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For toomany years, young people who use drugs have heard our names invoked in the halls of global diplomacy. Whenever a policymaker steps up to a podium at the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in Vienna to defend punitive drug laws, criminalization, or militarized policing, they inevitably do so in the name of “protecting…

Every September, the United Nations headquarters in New York City transforms into the diplomatic epicenter of global governance. The UN General Assembly (UNGA) High-Level Week is where heads of state, ministers, and global leaders set international priorities, shape multilateral agendas, and address the most pressing human rights and development challenges of our time. Because political…

The international drug policy landscape is under review, and young people who use drugs or are affected by drug policies must be at the center of the conversation. If you have lived experience or work in drug policy advocacy, now is the time to shape the future of the global drug control system! What is…

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,…