UnMode members met in Batumi, Georgia, in June 2021 to discuss and launch the «People by Right» video advocacy campaign. The campaign resulted in seven videos in which activists gave personal messages about how repressive drug policies had affected their lives. This is the first step in UnMode’s advocacy strategy.
An advocacy strategy
In the long term, the meeting should bring together the community of people who use drugs and civil society to promote ideas about the humanization of anti-drug laws and increase the effectiveness of drug policy.
To this end, at the very beginning of the meeting, activists identified an advocacy strategy plan. Today, drug policy in the countries of our region is repressive. People who use drugs are persecuted, discriminated against, and their social, medical, and civil rights are massively denied. Protecting the rights of people who use drugs is interpreted by the state as promoting drug use and aiding the drug trade.
Drug use is considered a crime, when there is an addiction to drugs, scientifically proven treatment methods are generally not offered. The proverbial «War on Drugs» is waged on people who often simply do not have the physical resources to deal with the disease of «drug addiction» on their own.
UnMode members met to discuss an advocacy strategy for the next few years. The planned advocacy campaign will be the first step in its implementation. The People by Law Advocacy Campaign is the launch and first phase of an advocacy strategy that will gain momentum and continue after its completion.
The meeting in Batumi allowed us to formulate the main directions, components, target groups, messages, etc. of both the «People by Right» advocacy campaign and the advocacy strategy, which has the same goal as the campaign.
Filming Videos
The «People by Right» advocacy campaign consists of filming 7 videos featuring open-faced UnMode activists. In these videos, the activists talk about their lives and how each has experienced state repression of people who use drugs. All members of UnMode have been through trials and incarceration and have chronic illnesses such as HIV, viral hepatitis, tuberculosis, etc. They have faced and/or continue to face human rights violations, discrimination and stigma, cannot get treatment, get a job, etc.
The lives of people who use drugs are death, prison, disease, stigma and discrimination, lack of access to treatment, jobs, and family.
But all of this could be avoided if the state and society recognized human rights as the foundation of society, and all people as «People by Right». To stop the repression, UnMode activists advocate for anti-drug law reform in advocacy videos and talk about how their lives and the lives of many millions of people could have been different. This is important for both the state and society, and for the millions of people whose lives could be destroyed by a single court decision.
In the video, activists state that there is a need for an expanded list of alternative punishments, changes in law enforcement practices for people who use drugs, evidence-based and WHO-recommended methods of treatment and rehabilitation. As part of the «People by Right» advocacy campaign, the videos will be distributed on the information and communication platforms of UnMode and friendly organizations.
Because UnMode members are community leaders in their cities and regions, they are known and have influence among a wide range of members of the community of people who use drugs and among their relatives and friends. Face-to-face meetings, discussing the goal and objectives of UnMode’s advocacy strategy and this advocacy campaign, including distributing and showing the videos to them, are an important way to promote the campaign videos.
Changing the behavior of people who use drugs
UnMode activists and members are only a few dozen people. At the same time, the community of people who use drugs is several million people. Official statistics do not reflect the number of drug addicts who do not seek state drug treatment and the number of people who use drugs recreationally. Most of these people do not seek medical help precisely because they are afraid of the inevitable restrictions of their rights and the high risk of prosecution.
To the millions of people who use drugs we must add the millions of relatives and friends of people who use drugs who are directly affected by the consequences of repressive state drug policy. But the voice of these millions of people is not heard against the background of the state propaganda of the «war on drugs», against the background of legislation which actually kills people who use drugs.
Doomed to die, they remain silent and accept the status quo as either falsely deserved, or as a certain state norm. The general pattern of behavior of these millions of people who use drugs is to be a victim: fear, silence and total guilt.
Videos of UnMode activists talking openly about their experiences of repression, getting rid of self-stigma and the need for drug policy reform, plus working with the community at the local level are strong advocacy tools that, among other things, can influence changing this pattern of behavior and choosing to be active in advocating for their rights and human dignity.
The «People by Right» advocacy campaign is the first step toward creating the preconditions for the actualization of the problem of repressive drug policy and the need to change attitudes toward people who use drugs in the direction of humanization. In addition, it is already important to participate in international events that determine the general vector of drug policy development in the world. This is an important advocacy tool, since almost all of the main international documents are now signed by the countries of our region and are binding.
Members of the community of people who use drugs can make their demands known at venues such as the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, held annually in Vienna, Austria, which brings together civil society representatives, as well as other international venues. In addition, every year there are various events around the world that address the problem of drug use with the participation of key communities and professionals, such as the International Harm Reduction Conference, the European Harm Reduction Conference, and others. Participation in all international events will bring attention to the problem of repressive anti-drug legislation and help achieve the advocacy goals of the UnMode strategy.