A City Without Stigmatization – Amsterdam (video)

From the perspective of activists from Eastern-Europe, Amsterdam is the symbol of humane drug policies. Our Russian speaking reporters visited the city to explore its harm reduction scene – and meet with Eastern-Europeans who live there. Watch their video and find out more!

For most people, Amsterdam is a city of humane drug policy, successful services, and prevention programs. Drop-in centres, shelters for the homeless with drug consumption rooms, heroin substitution therapy, coffeeshops, smart shops, very tolerant police, and adequate city authorities. All of these are Amsterdam.

As part of our video research in the framework of the EECA CITIes project, we came to Amsterdam to show this city as a kind of standard, a successful example of a balanced and pragmatic attitude of city authorities towards HIV/AIDS. At the same time, we constantly remembered that one third of all HIV-positive Dutch live in Amsterdam, and that controlling the epidemic situation in the city essentially means controlling the situation throughout the country. This is very important, because Amsterdam is not the only city involved in the the CITIes project where a significant proportion of the entire population of HIV/AIDS patients in a given country lives. In the context of this, the example of Amsterdam can be applicable to the tasks of the project on overcoming the epidemics of HIV-AIDS and tuberculosis in the cities of other regions as well.

This film is about the obvious: a state that tries to save on prevention is doomed. Each cent invested in prevention and harm reduction programs not only saves lives, but also saves money. It’s true.

Please watch, enjoy, and do not forget to use in your own work the interesting and useful solutions you’ve seen in this film.

(Turn on English subtitles by clicking on the CC button at the right bottom of the video.)

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