Drugs – Policies and Practicies
Issue topic – Harm reduction policies
C O N T E N T
From Merseyside to Skopje – the story about reduction of drug related harms
The harm reduction concept has been around for a while. It encompasses messages, activities and warning regarding the reduction of harms from our human actions. The speed limit signs, warnings for tiny particles on children’s toys, use of medications, the use of protective clothes in many professions etc., are all there for the purpose of reducing a possible harm.
Theory and practices in the field of reduction of drug related harms globally, have had different development through time, but today, they are all based on the policies of pragmatics and harm reduction, and it is not only about the reduction of drug related harms, but also reduction of the harms caused on individual, family and the level of the community and society as a whole. These policies become widely implemented and discussed from the onset of the HIV infection threat among drug injecting individuals. Author: Hristijan Jankuloski
Sharing of Merseyside experiences with Macedonia
In September 2014 Shelly Stoops and Tim Keelan, two of the founders of the “Merseyside Model”, have been visited Macedonia and shared their knowledge and experiences about prevention of violence against sex workers with Macedonian police. Shelly Stoops is the operational manager of Safe Place Merseyside, Liverpool Community Health, and independent sexual violence adviser (ISVA) in the UK for sex workers. Tim Keelan is a detective superintendant, with Merseyside police in the UK and he has the responsibility in the police in the UK or in Merseyside, for issues around public protection. Interviewed by: Voskre Naumoska Ilieva
Sentencing drug-related offenders, legislative policy and judicial practice
The level of de-penalization and/or decriminalization has been stipulated as possible in UN drug conventions, regarding offences related to personal use such as, for example, possession or cultivation for personal use. Author: Natasa Boskova
A successful example for harm reduction in Slovenia
“Stigma” is an association of citizens which has for more than 20 years successfully implemented harm reduction programs in Ljubljana and in seven more towns across Slovenia. Author: Julijana Nastoska
First National conference on drug policies “From Law to public health”, Skopje, 30.9.2014
In line with this strong punitive policy goes Hristijan Jankuloski’s conclusion that international organizations contribute more towards the humane and effective drug policy than national institutions. Author: Ana Ashtalkovska Gajtanoska
Local strategy on drugs of the City of Skopje – a response to the civil initiative
The objective of the local strategy is through a coordinated and syncronized approach in the local community to ensure decrease in drug availability, decrease in the number of people starting to use drugs, the development of healthy and social services which will provide an available and effective treatment and care for people who use drugs, as well a reduction of drug related harms. Author: Eleonora Panchevska Nikolovska
Cannabis is a medicineStill, worldwide, regardless of the legal regulations, both where it is legal and where it’s not, ill people to whom contemporary medicine cannot help, seek their cure in cannabis, particularly in the resin produced by its flowers. Author: Filip Dostovski
I have been thinking a lot and on several occasions I got the urge to share my life story which I carried like a heavy cross. I had second thoughts for a long time. I was probably not ready to face all that I was hiding from myself. The secret remained a secret until I accepted the past as a part of myself, and I dedicated myself to the future with all the passion and trust in myself. Finally, when the past grew inside me, I decided to open up and share part of myself and my life. Because of this, filled with certainty and stability, I opened up my old diary that has inside it written… Author: Dreams
“…and we as parents can, as for other things, tell ourselves that ‘my child would never do such a thing, s/he would never try drugs…’ and, of course, we are unrealistic…” Author: Natasha Nikolovska Stankovikj