Part 1. The events that preceded the 1st Civil Society Forum on Drugs

The text below is only a part of the whole document. Although each part is published under a separate link, all of them should be considered as different chapters of one and the same document.

Part 1. The events that preceded the 1^st Civil Society Forum on Drugs

26-27 January 2006 – 13 December 2007

The Story Of The EC's Civil Society Forum On Drugs

• European DU were present at, and participated in the European Conference "Civil Society and Drugs in Europe" (Click to read: Conference conclusions).

• The EU Commission then released the Green Paper on the role of Civil Society in Drugs Policy in the European Union and organized an open consultation on this document. 23 European DU and DU organizations together wrote a reply to the EU's Green Paper.

• The EU Commission released the Results of the open consultation on The Green Paper on April 18, 2007 and called for civil society organizations to apply for member ship in the European Civil Society Forum On Drugs, to be held in the end of the year 2007.

• Finally, on October 31 2007 , the EU Commission released the list with accepted applicants.

• European DU organizations and INPUD where excluded from the forum, so we wrote a letter to the EC's MR. Carel Edwards and asked who where the people responsible for this.

• Mr. Edwards replied to our letter and confirmed the exclusion of people who use drugs, but he did not answer to our pertinent questions.

• So INPUD wrote a second letter to make sure that the EC would understand the position they maneuvered themselves into.

• Meanwhile, The International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA) and DrugScope (UK) refused the invitation to take part in the Civil Society forum on drugs because of the poor and amateuristic organization of the forum by Mr. Edwards staff. The crappy organization was named “an insult for civil society” by Professor Gerry Stimson. (Among other things, the London based IHRA Director received an air ticket Finland – Brussels to attend the forum (!!))
  
  
  

• ENCOD, IHRA and DrugScope released a statement on December 12, one day before the forum.

• Despite the European Commissions exclusion policy, Eurasian Harm Reduction Network enabled European DU to participate in the forum. European DU Activist Milena Naydenova will speak in the EC's forum on behalf of INPUD and European DU.

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