Gabriel Cicu

Psychiatrist and psychoanalytical psychotherapist, Color Mind Clinic | Bukarest (RO)

Lecture:
The challenges of the opening of the first drug testing service in Romania - AWAKEN

AWAKEN is a Romanian harm reduction project that promotes the health and the safety of the festival community.
It started in 2016, as a pilot project at the initiative of Color Mind Clinic.

2017
• Awaken participated at 3 outdoor festivals
• total number of participants: 6500
• 415 of them, 6%, were unique visitors at Awaken zone

2018
• we started the formalities to develop the first drug testing service in Romania
• opened to psychedelic research
• we will continue to participate at EDM events.

The main challenges in Romania:
• lack of information. Romania`s drug culture is still underground, and the info you can find online is rather hectic, coming from obscure sources.
• the growing number of EDM events: diversification and growth of consumption

Preconditions:
• a good team trained by Energy Control
• acceptance from the festival`s organizers
• support from part of institutions: police, NAA, ambulance
• openness of the festival community to discuss about drug use

Valuable experiences
• the festivals that we took part
• the contact with the drug consumers
• the team of volunteers

Conclusions
Though the actual context seems legally and socio-cultural problematic, drug testing services can be implemented step by step, especially with the shared knowledge of organisations with experience in the field.