OUR LIVES. OUR RIGHTS. OUR VOICE.
1 November | International Drug Users Day
Across Southeast Asia, people who use drugs continue to face criminalization, stigma, discrimination, mass incarceration, and barriers to essential healthcare and social protection.
Yet, despite these challenges, peer-led communities continue to drive change:
Peer-led harm reduction– Delivering essential, community-based services and reaching people too often excluded from mainstream healthcare.
Health and prevention– Preventing overdose and improving access to HIV, hepatitis, and other essential health services.
Human rights and dignity– Challenging criminalization, discrimination, punitive drug policies, and mass incarceration.
Meaningful participation– Ensuring that people who use drugs shape the policies, programmes, and decisions affecting their lives.
Community leadership– Strengthening peer-led organizations and recognizing lived experience as essential expertise.
On International Drug Users Day, the Southeast Asia Harm Reduction Association (AHRA) stands in solidarity with people who use drugs and the peer-led communities we serve and support across Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and beyond.
People who use drugs are rights-holders, experts through lived experience, and indispensable partners in shaping effective, evidence-based responses.
AHRA calls on governments, donors, international organizations, and civil society to move beyond tokenistic consultation, invest sustainably in peer-led and community-led organisations, and advance drug policies grounded in public health, scientific evidence, dignity, and human rights.
NOTHING ABOUT US WITHOUT US.
Don’t make decisions for communities. Make decisions WITH communities.
Communities are not the problem. They are essential to the solution.
#InternationalDrugUsersDay #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #DrugUserRights #HarmReduction #CommunityLed #HumanRights #SoutheastAsia #AHRA
