The Forgotten History of European Drug-Dealer Activism
The Forgotten History of European Drug-Dealer Activism
In a small Dutch city outside of The Netherlands, drug user activists from around the world gathered in 1999 for the fourth annual International Drug Users Day (IDUD) conference.
As Mat Southwell, a British activist, delivered a presentation, he could “hardly see the audience” he told Talking Drugs, “because everybody was chasing,” or smoking drugs off of foil. The event was like no conference he had ever attended. “There was so much smoke coming up from the audience. You could hardly hear people speak over the rustle of silver foil.”
One of the things that made the event particularly special for Southwell was the involvement of people who supplied drugs, something that he himself would soon be working on back in the United Kingdom. A group of Dutch suppliers called the Hard Drug Dealers Union sponsored the event run by the Dutch National Interest Group of Drug Users (LSD). (Talking Drugs, UK, 30.04.2021)
https://www.talkingdrugs.org/the-forgotten-history-of-european-drug-dealer-activism