The International Drug Users (IDUD) event was founded back in 1995 by Theo van Dam and the national Dutch umbrella user organisation LSD, (Landelijk Steunpunt Druggebruikers) as an international conference and party for drug user activists.
IDUD was successfully arranged several times at different locations in the Netherlands. The last Dutch IDUD in 2002 featured the worlds largest user room where several hundred drug users consumed all kind of drugs in a common and civilized manner.
The last IDUD was held in 2003 at our own premises in Copenhagen and was jointly organised by LSD & BF.
IDUD 2003 gathered 96 activists from = 16 different nations, a pretty large event documented by a report by Howard Lotsof which can be read on the BF website.
The lack of an IDUD since 2003 is largely down to the fact that it is a huge task and a pretty costly commitment that no one had either the energy or time for.
BF has almost ideal premises for hosting such an international users event. Especially, when we rent the theatre hall (which can seat 100 at tables) for the plenary session at the local culture house which is our next door neighbour, in addition BF itself has many well suited rooms for parallel workshops. Since 2007 BF has received a fair income from our daily work, which we are free to spend at our discretion. These facts make us grateful for our lucky circumstances and we often feel like spoiled kids, but it also makes us humble and tempted to share some of our wealth by hosting an IDUD this year. We are able to find quite luxurious but still relatively cheap beds at local hostels and we can all dine in BF.
On Monday the 3 of November 2008 BF celebrates its 15th anniversary, for this and many other reasons, we decided back in January to set aside US$20.000 from our income to host an IDUD event on the 31st of October & 1st of November in Copenhagen. I have already requested a donation from our local branch of Schering Plough. I have not yet had any reply but they sponsored the IDUD gala dinner in 2003, so we have reason to believe that they will sponsor something also this time; in the meantime I plan to apply for more sponsors elsewhere. If you have any suggestions please dont hold back. In case we do find more money we will support peers from countries where they havent any or only little money to participate.
Many of us have already spent a lot of money on our gatherings at IHRA in Barcelona where our most important meetings sadly were not particularly successful, and we never had the pleasure of having a real user activist party. As always it was great to meet old and new people at the IHRA, but it is a very different matter to participate in an international user activist conference. Each of the three IDUD events that I have participated in has been a huge learning experience. To mingle with and listen to experiences from other countries primary activists is always enlightening and the parties were always great fun for all. Meeting dedicated and serious working peers on our own ground and own forum is definitively very different from even the best IHRA conferences.
Of course I have already discussed reviving IDUD in 2008 with some of my closest partners both here and abroad, and all agreed that it would be a great idea. I have not yet made any final plans for the conference topics or about which presentations we should have. It will need more of you to join an IDUD planning committee, which I hope we can create very soon. But as Howard & Brent already pointed out, it would be a pretty good opportunity to address our current problems with INPUD.
Perhaps we could have a new INPUD General Assembly and confirm the results of the work currently being done by the hard working INPUD Interim Board. All decisions that I will not and cannot take alone. So you are all very welcome to step forward and offer your help and suggestions.
As Theo use to say: Users unite and now youre all welcome to unite at IDUD 2008 in Copenhagen.
With love and solidarity
Joergen
Danish Drug Users Union/BrugerForeningen
Agenda
