BREAK THE SILENCE! LET’S TALK ABOUT DRUGS

Professor Monika Płatek, Professor Viktor Osiatyński, eminent specialist od dependency treatment Bohdan  Woronowicz, musicians Stanistaw Soyka, Tomasz Stańko, Michał Wiśniewski and singer Natalia Przybysz, journalists Jacek Żakowski and Anna Wendzikowska, as well as actor Redbad Klynstra are just a few of the celebrities who have engaged in a campaign called “Break the silence. Let’s talk about drugs “.

The campaign starts on June 26, on the occasion of the Day of Solidarity with Drug Dependent People, in the framework of the Polish Drug Policy Network. Ads and posters will also appear in the subway and buses in Warsaw on this day. The campaign will also be a part of the activities carried out around the world.

Similar activities will take place in London, Paris, Warsaw, Mexico City, Kathmandu, Rome, Phnom Penh, Tbilisi, Kuala Lumpur, Moscow and more than 70 other cities. June 26 is celebrated around the world as the World Day of Solidarity with Drug Dependent People.

On June 26, NGOs will remind how the drug policy drastically violates human rights in many countries.

In Poland this year, the Polish Drug Policy Network conducts a public campaign aimed at drug law reform. It is in Poland that the young people experimenting with drugs become more frequently victims of restrictive drug laws than drug mafia. They find themselves in prisons, experience problems finding a job, and a number of other consequences of their arrest by the police. Everything happens thanks to the infamous art. 62 of the Polish Drug Act which penalizes the possession of any amount of drugs by  imprisonment up to 3 years. This provision was not aimed at users, yet since 2000 approximately 30,000 people have been detained on suspicion of possession of a substance prohibited by law every year. The EMCDDA 2008 Report shows that the number of detected offenses related to drug possession increased by 1648%! The majority of perpetrators are young or dependent people who do not have anything to do with a serious drug crime.

In addition to the information campaign on the subway and buses, the participation of famous people supporting a rational debate on drugs in Poland is foreseen to be the last part of the campaign: actors, scientists, musicians as the act of solidarity with the victims of drug laws will take photos with campaign graphics “BREAK THE SILENCE. LET’S TALK ABOUT DRUGS”, depicting hands breaking the handcuffs to symbolically allude to breaking the taboo.

Also, on June 26 PDPN  representatives will participate in the concert of the musician Michał Wiśniewski. The campaign LET’S TALK ABOUT DRUGS will be officially launched during this event. The live broadcast will start at 9:45 p.m. on Michael Wisniewski’s Youtube channel and national television TVR. More about the event:

http://www.tvr24.pl/index.php/wiadomosc Domowka_2014_u_Wisniewskiego_czyli_Ich_troje_i_przyjaciele-5497.html

Anyone can take part in the campaign by downloading image with the title below and placing his or her photograph with the image on the FB channel. Please also send your photos to biuro@politykanarkotykowa.com