doctor to tell him you wont to be tested for Hepatitis C. On the way, you see your dealer. What do you do?

A You score a hit right away. Forget about the doctor.B You score a hit first, than make your way to the doctor.C You go to the doctor first, than score a hit to reward yourself.

2 Recently, you’ve been hitting the coke pretty hard and have forgotten to eat. Your pants are sliding off your behind. What do you do?

A You find a new pair of pants – you don’t want to look like a fool.B Before using, you get some fuel in you while you’re still hungry. Once you’re smoking, you forget everything.C While scoring a hit, you eat a chocolate bar to maintain your weight.

3 You’re going to score, but not before you:

A Get all your money together and put it in your pocket.B Leave some of your money at home so that you can’t spend it all.C Give yourself a good talking to, eat something and buy a bus and tram card.

4 You’ve gotten your hands on a good-sized hit. What do you do?

A You put the whole thing in the pipe at once and smoke it as fast as you can.B You cut the ball in two, smoke your pipe in the users’ area and enjoy it to the fullest. You save the other half to smoke at home, so you can enjoy it later.C You feel the hit burning a hole in your pocket but look for a safe and peaceful place so you can enioy it thoroughly.

5 Freebasing is fun as long as you have the cash. You know all about that. To cushion the crash, what do you do?

A You get some hash ahead of time and smoke it after your last hit. Then you accept the fact that everything’s gone.B You swallow a handful of pills that your dealer palmed off on you.C You go to the convenience store and buy four pints of beer.

6 You’re going to visit your mom on her birthday. Before leaving, what do you do?

A Take all your drugs at once. At your mom’s place, there’s always bullshit to deal with, so you can use something to make you numb.B You smoke a little dope at home. But you don’t want to be stoned out of your mind, that wouldn’t be any fun for anyone. So you use in moderation.C You don’t go out of your way for your mother. You’re not all that stoned and not all that drunk.

Everything Under Control???Jasperine Schupp & Jeannot Schmidt

How much control do you have over your drug use, health and life. Take the test and pick the answer that you relate to best. Find out how much of a grip you have on your use with this test. Good luck!

„Викаат дека таблава е појака од сите други – ЛУДИЛО!“

„ Хероин, кока, спид, Х – сè имам пробано – Човече, многу е кул!“

Less than 18 points – Beginner

You still have to discover more about getting a hold on your drug use. You have good intention, but practice makes perfect, so don’t be discouraged by your score. Work as it and try taking the test again in a couple of weeks.

18 to 24 points – Advanced

You’re on the right track. Sometimes you really succeed at being the boss on drugs, other times not so much. Spend some time thinking about when you lose control so you can gain the upper hand on your use. You have it in you, so keep at it!

24 to 30 points – Master

You’re very much in control of your drug use, and you know what you’re doing. Keep it up and share what you know with your friends. Others can learn from you, so be proud of yourself.

Test results:

1 А – 1 point Б – 2 points В – 3 points2 А – 1 point Б – 3 points В – 2 points3 А – 1 point Б – 3 points В – 2 points4 А – 1 point Б – 3 points В – 2 points5 А – 3 points Б – 1 point В – 2 points6 А – 1 point Б – 3 point В – 2 points7 А – 1 point Б – 2 points В – 3 points8 А – 1 point Б – 2 points В – 3 points9 А – 3 points Б – 1 point В – 2 points10 А – 2 points Б – 1 point В – 3 points

Taken from:Mainline, Issue 3, 2008http://www.mainline.nl

7 Your money’s gone but you stlll have a real craving. What do you do?

A You steal something. You just can’t take it anymore.B You try to make money by coming up with a sob story at the local su-permarket.C You know it sucks. But you’re no wimp, so you hang in there and wait until it’s over.

8 The time between one hit and the next:

A ls as brief as possible.B ls determined by the quality of the coke.C ls around half an hour. Then you can really enioy the next hit.

9 You just scored. What do you do?

A You go use in a place where you feel good and it’s nice and peaceful.B You start freebasing, smoking or shooting right away.C You go freebase where the police cameras can’t see you.

10 You’re sick of using. lt costs too much in all senses, so:

A You get clean for the rest of your life.B You move. Then everything will be all right.C You decrease the number of days that you use in a row.

„ Уффф! “

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Everyth ing Under Cont ro l???

The author is a long time member of Narcotics Anonymous.

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I came to the Narcotics Anonymous after a typical addict’s drama of deceit, larceny and violence, all related to drugs. In all that despair, not knowing what else to do or where to go, I remembered that an old acquaintance mentioned NA to me and that it helps dependent people. I decided to call and until today I consider it the most important phone call I have made ever. For the first time I called somewhere where I could get help instead of calling the dealer. For the first time I heard a voice that gave me hope, that understood the language of a dependent person, and told me where to go to an NA meeting.

I love drugs, I only hate its consequences!Frankie


Narcot i cs Anonymous

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I am a big fan of drugs. I adored it and was in love with it for a long time.

www.hops.org.mk

I am a big fan of drugs. I adored it and was in love with it for a long time. Although I lived with a wonderful girl and we had a son together, I had a great job and many friends, they could never sat-isfy the needs that drugs did. It wanted me for itself only and it finally managed to separate me from anything that meant anything in my life.

Looking back now, my relation to ad-dition started in my early childhood when I started inhaling exhaust pipe and glue. Around the age of 14, when I had my first real drunkenness episode, I found out it helped me feel free, as if all my inhibitions let free and all my anxiety and fear I used to feel since early child had stopped. At that time (in ex Yugoslavia) you couldn’t get drugs easily so getting drunk (in school or when I started going out) be-came a regular habit. So regular that my friends already knew that when I would start drinking, I didn’t know when to stop and they had to carry me home. But all that was seen as a normal part of living, that it would come to pass.

Reality turned out to be different. Drink-ing continued and this inability to establish control over the alcohol was something that became common for all other drugs I used. When I went abroad and started taking other substances, such as marihua-na, my behavior was the same. Just as I started with the alcohol, so was it with the weed, at the beginning it was ok, social, relaxed, and a good fun, until it turned out an obsession. I used it compulsively, first thing in the morning and before going to bed, and during the day, I had paranoia if somebody was following me, or that somebody is talking about me, or whether I will have enough or do I need more, and so on.

Taking it together with alcohol in large quantities, and the paranoid hallucinations

that followed, became the norm for me. I didn’t even know what was real, and what was not anymore. Under the influence of weed it was normal for me to smug-gle it through the border when returning from Amsterdam, or to carry big quanti-ties in my car for selling. From something I thought was helping me to relax and enjoy, I misused marihuana just as I mis-used codeine, valium, diazepam, ecstasy, cocaine and anything else that I would come by.

When I started taking heroin, I thought I had finally solved my problem. I felt like I finally reached the place I had al-ways searched for. After several months I thought it was time to stop and I found out what abstinence crisis meant. I also found out that methadone can help me get off heroin, first as a medicine, but later to also get the same effect heroin gave. I spent the following several years with these two drugs, and life became harder and harder every day.

Although I loved my son and my girl-friend, drugs came always first. The busi-ness I had stated declining. It became normal for me to lie, or to always have a justification that it was somebody else’s fault. At the end I lost everything. My girlfriend left me, because she couldn’t take it anymore. All my friends who were worth something and wanted to help me also lost hope. I promised to stop so many times, but despite my best efforts, I sim-ply couldn’t. I tried to decrease the dose, to take drugs on specific days only, to change my place of living, to find a new girlfriend (who knows how to take drugs smartly) and to go through an abstinence crisis now and then, leaving everything for a week or a month or two, but I always returned to the same situation, the same world, the same people I used to take drugs with, the same isolation which be-came commonplace to me. I felt helpless.

More specifically, I was helpless. I was helpless over the drugs obsession (con-stantly thinking about it), helpless over my compulsiveness (my inability to stop taking), helpless over my selfishness, be-cause at the end, the truth was that most important for me was to satisfy my need for drugs. Today I understand that these are exactly the characteristics that make me a dependent person. The problem is not in the drugs, but in my relation to it. There’s simply something in me which, when I use any kind of drug, makes me lose control over it. I have the relation-ship to gambling, food, pornography, sex, a person or any other addictive things.

I started losing hope that I would be able to stop, and I started accepting that I will die a junkie. I was desperate and at times even thought of taking my life but was not brave enough to do it. I was com-pletely aware that I had lost the battle to drugs and that I had no choice whether to use it or not. I simply had to! It was one too much, and thousands too little. But it seemed that this surrender in my struggle against the drugs was what I re-ally needed. I started opening towards the possibility that somebody else, outside of myself and the ones I used to take drugs with, could help me. I started going to doctors, to institutions with psychothera-pists, I started reading about Zen Bud-dhism again, but I could not find a way to stop. I wanted to go back to regular life, I yearned for it, but didn’t know how. I knew no other addict who had managed to stop.

I came to the NA after a typical drug us-er’s drama of deceit, larceny and violence, all related to drugs. In all that despair, not knowing what else to do or where to go, I remembered that an old acquaintance mentioned NA to me and that it helps de-pendent people. I decided to call and to this day I consider that to be the most im-

portant phone call I had made in my life. It was the first time I called somewhere where I could get help instead of calling the dealer. It was the first time I heard a voice that gave me hope that understood the language of a dependent person, and told me where to go to an NA meeting.

This is where my road to new life started. At my first meeting, I understood nothing and I couldn’t believe I was in a room with around thirty people, most of them clean, looking healthy and smiling. The atmos-phere was pleasant and although I was nervous, I felt safe. I started going to their meetings regularly, I started listening and saw that I was not alone, that many have already gone through what I was going though and managed to get themselves clean from drugs. I was hopeful that I could stop, too. Arrogant as I was, I want-ed to prove to them that alcohol was not a drug, but rather that in Macedonia it is a part of our culture and that it is normal to have a glass of wine during dinner, or “rakija” on celebrations, that the occasion-al joint hasn’t hurt anybody. Nobody told me anything, except to keep coming to the meetings. Although from time to time, I would fall into a crisis, and would move

away from methadone and heroin, alcohol and weed would bring me back. The world of addictions still had a very strong influ-ence on me, and sooner or later, in the company of other people taking drugs, I would start using again, and would end at the same desperate place, each time deeper and deeper.

But when I knew there was a way, I would go to an NA meeting and would get new hope. People who were clean sup-ported me and convinced me that if they could, I could too. I knew they didn’t lie about how they took drugs, and what their life was, some of them with more difficult stories than mine. They told me that the NA promises one thing only, and that was freedom from the active use of drugs. At that time, I used anything and everything, and I strongly wished to stop. Looking back, that wish was the most important thing I needed, to be able one day, at one of those NA meetings, deep inside to ad-mit to myself that I had lost my battle with drugs, that I was helpless over it and that it had destroyed my life and the lives of all people around me. I was also aware that NA was offering me drug free life, I was with people who knew how I could clean

up and stay that way, who wanted to help me and didn’t ask anything for return.

That night, I resolutely threw away eve-rything I had and the next day, July 13th, 2001, was my first day to be clean of all mind altering substances I had been us-ing. Now I know that leaving drugs was not the hard part – the hard part was learning how to live without them. At the NA, I learned how to do that, I learned from addicts who had gone through my experience and who knew what I was fac-ing. I continued to go to regular meetings, I found a sponsor (mentor) who helped me go through the 12 steps, the foun-dation of the NA program. These steps helped me learn how addiction affected me. They helped me face my past, my great sense of guilt and shame because of the life I used to live. They helped me get my self-confidence back, take responsibil-ity over my life, and become part of the solution instead of being part of the prob-lem. Helped by the NA, I managed to stay clean in the same environment in which I used to take drugs for so long. My life today is completely different compared to back then. Not only am I free from drugs, but in some kind of miracle, I got every-

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NA today is present in 129 countries of the world with more around 68000 meetings a week. The NA has existed since 1953 and has 60 years of experience from thousands of dependent persons who have managed to turn their failures into success stories.

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That night, I resolutely threw away everything I had and the next day, on 13 July 2001, was my first day clean of all substances that had been changing my state of mind. Now I know that leaving drugs was not the hard part – the hard part was learning to live without it. At the NA I learned how to do that, I learned it from addicts who had gone through my experience and who knew what I was facing.

P.S. Narcotics Anonymous is not the only organization that enables better life to ad-dicts. Although we are independent and not affiliated to anybody, our intention is to cooperate with other organizations in the field.

thing I wanted from the drugs, only after I quit. The calmness I always looked for, I now have inside me most of the time, I am capable of being a father to an ex-ceptional son, to be a brother, or a son as needed. I can have integrity and pride in myself, and not be ashamed to look at people in their eyes.

I still go to NA meetings. I am still an addict (who doesn’t use anything) and I am not ashamed of that, I am free to live my life the way I want. I got all that at NA.

I am in Skopje now for an extended period, and I would like to put forward the message to those who are sick of taking drugs, that it is possible to stop and live without it. I hope that somebody will find similarities between their lives and my story and will come visit us on a meeting. You don’t have to be clean, everyone is welcome.

A short description of the association:Narcotics Anonymous is a non-profit asso-ciation, or a group of men and women with a serious drugs problem. We are addicts who try to recover from the use of drug and regularly meet to help each other in order to stay clean. Many of us manage to stop using any kind of drugs. There’s only one condition for membership, and that is the wish to stop taking drugs.

NA does not come with any strings at-tached. Our association is not affiliated to any institution or organization, no mem-bership is paid nor are there any notes or minutes kept. Everyone can join us and all members are completely equal.

NA today is present in 129 countries of the world with more around 68000 meet-ings a week. The NA has existed since 1953 and has 60 years of experience from thousands of dependent persons who have managed to turn their failures into

success stories.

Today in Skopje we have regular NA meetings on which addicts, without any therapists or experts present, share their experiences, strengths and hopes. The anonymity is the most important principle in order to maintain the safety of mem-bers.

Call 077/810-208 or come to our meet-ings every Tuesday and Thursday at 18:30 and Saturday at 16:30 in Pajko Maalo (Lawyers’ Street) no. 4, Skopje.

„Наркотикс Анонимус“


Psychologist, psychotherapist. Works for HOPS – Healthy Options Project Skopje, with a specialty for treatment of marginalized commu-nities and at the First Family Center in the City of Skopje, as a psycho-therapist of domestic violence vic-tims. Uses transactional analysis in her practice, an integrative psycho-therapeutic approach.

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Through my practice as a psychotherapist at the Centre for re-socialization and reha-bilitation in HOPS - Healthy Options Project Skopje, I managed through separate cases, to confirm that the destructive life script of people using drugs can change. The only precondition is awareness of the person that it exists, what its content and processes are, and the areas it affects.

www.hops.org.mk

WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY?Despina Stojanovska

People who have used drugs in the past often have the impression they are not happy and that they „are waging a difficult fight with life”. Through conversation they manage to see that there truly is a possibility to make a change and that they can make a strong step towards victory and authentic pleasure.

One of the questions I use on my psychotherapeutic sessions with people who’ve used drugs in the past, is exactly that: what makes you happy?

It is a seemingly simple question and the answer should appear spontaneously, with an obvious pleasure in the facial ex-pression and it should encourage aware-ness of moments of happiness. But, peo-ple are often confused and don’t know what to say. Happiness is a leading force in a person’s success, it gives us the nec-essary power and motive to set objectives and move on in life.

Encouraged by this insight, that peo-ple are not aware about the little things that make them happy, and seek happi-ness in unrealistic objectives, I decided to write about the unconscious plan that drives us through everyday life.

Since early childhood, people are con-tinuously exposed to various influences, and they develop models of identifica-tion and early experiences which are the basics for building a person’s emotional life, cognitive scheme, value system, but also the image for oneself and the world in which one lives. The influence of these experiences may cause pleasant and un-pleasant experiences that are then the ba-sis for forming this unconscious life plan, i.e. life script that drives people through all aspects of living.

The life script may be constructive, de-structive and boring, or winning, losing or banal.

What does it mean to be a win-ner?

A winner is a person who achieves everything s/he wishes for, and is happy at the same time. Mistakes can happen, but there’s always a second plan. S/he is

aware that the true road is not the short-est road, but the one with the least bar-riers. In a winning script, a man achieves the objectives he has set for himself, but not doing any damage to oneself or oth-ers. When s/he reaches his aim he feels happy and satisfied. Objectives may vary. Somebody may set up to be rich, another person will want to be lonely and isolated, a third one will decide to become a fa-mous artist etc. People who have this un-conscious plan know how to keep it.

A loser life script

A loser life script is characteristic of people who fail to reach their objective. They unconsciously choose the hardest road, with the most burdens. Regardless whether they sometimes reach their pur-pose, the road itself is hard and the enjoy-ment of the success at the end is lacking. Many people are not aware of their loser script. When life becomes exceptionally hard, they start complaining and seeking ways to get out of it. Undertaking new ac-tivities and involving other people will help them go through the negative aspects, but it won’t help them achieve genuine satisfaction because they simply don’t know how that’s done.

A banal life script

As opposed to the previous two, there are people who live their lives without wins or lose, uninterestingly and boringly, i.e. they live their banal life script. Fearing loses and tragedies, these people take no activity to achieve happiness or pleasure, but simply wait for the conditions and the occasions to win. Regardless whether they will live to see such conditions come alive, they don’t have the courage to make the first step towards achieving their aims. They may sometimes win, or sometimes lose, but they will never feel the full pleas-ure of it, because they don’t want to take

the risk if things go the wrong way.

Life scripts among people using drugs

Most people have a mix of loser, winner and banal elements in their own life script. Decisions in childhood may be brought in regards to work, then you are a winner, in regards to personal contacts you can be a loser, and in regards to bodily activities you can be banal. That is why this analysis through this psychological theory, will be taken relatively because each individual will have its own criteria for happiness.

Through my practice as a psycho-therapist at the Centre for re-socializa-tion and rehabilitation at the Association HOPS – Healthy Options Project Skopje, I managed through different cases, to confirm that the destructive script of peo-ple who use drugs can be changed. The only precondition is the awareness of the person that s/he exists, what that being’s contents and processes are, but also the areas which it influences. In addition to awareness, the individual should first want to make a change because nobody can change lest they wish to do so. In or-der to get out, you need new decisions, specific skills and activities. It is exactly the role of the therapist who works with people who have used drugs in the past, to change their level of awareness and provide an appropriate manner of building the persons’ new script. Although it often happens that movement will often happen will be moving from one loser script to an-other, banal to loser, or winner to loser, in the process of rehabilitation, experience has shown that through the analysis of this unaware activity with the consistent and proper support by an expert working with the user, and his/her family, finally can expect success, pleasure and happi-ness in several of life’s aspects.

Животни сценарија ка ј луѓето кои употребуваат дроги

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Although my experience with the ap-plication of transactional analysis in work-ing with people who used to use drugs is relatively brief, I can offer specific exam-ples, and among those who come regu-larly at scheduled meetings and actively work on themselves, positive changes as to coping with life’s challenges are already visible.

As a psychotherapist it was very im-portant for me to evaluate the aspects that reveal a life script well. If a person becomes aware that it has a winning script on a certain field, it will help him apply this successful strategy on other fields as well. People who have used drugs in the past often have the impression they are not happy and that they “are waging a dif-ficult fight with life”.Through conversation they manage to see that there truly is a possibility to make a change and that they can make a strong step towards victory and authentic pleasure.

People coming to the Center for reha-bilitation and re-socialization, who have used to use drugs, think of the banal life script as a true attack on themselves. Used to living in extremes, they see this calm type of life as a survival, rather than living, i.e. like an impatient awaiting for the next phase. Choices in that next phase can very soon turn to be a loser script again, but it is exactly the job of the psychotherapist to provide full support in choosing positive decisions that will make any damages neither to the person nor to the environment.

Treating addiction or abstinence are the phases in which people most usually get the impression that they are losers. Although they had made the first step to get out of a destructive script, and think of the positive result and the happiness

as unachievable. The rehabilitation and re-socialization process is in itself a win-ning step, but facing all the accompanying temptations, make it seem difficult, hard, unbearable, loser-like. At our psycho-therapeutic sessions they themselves say that they do not see the way out, but they soon realize that this phase is easier to bear if they actively face their life scripts and define their aim clearly. My role as a psychotherapist is to lead them through the process of personal development through awareness about the moments when they destructively behave towards themselves and the environment, but to also make an adequate change in regards to their loser life script.

Final words

Life led by an unconscious life script is a life with unnecessary limitations. A change can come about in two ways: if a cardinal change in the form of a tragedy or a big stroke of luck happens, or if one works on oneself through a continuous process of psychotherapy through which one would become aware about one’s life scripts with the support of an experienced and dedicated psychotherapist.

The second road may be longer, but

it surely leads to a positive development, strengthening own needs, living with au-thentic experiences of genuine satisfac-tion and personal development and most importantly, achieving true personal hap-piness.

30

In order to get out, you need new decisions, specific skills and activities. It is exactly the role of the therapist who works with people who have used drugs in the past, to change their level of awareness and provide an appropriate manner of building the persons’ new script.

www.hops.org.mk

L i fe sc r ip ts in peop le us ing drugs


Story about a boy

Led by my need to learn more about the world of people using drugs, I decided to buy some books on the topic, both non-fiction and fiction. For that aim, I went to the woman selling old books on Macedonia Square who was happy when I told her what I wanted this time. She said: - Can you believe that only yesterday a boy came and brought a whole bunch of books exactly about drugs? He said he owned all of them.- Тthat’s great! – I said.I looked through them, some ten books, and decided to buy them. I was trying to decide which one I should start reading that night, and finally made up my mind to start with the oldest edition. They were pretty worn out, but that didn’t matter. The book had been published `88 and offered an excellent professional description for the drugs of the time. I soon noticed that the previous reader underlines parts and wrote his notes on the side. The parts on different drugs were under-lined, and the experienced they offered. I looked through the other books impatiently. In the other several books he had underlined those paragraphs that referred to the effect drug use has on the overall family, professional, emotional life, and so on. Then, in what I guessed were the books he read last, he had dedicated most attention on how addiction can be cured and how can you help with the re-socialization of the user. I made an image in my mind about this boy. I don’t know if it’s true, it doesn’t matter. Two questions remained open in my mind:- Did he sell the books because he came to the end of that „story“, and he didn’t want to have anything to remind him to that period of his life?! Or, was he losing „the war on addiction”, he was giving up, and didn’t need those books?!Making a psychological analysis to a virtual character is not easy, even impossible. But, in order to explain the function of our unconscious drives, I tried to do this through this boy which somewhere really existed. Wishing to make a change in his life, and get out of his banal script which wasn’t attractive at all to him, the boy, completely accidentally, enters a whole new world, a new life adventure in which happiness and pleasure are a daily business. Searching after even more excite-ment, he loses sight of his aim while enjoying the „trip“. He socializes, hangs out, goes out, informs himself through books what to „take“ and what he’ll feel next time. After some time he starts failing in other fields. He understands that a person who is fulfilled in only one field, while everything else is falling apart, is not a winner. His peers are in „a whole other film”. While they are reading expert literature in various university areas, he is reading how his life is going in an undefined direction. That wasn’t his purpose when he wanted to run away from banality. The next step is an active work on himself, change of own criteria for happiness, return of the lost and search for freedom. I don’t know if this works, but I hope that it does.Finally, the possibility remains open that he sold his dear books for „goods”.

Holds a BA and an MA in Paeda-gogy.

32

My mission as a pedagogue at the “Step Forward” centre was to decrease the harmful effects from the family relations onto this child and to fight for his right to regular school-ing, in order for him to develop into a complete person, as it is appropriate for a child in a developed environment.

Paedagogical support of children with drug using parents

Eleonora Chichevska

My beginnings as a pedagogue were at HOPS – Healthy Options Project Skopje, more specifically within the “Step forward – Developing alternative programs for sex workers and their families” project. This was a pilot project with the aim to enable programs for continuous education and qualification of sex workers and their families.

Everybody is responsible for their lives, but when we have a child our responsi-bilities grow. Thus, in addition to the re-sponsibility for ourselves, we are also re-sponsible for the proper psycho-physical development of our child in the family and in the environment where it lives.

My beginnings as a pedagogue were at HOPS – Healthy Options Project Skop-je, more specifically within the “Step for-ward – Developing alternative programs for sex workers and their families” project. This was a pilot project with the aim to enable programs for continuous education and qualification of sex workers and their families. All activities foreseen by this pro-ject were realized at the “Step Forward” center, which was available to all clients who needed to use its services. Although it lasted for only one year, it still left be-hind great successes, as well as possibili-ties for extending on what our mission and objective were.

Through my working experience as a pedagogue, I was able to learn about dif-ferent life stories expressed through the eyes of the children. Each child bore its own hardships, which they unfortunarely had to bear on their back. One such story which touched as a human and awoke my whole professionality as a pedagogue was the story of a child which could not leave a single person indifferent upon their first meeting. I thought of his life story as an endless sea, often stormy by what life brought about. He lived with his parents, both drug users, of which one was also a sex worker. This was the reason why the child could actively participate in the services we offered at the “Step Forward” centre. The child often faced situations which could be a tough blow to take even for an adult. Working with him I was able to identify two elements that lacked – ap-propriate care by his parents and holes in his education, although I knew he had

gone to regular school. The misterious-ness that came across from this child’s eyes, was a further urge to my enthusi-asm. The only thing I was sure about was that through play, as the most adequate way of expressing a child’s personality, I could touch deep in his soul, even to the most hidden parts where his most secre-tive wishes were kept.

Thanks to the games we played, I managed to fully uncover the child’s per-sonality. However, the biggest question re-mained open – how come the child didn’t go school, while the school year was on-going.

Of course, because a minor was in question, I first called the parent who an-swered some of my questions. The story the parent told us was not easy to listen. Days filled with uncertainty, struggling to make ends meet, fear of what tomorrow might bring. The reason the parent pro-vided for why the child didn’t go to school was the distance between their home and the school and the inability to take him there and bring him back daily.

Although I, as a professional on one hand, and the parent on the other, had different position about the care for the child, still we agreed that we must take the child back to school.

All of us working on the ”Step forward“ project – the social worker, the pedagogue and the psychologist, went to the school in the hope to influence the moral and pro-fessional sides of employees there to bring the child back into school. Initially, they told us they were familiar with the whole case, with the life story of the child. At the first meeting, the kindness of the school officials was more than we expected, or the fact that we didn’t announce our visit created this impression. Our enthusiasm and the motive to bring this case to a hap-

py ending increased even more. However, once we told them why we came, their smiles disappeared. After a short conver-sation of not more than 10 minutes, the school came out with a position that ac-cording to their competences, they cannot bring an independent and final decision about this case which was why they had to notify in writing the State Educational Inspectorate and wait about their decision whether this child can return to school or not. The school failed to provide a clear reason why the child couldn’t go back to school, which was why I started suspect-ing that the child might be discriminated against because his parents were drug us-ers. Time went mercilessly by. The doubt that he will join his friends in class grew from day to day. Several months passed since our meeting with the school officials, but we received no information or an an-swer. Although I often tried to reach them, it was not easy to cooperate with them be-cause they always had execuses not talk to us. But, despite the many obstacles, we persisted. We realized that the doors of cooperation between us as an association, and the school were slowly closing, which was why we actively involved the parent, to take the whole responsibility regarding the case, while being fully supported by us. After several requests to the school by the parent, we were successful in our re-quests, and the child was to start going to school next year.

It seemed that the school’s officials really had no responsibility over the re-enrollment of the child, but if we take a deeper look through the problem’s prism, we will see hidden stigmatizing and dis-criminating attitudes towards the child, because of his parents’ behavior. The Law on primary education clearly states that every child must be provided regular schooling, and any discrimination on the basis of gender, race, skin color, national, social, political, religion, economic or so-

Paedagogy and soc ia l l y marg ina l i zed communi t ies


Although I, as a professional on one hand, and the parent on the other, had different position about the care for the child, still we agreed that we must take the child back to school.

cial reasons in realizing this right is strictly forbidden. The employees at the school seeked different excuses only to release themselves from the responsibility they had before themselves, and that was to allow this child a proper childhood, to give him equal access and treatment, although his parents were drug users. Yes, drug users, they have made such a choice in their lives, but should their children be vic-tims of the social system? Should children of people using drugs be guilty of bear-ing the stigma from social institutions to which their parents are exposed?

My mission as a pedagogue at the “Step Forward” centre was to decrease the harmful effects from the family rela-tions onto this child and to fight for his right to regular schooling, in order for him to develop into a complete person, as it is appropriate for a child in a developed environment.

I helped the child daily to catch up with the material his peers studied at school. We played all those games which he would usually play with them. It wasn’t difficult to be successful with this child, because he really wanted to learn and felt a great need to be with his friends again. It was a great success for us that we managed to influence our colleagues at the school to take the child back to the school the following school year. But, the success would have been even grater had there remained cooperation between us and the school. Although the “Step For-ward” project allowed not only this child, but many other children enjoy their rights and their childhood, still donor financing was planned for only one year. However, after the closing of the “Step Forward” Centre I had several accidental meetings with the child and his parent. During every meeting, the parent told me smiling that he was grateful for all we did for the child, and that we managed to jointly help him

become a great pupil, not to lose his wish to learn, despite the circumstances. All I could say was: - I didn’t do anything spe-cial. I did what I think every pedagogist should do for his/her student!

I honestly hope that this story, of which final epilogue I am not certain, will make you think a bit more about whether children should become victims of institu-tional weaknesses, and whether we, above all as humans, and then as professionals, should bear the guilty conscience for pre-maturely terminating the most beautiful period of a child’s life – his childhood.

This is just one of the many cases in which people asked for help at our centre, but there are many others who didn’t have and will not get any help. This is exactly why there is a need of opening more simi-lar centres that will support parent from socially marginalized communities, espe-cially those at the edges of poverty. Let us open our hands widely for those on the margins, and touch the most vulnerable groups in order to create better and easier life for all.

34www.hops.org.mk

The Law on primary education clearly states that every child must be provided regular schooling, and any discrimination on the basis of gender, race, skin color, national, social, political, religion, economic or social reasons in realizing this right is strictly forbidden.

Old blogger dudes

35

In the past couple of days, at the beginning of the election campaign for presidential and parliamentary elections, we witnessed a pompous police action called NETWORK which was spectacularly announced and shown in the media, and the result from this action was 5 grams marihuana, two joints and 300 seeds confiscated.

GANJA CAN KILL YOU ONLY IF “ALPHAS” CATCH YOUIrena Cvetkovikj and Anastas Vangeli


Some ten years ago, the then popular blogger Vuna, in an exceptionally crea-tive way, opened a burning question for our society: how are people using drugs treated by the Police. Namely, on his blog, Vuna published a banner with the follow-ing content: „Ganja kills you only if “Al-phas” catch you”. This visualized message became a true hit not only in the virtual world, but also in the physical by dissemi-nating a sticker with the same content on public spaces by young people who rec-ognized the importance of this short, but strong message.

After a long time, we asked Vuna about his motivation, and he told us that in that period (ca. 2006) there was a trend of a police „crackdown” of people who use marihuana recreationally, and stories about police brutality during ar-rest or during extorting confessions at the police stations, were often times heard. „That of course was not exceptional for 2006, there have been and will be such periods. However, that period, at least for me, it became a very visible and burning problem. On top of all that, police raids were accompanied with a public campaign about the damaging effects of using mari-huana (in the “you could die from smok-ing weed” line). On the other hand, the consuming marihuana culture is endlessly peaceful, and marihuana in comparison to other drugs is by itself harmless. From there the logic of the sticker, that smoking weed will never do any damage by itself,

but if the police catches you, and if they show their full face, then you are doomed to have consequences” – Vuna told us.

The appearance of the banner corre-sponds in time to the appearance of the Alphas who, according to Vuna, compared to their predecessors (NTSU (abbr.: Unau-thorized Trade and Smuggling Unit)) were far more rigorous, but also more prone to violence. “I don’t exactly remember, but it was at that time that the case of Tra-jan Bekjirov happened (I think I made the sticker just before that); however, that was the period in which the Alphas were sowing fear and panic on the streets of Skopje” – says Vuna.

We witnessed a pompous police action called NETWORK which was spectacularly announced and shown in the media, and the result from this action was 5 grams marihuana, two joints and 300 seeds con-fiscated. The news awoke the social net-works, and many young people asked the legitimate question for misuse of people who use drugs for defaming and crimi-nalization during election campaigns. Re-membering similar rhetoric from the past, Vuna told us that even before making the banner he wrote a text entitled „Alphas collect“ which was a critical overview to-wards the former government lead by the Prime Minister Buchkovski and the Minis-ter of Interior Dzango. „The Police then (and now) was boasting their efficacy (like they are very tough for arresting children

with 0,1 gram on them), and Alphas were praised to have particular merit in this. In the background of all this was a system of fear, repression and violence.” – remem-bers Vuna.

„I think that in this period, my columns opening these issues were positively re-ceived by activists and other concerned parties, but there were also a lot of nega-tive comments (for example, “junkies are asking for it”). However, the sticker went viral, especially in the blogosphere at the time, and on several online forums; since then, I have noticed it appear in social media from time to time and I’ve seen the sticker on several places across the city. It gave me real joy when a friend much younger than me was showing me the sticker the other day (“look, man”), and wouldn’t believe me when I told him I was the author :-)” – ended Vuna, leaving it on us to open the theme of police and systemic brutality on people using drugs again.

36

“The appearance of the banner corresponds in time to the appearance of the Alphas who, ac-cording to Vuna, compared to their predecessors (NTSU (abbr.: Unauthorized Trade and Smuggling Unit)) were far more rigorous, but also more prone to violence.”

Program assistant for advocacy in HOPS with seven-year experience in providing and organizing services for marginalized communities (sex workers, drug users, LGBT).

37

Conference: Availability of Hepatitis C treatment to drug users in RM – good practices and challenges

Voskre Naumoska Ilieva

www.hops.org.mk

From March 14th to March 16th, 2014 in Ohrid, with the support from FOOM, HOPS organized a Conference on the topic of “Availability of Hepatitis C treatment to drug users in the Republic of Macedonia – good practices and challenges”. The con-ference was attended by representatives of the PHI University clinic for gastro-en-tero-hepathology, PHI University Clinic for Infective Diseases and Febrile Conditions, units for infective diseases in general hos-pitals Kumanovo and Ohrid, the Founda-tion Open Society – Macedonia, the as-sociations: “Zaedno posilni”, “Trust” and “Hops – Healthy Options Project Skopje” and the pharmaceutical companies “Ro-sche” – Macedonia and „MSD – Schering Plough” – Macedonia. For the develop-ment of the discussions, special contri-bution came from the guest-participants from Georgia, Archil Talakvadze, deputy Minister for Justice and Sanctioning of Georgia and Paata Sabelashvili, Manager of the Georgian Harm Reduction Network. They presented their experiences of the introduction of a Hepatitis C in prisons and

the reduction of price for Hepatitis C medi-cines for more than 50%.

In the focus of the Conference’s dis-cussions were issues for the improvement of access and conditions for treatment of Hepatitis C among people who use or who have used drugs, and need such treat-ment. It was talked about the problems of monitoring data related to the Hepatitis C prevalence, related to the screening for gaining better insight into the prevalence, data about the number of people using a Hepatitis C treatment, as well as non-reporting Hepatitis C cases.

According to behavioral research car-ried so far among drug users, around 75% of the tested active drug users who inject drugs are HCV positive.

On the other hand, there’s a barrier for treating Hepatitis C for active injecting drug users, a precondition which requires users to have abstained from drugs for at least 12 months or to be in treatment for

addiction. As a main reason for this con-dition, health professionals state the risk of possible re-infection which would mean spending treatment money in vain.

Despite the general consensus about the lack of data, existing information in-dicate that active injecting drug users are an important community when it comes to prevention of Hepatitis C which is why we should look for the ways in which they should be included in the treatment. This question caused heated discussion and op-posed positions among participants. Part of the health professionals were against the inclusion of active drug injecting users because of the risk of re-infection. Part of the participants thought that they should be included in treatment because that way you not only treat people with Hepatitis C, but this is also prevention from spread. In such situation one can conclude that the treatment of active drug substances who inject is not only a question of choice and a decision from the health institution, but a public health issue that needs to be discussed by all concerned parties and to reach a common solution.

One of the major challenges discussed was regarding the high treating expenses, on the one hand, and the limited budget of clinics, on the other side. What is im-portant at the beginning, is the recogni-tion of the problem with Hepatitis C as a public health and human rights problem. This approach would focus on assessment of the health of communities most at risk, in order to identify health problems and priorities, in order to create public policies for the improvement of health problems and priorities and to enable equal treat-ment of all by providing a cost effective medical care. In that direction, it is nec-essary to improve the cooperation of all stakeholders (health institutions, the Min-istry of Health, Health Insurance Fund, pa-tients, drug users and civil organizations),


in order to improve the coordination from whence the creation of a national pre-vention strategy, treatment strategy and strategy for Hepatitis C care could start. Additionally, efforts should be made to de-crease the cost of Hepatitis C treatment, which may be achieved through nego-tiations with all stakeholders (Ministry of health, Health Insurance Fund, Clinic for infective disease and febrile conditions, Clinic for gastro-entero-hepatology, pa-tients, associations of citizens, as well as pharmaceutical companies). The decrease of the prices of Hepatitis C treatment will increase the treatment inclusion of people with Hepatitis C, which is the final aim of each health policy.

At the end, it was pointed out the need for psycho-social support of people on treatment for Hepatitis C, above all, due to the length of the treatment and motiva-tion for persistence on treatment, but also due to the increased risk of depression as a counter-indication from the same treat-ment for Hepatitis C. In that direction,

we also discussed the need for support of health professionals and treatment of Hepatitis C by associations of citizens that enable psychosocial support of HCV posi-tive people.

HOPS – Healthy Options Project Skop-je has been working in the field of drugs harm reduction for 17 years now, and in-cludes activities for prevention of Hepati-tis C, but also support to Hepatitis C posi-tive people in treatment access. Having in mind the challenges which drug users face when approaching health institutions in the treatment of Hepatitis C, two years ago HOPS started activities for raising the question of Hepatitis C treatment espe-cially to drug users. Part of these activities was the Conference.

Events

39

International name of psychotropic sub-

stance Chemical name

(IUPAC)Other unprotected name Effects

25I-NBOMe2-(4-iodo-2,5-dimethoxyphenyl)-N-[(2-eth-oxyphenyl)methyl]ethanainineC18H22INO3

2C-I-NBOMe, Cimbi-5, Wizard, Medication

Psychedelic drug

AH-79213,4-dichloro-N[[1-dimethyl-amino) cyclohexyi] methylb-enzamide C16 H22 CI2 N2O

„AH-7921“, „dohylan“. Narcoleptic analgesic with high addiction potential, around 80% of the power of morphine

MDPV3, 4-methylenedioxypyrov-aleroneC16 H21 NO3

Explosion, Blow, Recharge „plant food“, „bath salts“, „research chemicals“

Stimulates the central nervous system similarly to cocaine, amphetamines, MDMA, from the class of katinomes

Methoxetamine 2-(3-methoxyphenyl)-2- (ethylamino)cyclohexanoneC15 H21 NO2

„MXM“ „Mexxy“, „M-ket“„MEX“, „Kmax“, „Special M“, „MA“, „legal ketamine“, „Minx“, „Jipper“, „Roflcoptr“

Alternative to ketamine analgesic, anesthesiac, halucination,

5-ИТ5-(2-aminopropyl) indole1-(1H-indol-5-y1) propan-2-amineC11H12N

„Benzo Fury“ Stimulates the central nervous system

4-МА

1-(4-methylpheny1)propan-2-amine1-(4-methylpheny1)2-amino-propane4-methylamphetamine

PTAP, PAL-313, 4-MeA PmeA4-MA; Aptrol;

Ephedra stimulating type (described by users, with physical and psychological effects) paranoia, hallucinations, anxiety, depression, Anorexic drugs (appetite suppressant)

Mephedrone 4-methylmethcathinoneC11 H21 NO

4-MMC, MCAT, Meow Meow Stimulates the central nervous system from class of katinones and amphetamines

BZP 1-benzylpiperazineC11 H16 N2

„herbal high“, „бибер екстрат”

Стимуланс на ЦНС, ги имитираат молекуларните механизми на дејство и некои од ефектите од МДМА (екстази)

mCPP 1-)3-chlorophenyl)piperazineC10H13CIN2

„X4“, „duhovka“, „rainbow“,„Rolls Royce“, „smarties“

Stimulance

40

As the Ministry of Interior reports, the Inter-Departmental Committee on Drugs of the Republic of Macedonia, in March 2014 brought a decision to ban 15 new substances and to classify them on the list of opioid drugs and psy-chotropic substances. This bans their production, possession, purchase and use.

Below is the list of banned substances published in Official Gazette no. 56, from 27.03.2014.

Recently banned substances in the category of opioid drugs and psychotropic substances

www.hops.org.mk

International name of psychotropic sub-

stance Chemical name

(IUPAC)Other unprotected name Effects

2C-I 2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodophenethyl-amine

Hallucinogenic, psychedelic and stimulating action

2C-T-2 2,5-dimethoxy-4-ethylthiopheneth-ylamine

Hallucinogenic and stimulating action Derivative of amphetamine

2C-T-7 2,5-dimethoxy-4-(n)-propylthiophenethylamine

Hallucinogenic and stimulating action Derivative of amphetamine

TMA-2 2,4,5-trimethoxyamphetamine Hallucinogenic and stimulating action Derivative amphetamine

4-MTA P-Methylthioamphetamine4-Methylthioamphetamine

Stimulating. Derivative of amphetamine

PMMAParamethoxymethylamphetamineN-methyl-l-(4-methoxyphenyl)-2-aminopropane

Stimulating. Amphetamine analogue, similar in structure, but differing in elementary composi-tion


More information on: http://moi.gov.mk

Recent ly banned substances in the category o f op io id drugs and psychot rop ic substances

High Price is the harrowing and inspiring memoir of neuroscientist Carl Hart, a man who grew up in one of Miami’s toughest neighborhoods and, determined to make a difference as an adult, tirelessly applies his scientific training to help save real lives. Young Carl didn’t see the value of school, studying just enough to keep him on the basketball team. Today, he is a cutting-edge neuroscientist—Columbia University’s first tenured African American professor in the sciences—whose landmark, controver-sial research is redefining our understanding of addiction.

In this provocative and eye-opening memoir, Dr. Carl Hart recalls his journey of self-discovery, how he escaped a life of crime and drugs and avoided becoming one of the crack addicts he now studies. Interweaving past and present, Hart goes beyond the hype as he examines the relationship between drugs and pleasure, choice, and motivation, both in the brain and in society. His findings shed new light on common ideas about race, poverty, and drugs, and explain why current policies are failing.

42www.hops.org.mk

High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society

WE RECOMMEND:

Latest poblications about drugs:

Friends:

Student organization 43

drogi - politiki i praktiki Year II, Issue 2, June 2014

BRIEF NEWS

On 03.04.2014, the Ministry of Inte-rior of the Republic of Macedonia in-formed that the presence of a new type of drug has been found in Mac-edonia, known as Methylenedioxypy-rovalerone, abbreviated with MDPV. Some of the street names of this drug are “bath salts”, “blow”, “research chemicals”, “explosion”. The depart-ment for controlled substances within the MOI classified MDPV as a synthet-ic version of cocaine, after which an immediate procedure for prevention of this substance was started and on 27.03.2014, with a notice in the Of-ficial Gazette of RM, it was registered as an opioid drug of the first category.

From March 14 to 16 2014, in Ohrid a Conference was held on the topic of Availability of Hepatitis C treat-ment to drug users in the Republic of Macedonia – good practices and challenges”. In the focus of the Con-ference’s discussions were issues related to the improvement of the access and conditions for treatment of Hepatitis C in people using drugs, and who have the need for such treatment. Representatives from the public health sector, the private health sector and the civil society participated. The discussions were supported by guest participants – Archil Talakvadze, deputy Justice Minister of Georgia, and Paata Sab-elashvili from the Georgian Harm Reduction Network. The conference was organized by HOPS – Healthy Options Project Skopje.

New Zealand is the first country in the world that has legally regulated the production, sales and use of “new psychoactive substances” (designer drugs). From July 2013, all produc-ers of “new psychoactive substances” who will prove that their products are harmless for the health and lives of their users, with a permit from the Government, may sell them freely in specialized stores. According to ex-periences so far, this policy enables easier market control and protection of the health of the users of these “new psychoactive substances”.

On 26.03.2014, the District Court of Lovech, Bulgaria, brought a liber-ating verdict for a person who has been charged for the possession and growth of medical marihuana. Key to the liberating verdict was the Report from the triple expertise committee which confirmed that the marihuana helped the now free person cope with his multiple sclerosis symptoms. This is the first liberating verdict in such a case in Bulgaria, but there is a larger probability that in the future it will ap-ply to other cases.

The Uruguay president Jose Mujika has been nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for the legalization of cannabis. The nomination was sup-ported by his political party Frente Amplio, from the Drugs Peace Insti-tute, PlantaTuPlanta association and the Latin American Coalition of Can-nabis Activists. Uruguay legalized can-nabis in December 2013.

The separation of Crimea from Ukraine and its joining to Russia threatens to negatively affect the treatment of opioid dependent people there, i.e. to terminate the distribution of methadone and buprenorphine. Due to blocked land roads to the Crimea and Ukraine, but also due to Russia’s conservative drugs policies, addiction treatment centers may remain with-out access to the pharmacotherapy necessary for the treatment for treat-ing opioid addictions.

CSHRMCThe Coalition “Sexual and

Health Rights of Marginalized Communities”

HOPSHealthy Options Project Skopje

www.hops.org.mk

Supported by:

(Open Society Foundations)

http://supportdontpunish.org

drugs - policies and practices, issue no. 2, june 2014

Documents

immoral drug policies

implemented drug policies

mkimpressumdrugs policies

drug users

drug issues

category of opioid drugs

social networks

practices year iinumber