Skoun social media campaign for overdose response

Drug use is criminalised in Lebanon. Often, when people who use drugs try to access services for overdose or drug-related emergencies, hospitals report them to the police. A fear of arrest or imprisonment means peope often don’t receive life-saving hospital services, leading to preventable suffering and deaths. This situation has arisen because hospitals are confused by a law that states they need to report ‘harms’. However, this applies to incidents such as gunshot wounds or road accidents, not drug overdose.

In 2016, Skoun carried out a mapping to see how many hospitals were reporting people the police. The majority were, so Skoun lobbied the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), leading to a Ministry circular to all hospitals prohibiting this practice.

In 2019, the mapping was repeated, revealing that out of over 133 facilities, only 33 had stopped reporting to the police. Skoun issued a report to the MoPH and the Ministry of Interior. Both ministries issued circulars to reiterate that the security forces should not respond to these calls.

In 2021, Skoun launched a social media campaign providing information on overdose, how to identify it, what to do and where to go, including a list of ‘safe hospitals’ that would not report them to the police. A self-reporting tool enabled people who use drugs to report incidents where their right to health is violated in this way.

Skoun’s aim is to gather data from the self-reporting tool for further advocacy efforts , which will enable the organisation to continue to monitor the situation. The information and self-reporting tool were circulated via social media and are online.