News

Today, August 31st, International Overdose Awareness Day, we want to remember those colleagues who have lost their lives at the hands of a system that excludes and stigmatizes people who use substances. Overdose continues to be one of the leading causes of death in Europe and America. In fact, in the 21st century in United States there are 100,000 deaths per year.

These deaths are not isolated events but are the consequence and the responsibility of a system that relegates us to a perpetual lack of resources and looks the other way.

Stigma, social rejection, and criminalization have devastating consequences for on people who use drugs. These people are cast aside in conditions of exclusion and marginality, causing deaths from overdose that can be avoided using harm reduction and by promoting drug policies based on human rights and evidence-based practices.

For this reason:

• We demand policies from the State that guarantee all people who use drugs full access to health care and dignified economic and social conditions.
• We denounce the structures that uphold a classist, racist, patriarchal, lgbtqi+phobic, capitalist, etc. system that encourages the war on drugs, which is a war against people who use substances.
• We call for a collective, unified awareness to guarantee people who use substances full access to human rights, and a public that no longer looks the other way.
• We remember all our comrades who have died from overdose due to an unjust and cruel system that perpetuates inequalities. In conditions of greater vulnerability and violence, there is a focus on individual action and intervention to problems, without any awareness of the social or community aspect.
• Heroin treatment programs accessible to all.

We declare that we want no more overdose deaths and that we want to be alive. Not one less neighbor in any neighborhood!

CATNPUD | Catalan Network of People who Use Drugs:
ARSU Reus, Asaupam, AUPAM, CatFAC, DonARSU TOT, Metzineres, REMA & XADUD.