Civil society alternative national conference on drugs and drug policy

We Have a Plan on Drugs. 
Let’s stop the war on drugs, let’s guarantee civil and social rights

The National Alternative Conference on Drugs, self-convened by movements for the reform of failed drug prohibitionist policies, will meet in Rome from November 6th to 8th, the same days the Government presents its strategy of zero tolerance, criminalization, and pathologization.

The Conference is an open space for proposals for a radical shift in drug policies: you can find the Political Manifesto on the website www.conferenzadroghe.it .

We discuss and work on our Plan thanks to the contributions of many, including associations, movements, professionals, experts, activists, researchers, and people who use drugs, from Italy and around the world.

6 November, – Città dell’Altra Economia, Largo Dino Frisullo snc

Testaccio- Rome

5:20 Welcome to the Alternative national Conference

I Plenary Session

5:30-6:30 PM Panel **

“Human rights-centered drug policies, UN, EU development and international concerns”

Introduction and coordination: Susanna Ronconi (Forum Droghe)

Presentations:

Zaved Mahmood, Human Rights Officer at UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: Human Rights Based Approach to Drug Policy

Marie Nougier, Head of Research and Communications, IDPC, International Drug Policy Consortium Repairing a broken system: Leveraging the independent review of the UN drug control regime

Adrià Cots Fernández, IDPC, International Drug Policy Consortium, The European Union and drugs: between a common strategy and national policies

Ligia Parodi, Advocacy Coodinator, EuroNPUD, Drug use organizations for effective and sustainable harm reduction

• TBC
• * All panels will be in English with simultaneous translation into Italian; please bring your own headphones so you can follow the translation on the Fuoriluogo YouTube channel from your phone

6:30-8:00 PM Panel **

 “The ‘Fourth Pillar’ and beyond. Harm Reduction as a policy for Social Justice, Public Health, and Social Coexistence.”

Introduction and coordination: Pino di Pino (ITARDD)

Interventions

Cinzia Brentari (HRI Harm reduction International): Lessons learned in Bogotá: HR as a policy of social and environmental justice, promotion of health and social inclusion, defence of human rights

Katrin Schiffer (C-European Harm Reduction Network): The HR approach as a strategy for managing the drug phenomenon in urban contexts. The perspective of the ECIDP-European City Initiative for Drug Policy

Giada Girelli (HRI Harm reduction International): HR as a policy for the promotion and protection of human rights

Tlaleng Mofokeng (UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health): Harm reduction over punishment: ending discrimination in drug policies (pre-recorded video)

Dinah McMillan (Youth Rise): Putting young people at the centre of drug policies, the harm reduction approach.

Aura Roig (Metzineres): Centering Voices: Gender, Intersectionality and Community Harm Reduction” 

Marica Ferri (EUDA – European Drug Agency): Evidence and recommendations on HR from the EUDA ‘European Drug Report 2025’ (pre-recorded video)

8:00 PM – 8:45 PM Panel ** Psychedelics. Is the future now?

Introduction and coordination: Marco Perduca, Luca Coscioni Association

Presentations:

Rick Doblin, Ph.D., Founder and President of MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD: The long road to approval

Tadeusz Hawrot, Founder and Executive Director of PAREA, Psychedelic Access Research European Alliance*

Théo Giubilei, Project Coordinator and Founder of Psychedelicare.eu From Citizens to Systemic Change: A European Journey for Psychedelic Cure

*TBC

** All panels will be in English with simultaneous translation into Italian; please bring your own headphones so you can follow the translation on the Fuoriluogo YouTube channel from your phone.

7 November – Città dell’Altra Economia, Largo Dino Frisullo snc

Testaccio- Rome

9:00 – 10:00 AM Greetings

Greetings from Barbara Funari, Councilor for Social Policies

of the City of Rome

9:10 – 10:00 AM Opening

We have a plan for drugs.

Opening of the Italian sessions of the counter-conference

Speeches by Valentina Mancuso ItaNPUD, Franco Corleone, La Società della Ragione, and Caterina Pozzi CNCA

10:00-11:30 AM – II Plenary Session. Harm Reduction in Italy. A Cross-cutting Strategy, a Social Policy, and the Right to Health

Introduction and Coordination: Susanna Ronconi, Forum Droghe

Presentations:

HR as a policy for the right to personal health and public health, Lella Cosmaro, LILA

HR for self-controlled use. Safety and health for young people. Simone Toneatti and Andrea di Napoli, ITARDD

Beyond the paradox, nothing? HR and the damage camouflaged by normality, Alessio Guidotti, ItaNPUD

HR is social. Against conditionality, breaking down thresholds Luca Censi, CNCA

HR for the respect of human rights and the fight against violations, Leonardo Fiorentini, Forum Droghe

HR works! And yet it moves… Paolo Jarre, Forum Droghe

11:30 AM – 1:30 PM III Plenary Session: Out of Prohibitionism.

Against the criminalization and stigmatization of People Who Use Drugs in Prison: Toward a National Plan for Decarceration and Deinstitutionalization. Coordinators: Hassan Bassi, Drug Forum, and Patrizio Gonnella, Antigone.

Introduction: Maria Pia Scarciglia, Antigone Association

Inside and Outside: The Prison We Don’t See and the Voices We Don’t Hear

Maria Teresa Ninni, ItaNPUD

From Experiences Inside and Outside Prison to Interinstitutional Integration: Innovative Experiences in Services:

Cecco Bellosi, CNCA – Il Gabbiano

Roberta Battinelli, IV Plan Project, Addiction Department, ASL NA1 Centre, Beyond Penal Populism: The Promotion of Interinstitutional Mechanisms Inside and Outside Detention

Valerio Savio, Democratic Magistracy

Gianpaolo Catanzariti, Prison Observatory, Union of Criminal Chambers

Stefano Anastasia, Prison Ombudsman for the Lazio Region

Valentina Calderone, Prison Ombudsman for the City of Rome

1:30–2:30 PM Lunch Break

2:30–4:30 PM IV Plenary Session: Drugs. New Social Challenges in the Age of Neo-Authoritarianism

Introduction and coordination: Stefano Vecchio, Forum Droghe, and Denise Amerini, CGIL.

Roundtable with representatives of political parties and trade unions: Marco Furfaro, PD, Nicola Fratoianni, AVS, Gilda Sportiello, M5S, Riccardo Magi*, +Europa, Maurizio Landini*, CGIL.

4:30-6:00 PM, V Plenary Session:  A new direction for the integrated public services system: from addictions to the protection of the health of people who use drugs. The HR perspective

Coordination: Pino di Pino, ITARDD

Introduction: Stefano Vecchio, Forum Droghe, Caterina Pozzi, CNCA

Presentations:

Innovative Experiences: Harm Reduction in Addiction Departments, Chiara Cicala, UOSD, New Consumption Models, Addiction Department, ASL NA1 Centre

Harm Reduction: Practices, Methodologies, Operational Perspectives in the (Dis)Integrated System of Services, Isabella Iommetti, Nautilus, Il Cammino Coop – CNCA National Harm Reduction/Harm Reduction Group

But it’s not just harm reduction…how services address prohibitionism and the “guilt” of consumption, Alfredo Pellegrini, ItanPUD

Behind the school desk, Carlo Fanfoni, Student Network and Sabrina Loparco, University Students’ Union

The Regions and the Harm Reduction Essential Levels (LEAs), The Sicilian Regional Law and Harm Reduction*

6:00 PM – 8:00 PM Alternatives in movement. Civic and social alternatives to red zones and repression

Presentations by: ABC Turin, Via Piave Working Group – Mestre Venice, Marghera Free and Thinking Committee, Quarticciolo Ribelle – Rome, Million Marijuana March, Wish Parade + Venerala.org Assembly Network – Florence, ARCI, Rete No DL Sicurezza.

Coordinated by: Claudio Cippitelli and Stefano Bertoletti, Forum Droghe

* TBC

Outdoor Space

From 1:00 PM in the outdoor space of the Città dell’Altra Economia, Largo Dino Frisullo

A Safe Use Room curated by COBS Piemonte

Drug checking with Lab 57 and CNCA Lazio

4:00 PM From the Prohibitionist to the Psychedelic Paradigm, Giorgia Gagliardi ItaNPUD “Polvere” A Street Newspaper – Isola di Arran Odv, Torino

Materials on the rights and activism of those who experience drug prohibitionist policies firsthand.

Side events

Rome, Cinema Troisi

Via Girolamo Induno, 1, 00153 Rome RM

Evening organized in collaboration with the Piccolo America Foundation

9:00 PM Live podcast

Psychedelic Enlightenment

With Federico Di Vita, Caterina Bartoli, physician, and Claudia Moretti, lawyer

Followed by the film

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed by Laura Poitras. Admission €8 (reduced €5)

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is the epic and moving story of internationally renowned artist and activist Nan Goldin, told through slides, intimate conversations, groundbreaking photographs, and rare footage of her fight to secure the Sackler family’s responsibility for the drug overdose deaths. The film intertwines Goldin’s past and present, the deeply personal and the political, from the actions of P.A.I.N. at renowned art institutions, to Goldin’s images of friends and colleagues, through the devastating Ballad of Sexual Dependency and the legendary 1989 AIDS exhibition Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing, which was banned by the National Endowment for the Arts. The story begins with P.A.I.N., a group she founded to persuade museums to reject Sackler funding, destigmatize addiction, and promote harm reduction strategies. Inspired by Act Up, the group orchestrated a series of protests to expose the Sacklers and the crimes of Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of oxycodone. At the heart of the film are Goldin’s artworks: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, The Other Side, Sisters, Saints and Sibyls, and Memory Lost.

In these works, Goldin portrays her friends with beauty and raw tenderness. These friendships, and the legacy of her sister Barbara, underpin all of Goldin’s art.

Rome, CSA Intifada

From 10:00 PM Musical evening

Intifada, Via di Casal Bruciato, 15 00159 Rome

8 November Campidoglio, Sala delle Protomoteca (Rome City Hall)

9:00 – 9:10 AM Institutional greetings: Roberto Gualtieri, Mayor of Rome*

9:10 – 10:10 AM VI Session: The legal regulation of drugs, starting with cannabis. Between international experiences and Italian obscurantism.

Introduction: Peppe Brescia, Luca Coscioni Association

Presentations:

Antonella Soldo, Meglio Legale

George Wurth German Hemp Association,

Andrew Bonello Relief Malta,

Carlo Fanfoni, Student Network.

Coordinator: Leonardo Fiorentini, Forum Droghe

10:10 – 12:00 PM Panel

From global to local. How drug policy reform can transform cities: proposals and initiatives from the Network of Local Authorities for an innovative drug policy – ELIDE

Organized by the ELIDE network (details to be finalized)

12:00-1:00 PM  Press Conference. We have a plan on drugs!ì

1:00-2:00 PM Closing session (Campidoglio, Sala delle Protomoteca – Rome City Hall)

Presentation of the Action Plan for Drug Policy Reform

Side event

2:00 PM  MILLION MARIJUANA MARCH

Piazza Ugo La Malfa, Rome

ANTIPRO STREET PARADE.

Itinerary:  Piazza Ugo La Malfa, Circo Massimo, Colosseo, piazza Vittorio, where it will end by 10:00 PM

LET’S NOT LEAVE THEM ALONE TO DECIDE FOR US WITHOUT US AND AGAINST US!

* to be confirmed

The Counter-conference is open to all.