Check out the new video by our friends at HCLU featuring Youth RISE’s Chantale Kallas, the executive director of Skoun and some of their clients, exploring the problems facing harm reduction services in the Lebanon and the challenges facing young drug users in accessing treatment and services free from abuse and stigma, .

Despite being one of the most open and liberal countries in the Middle East, Lebanon, like so many other countries, has a response to drug use based on the stigmatisation of drug users and an oppressive criminal justice system. Harm reduction services are offered by a small number of pioneering organisations and the situation still needs massive improving. Police abuse and human rights violations are all too common and the situation of young people who use drugs is in need of drastic reform. This video filmed by the Hungarian Civil Liberities Union during the IHRA conference explores the realities on the ground by interviewing leading individuals who are working to improve address the inequalities faced by the drug user community