“420, Hacking the Debate” – Argentina’s Advocacy Project

Written by Carolina Ahumada.

The Youth RISE Small Grants Programme is financed by the Robert Carr Civil Society Networks Fund (RCNF) and aims to support community organizations and initiative groups of young people affected by drug policies. These grants are offered to our International Working Group (IWG) Members and their respective organizations. This year the main goal of the Programme is for Youth RISE to support harm reduction networks and members to develop and implement advocacy campaigns.

Carolina, our current Youth Consortium Project Manager, and former Latin America Communications Officer was granted one of the Youth RISE Small Grant Programme recipients with her respective organization in Argentina ‘Intercambios Asociación Civil’.

The project began with organizing for the month of Support Don’t Punish, where they coordinated a network of Support Don’t Punish related organizations under the motto ‘There is no mental health without Decriminalization’, which they selected as the focus for that year’s activities. They emphasized the importance of advocacy from youth-led organiations and harm reduction service providers. The main result of these activities around Support Don’t Punish was the establishment of a network of more than 100 organizations, giving a clear picture of which of those are youth-led to reach out to for participating in a collective drug decriminalization advocacy campaign. Another result from the Support Don’t Punish activities was that Carolina was invited to speak at a webinar organized by Asociación Civil Cogollos del Oeste, an activist organization that advocates for the regulation of cannabis. Carolina spoke about harm reduction and the experiences/activities that empower young people who use drugs.

Intercambios also coordinated 2 successful digital conversations on their Instagram platform, with an anesthesiologist and member from the medical staff at Kosmicare about LSD, set and setting and bad trips, and another with female activists and advocates about cannabis. They also took part in demonstrations and protests.

The organized a meeting with a group of relevant organizations who had expressed interest in participating in advocacy activities related to drug policy reform and harm reduction, including; Vuelo Controlado (a harm reduction program from Mendoza), Agrupación Paranaense de Agricultorxs Cannábicos (a Cannabis advocacy organization from Entre Rios), Asociación Ciclo Positivo (a youth led national organization of young people living with HIV that advocated for ending stigma and discrimination), Secretaría de Consumos de la Federación Argentina LGBT (secretariat for an integrated approach to drug abuse from the National Argentine LGBT association), Motor Psico UBA (student organization from the Psychology department of the University of Buenos Aires) and Envión Podés La Matanza (shared social responsibility program of the System for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Boys, Girls and Young People of La Matanza, Buenos Aires). In that meeting they agreed on the name of the advocacy group to be “420 Hackeamos el Debate”/ 420 Hacking the Debate”).

This newly created advocacy group “420 Hacking the Debate” coordinated activities on September 21st, which is the first day of spring in Argentina and is also “Student’s Day”, so it is a day where people go to parks and young people in particular celebrate the day. The organizations in the group all coordinated an activity about the decriminalization of cannabis for adult use, sharing harm reduction tips, and information. Around 2,500 people were reached at a national level on this day.