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Fédération bruxelloise des institutions spécialisées en matière de Drogues et Addictions

féda bxl

La féda bxl rassemble et soutient 30 institutions et services actifs à Bruxelles dans l'information, la prévention, la réduction des risques, les soins, l'accompagnement et l'épidémiologie relatives aux consommations de substances psychoactives et aux addictions.

Lobbying Activity

Response to Revision of the mandate of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction

21 Apr 2022

As a member of the CSFD, Fedito Bxl, the federation of the drugs and addictions sector in the Brussels region, welcomes the renewed and upscaled mandate for the EMCDDA. Its role in providing solid scientific data on drug-related matters cannot be overstated, and as such the EMCDDA is a critical actor in the development of evidence-based policies and interventions in the field of drugs and addictions. All too often, drug policies lack a firm grounding in scientific evidence, and as such, Fedito Bxl is pleased with the stronger role the EMCDDA is bound to play in the future in the factual evaluation of drug policies and interventions, especially when these are focused on the supply side of drug markets. In this regard, Fedito Bxl cannot help but notice that the renewed mandate puts a strong emphasis on supply-side efforts and seems less concerned with the public health perspective on the issue of drugs. As a federation of organisations in the field, we strongly feel that a public health and human rights perspective should always be at the forefront of all efforts to lessen the burden of drug use on society, and this does not always seem to be the case when the focus is overly placed on supply issues. In the same vein, we favour a balanced approach in interventions towards the drug issue. Prevention and harm reduction all too often seem to be the poor relatives of drug interventions. Fedito Bxl thus welcomes the emphasis on drug prevention in the new EMCDDA mandate, but deplores the lack of focus on harm reduction interventions. Evidence abounds in favour of the effectiveness of harm reduction, but more often than not, it is almost completely disregarded within policy approaches toward drugs, and the renewed mandate for the EMCDDA seems to be no exception to this frequent imbalance. Harm reduction is in dire need of more attention within drug policies. Lastly, Fedito Bxl places great value in the participation of civil society, and especially of people who use drugs (PWUD), in the development and implementation of all drug interventions and policies. The renewed EMCDDA mandate does mention civil society participation, but remains quite vague as to how this should come about and be organised. There are effective and well-functioning organisations of PWUD at the national and European levels, and these could easily be involved in important decision-making processes. More broadly, civil society organisations are critical in the development and evaluation of effective and sustainable interventions and policies. Therefore, Fedito Bxl urges the EMCDDA to implement concrete and structural collaboration with these organisations in all its important decisions and endeavours.
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