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For decades, the global drug control system has operated under the pretext of protecting the health and welfare of humanity. Yet in practice, punitive drug policies have quietly subjected children and young people to criminalization, healthcare barriers, arbitrary family separation, detention, and institutional violence. To challenge this contradiction and shift global governance, the Global Commission…

Written by Molly Ogbodum, our International Working Group member from Nigeria. “We cannot keep building policies around the assumption that some lives must first become ‘respectable’ before they are worth saving.” Across sub-Saharan Africa, the alarm bells are ringing for opioid-related harms. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) 2025 World Drug Report…

Over the past few years, Youth RISE facilitated two international working groups, one with young sex workers who use drugs, and another with young people who use opioids. Both groups were built on non-hierarchical, participatory, and collaborative processes where members were co-creators rather than mere participants, and also compensated for their expertise. Each group produced…

Written by Grace Mmesomachi Oji, Aggie Dennett Harmon, Claire Perry and Teresa Castro Every year on 12 August, the world celebrates International Youth Day with familiar calls to action and promises to youth: we are the future, that our voices matter, that young leaders are currently and will continue to change the world. Across social…

Written by João Barbosa Representing Youth RISE in Brazil, I attended the 2nd People’s Alliance Convening (PAC) in June, held in the historic city of Salvador, Bahia. The PAC is an informal dialogue forum among Global South organizations working on international drug policy advocacy. The convening brought together member organizations and partners from Brazil, Colombia,…

“The [global] HIV response is no longer only facing a funding crisis; it is becoming a crisis of survival for many people who use drugs.” This warning from the Director of the International Network of People who Use Drugs (INPUD), Anton Basenko, set the tone for Youth RISE’s participation this June and July at the…

For the second time, Youth RISE participated in the 35th session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) that took place in Vienna, from 1st to 5th June. There, we participated in key informal dialogues with the heads of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the CCPCJ, while also…

Written by Ruby Rose Lawlor, Executive Director, Youth RISE Wednesday, 25 June 2026 (Dublin, Ireland) Yesterday, Ireland’s Joint Committee on Drugs Use published its Final Report, recommending that the State fully decriminalise the possession of drugs for personal use and move decisively towards a health-led approach. Twice, first in 2024, and again in March 2026,…