Thirty years of fighting for a radical change on drugs

On November 7th and 8th we will be in Rome. We at Forum Droghe , with dozens of associations, and hundreds of professionals, researchers, scholars, human rights defenders, people who use drugs, activists for the reform of drug policies, harm reduction workers, health promoters of drug users and public health, human rights defenders, scholars of critical thinking and research. We will be in Rome outside and against the National Conference on Drugs called by the government, of which we denounce the approach based on criminalization, pathologization and ' zero tolerance'.

For Forum Droghe, now in its thirtieth year of life, the driving force and protagonist of this plural movement, a renewed challenge to accept to change the public discourse on drugs in our country. This is how Forum Droghe celebrates its thirtieth anniversary: ​​renewing its long and tenacious battle for a radical change in drug policies, which since 1990 have never stopped producing damage and perverse effects, as well as measuring their own ineffectiveness. These thirty years are celebrated without Grazia Zuffa , who left us suddenly last February , but who remains an irreplaceable point of reference for Forum. It was she, together with Franco Corleone and a small group of daredevils, who founded the association in 1995: since 1990, which had seen the launch of law 309 , with a sharp reversal compared to the 'mild law' of 1975, the first evidence of the damage of a law that waged war not on drugs but on those who use them, with enormous criminal, prison, social and individual and collective suffering increases, was already evident. Evidence that had led to the promotion of a referendum, thanks to the push of the Radicals and then to the support of civil society, which in 1993 brought Italians to the polls around the question that wanted to smooth out the most repressive peaks of the law. The outcome was surprising, if one considers the relative marginality of the issue and the pervasiveness of a moralistic and punitive 'common sense': Italians voted for the repeal of those laws.

Grazia and the others realized that the time was ripe to make drugs a topic of public discourse, outside the confines of the penal and the pathological, and that drug policies had to become the object of knowledge and critical thought made accessible to public debate, and functional to a reform process. Within the national and international movement for the reform of drug policies, Forum Droghe wanted from the very beginning to be a place and stimulus for the production of 'critical alternatives' on different levels: criticism of paradigms, criticism of norms, criticism of intervention policies, criticism of representations of phenomena. But always with attention - and for this we are also grateful to Grazia - to the junction between critical thought and political practice, yesterday as today. On this, it is enough to read the infinite theory of the association's initiatives from 1995 to today. Which are divided between seminars, conferences and training on the one hand, and street mobilizations on the other; between drafting legislative proposals and supporting 'bottom-up' initiatives, including disobedience; from the production and publication of research and essays to the dissemination of content that can be used in an open public debate, such as that promoted by the website fuoriluogo.it and by the monthlies first, and then by the weekly columns in Il Manifesto; from the exchange with government and institutions to their open contestation when necessary, as happened, alternately, with the Government Conferences on Drugs; from the production of theory about paradigms and approaches, to its 'translation' in formative and operational terms, in a close and direct confrontation with operators, especially in the field of Harm Reduction .

The contribution with the most theoretical and political results, which runs through the entire political and scientific proposal of Forum, is precisely the critical look at the phenomenon, the keys to interpretation. The demonstration of the theoretical fragility of both the moral and pathological paradigms, which found mainstream policies, occurred first of all through research. The qualitative investigation on 'controlled consumption ', with which Forum, with Grazia Zuffa first, also opened in Italy a perspective that had proven fundamental at an international level since the 80s, has allowed us to question some assumptions that until yesterday were taken for granted (although not demonstrated): the image according to which (illegal) drugs are 'uncontrollable', thus 'deserving' either prohibition or treatment, has been overturned; based on the observation of strategies, skills and careers of consumers able to maintain control and regulation of use 'compatible' with personal and social life and health, a social and cultural perspective on the phenomenon has been introduced, saving its complexity. The theory of escalation, according to which use evolves in any case into abuse and then into dependence, has been radically questioned, as well as that of the centrality of substances, in favor of a perspective according to which the set (the person, his expectations, objectives and cultures of use) and above all the setting (the social, normative, cultural context) influence and co-determine styles and outcomes of use.

A scientific but also social work, always conducted in alliance and dialogue with people who use drugs, with their skills and experiences, and with the operators. This common thread has been unraveled under different profiles, in addition to the research conducted by Forum for 15 years, with the collaboration of researchers such as Peter Cohen, Jean Paul Grund, Tom Decorte , there has been an editorial activity aimed at deprovincializing the Italian context (we remember together with the numerous Quaderni di Fuoriluogo, the Italian version of Drug, set and setting , the work of Norman Zinberg that revolutionized views and practices), and a strategic perspective has been developed entrusted to Harm Reduction as an overall policy, as well as training work with the operators so that the practices could be equipped with a solid theoretical background and know how to innovate. This heritage, on which we are still working today, has a formidable and very current political impact. The battle to overcome the war on drugs, to decriminalize behaviors that have to do with the use of substances and even more the prospect of a legal regulation of the markets, implies a serious alternative, sustainable, practicable, of minimizing damages and risks and respectful of rights.

The space 'liberated' by the penal norm is the space of action of a 'social government' of the phenomenon (cultural, of social learning, and in certain aspects administratively regulated as happens for legal substances); its practicability, sustainability and effectiveness starts precisely from the paradigm of social learning, from self-regulation, from the verified inconsistency of the 'destiny of the drug addict ', from contexts that minimize - instead of emphasizing - risks and damages. Here research and critical thinking feed in a virtuous circle the rewriting of the paradigm and the political and normative proposal. In this vein, also fits the work aimed at the youngest: already in the early 2000s, thanks to the meeting with two American pedagogists, Skager and Rosembaum, Forum brought to Italy the most radical of criticisms of that ' Just say NO' of the Reagan spouses with which millions of adolescents were repressed and put at risk. An alternative made of empowerment, investment in limiting risks and respect for the youngest and their skills that Forum still proposes today as a training model, against the current rebirth of ' zero consumption, zero tolerance'.

A second level that has always characterized the work of Forum is that of legislative reform, of the fight to decriminalize and to reduce the role of imprisonment in drug policies. Over the years, texts of reform of law 309 have been drawn up, with an alliance and collaboration work with many jurists and parliamentarians, in addition to individual proposals (such as those relating to art. 73, small-scale drug dealing) to bring penalties at least to respect the principle of proportionality and to reduce prison in favor of alternative forms, up to the action for the promotion of the referendum on the legalization of cannabis . The publication of the ' White Book', together with a network of associations, has accompanied this action, demonstrating year after year with inexorable evidence the dramatic impact of criminal law on people, on society, on social and economic costs. In the background of all the campaigns, advocacy actions, scientific and political work, the theme of human and social rights of people who use drugs, their ' Nothing about us without us' has always been a fixed point, and not only theoretically: Forum has sought and found the way to support and respect their word, since way back in 1996, when it facilitated the first national assembly of people who use drugs (then called 'In prima persona ') and the drafting of the first Charter of their rights.

Last but not least, the international dimension: the European and international networks of which Forum is part are a powerful opportunity to speak out on global policies, which thanks to civil society are – albeit, admittedly, slowly – reorienting themselves in a reformist direction. An opportunity, also, for discussion and learning, which Forum makes available to the Italian realities and debate, through its communication and documentation tools, fuorilugo.it, the podcast, the newsletters, public events, training. All this will find, once again, its place and its meaning in the present: the thirtieth anniversary assembly, in Florence, today, May 17, is not a celebration. It is putting all this heritage into play for new challenges. The first, Rome, November 2025. And Grazia Zuffa , once again, will be a compass for us in complexity.

Follow the meeting and discover the activities of Forum Droghe on futuroluogo.it

*Drug Forum, Scientific Committee

FROM

Susanna Ronconi