Photographs: Andre Gaetano
On June 26, the Rambla del Raval became a space for gathering, advocacy, and collective care. From XADUD, together with Metzineres, the member organizations of CATNPUD (ARSU, Asaupam, AUPA’M, Àmbit Prevenció, REMA, and CatFAC), and anti-prohibitionist allies, we joined the Support Don’t Punish Global Day of Action once again this year. This grassroots community-based campaign advocates for drug policies grounded in public health, human rights, and the genuine participation of people who use drugs.
This year, global community organizing has become essential. The tightening of control policies—surveillance, fines, and expulsion from public spaces—hits especially hard those of us who use drugs, those of us living in poverty, without housing, or in situations of social exclusion. Our proposal—and our response—was to reclaim the street as a territory of community, political participation, contested meanings, and care.
The Street as a Political Tool
In the middle of the Rambla del Raval, Kaoskolectivo, Noah, María Lech, and Voces Anónimas filled the stage with music and words, offering an open invitation to reflect and join the fight against stigma. The day was marked by active participation: Àmbit’s community theatre, the fanzine workshops by AUPA’M and ASAUPAM, the collective mural, the self-portraits, and the game on the impact of fines turned the street into a laboratory of ideas and care. Each activity was an invitation to think, create, and resist together.
The Symbolic Trial: Putting the Punitive System in the Dock
The central moment of the afternoon was the symbolic trial of the “war on drugs.” For decades, prohibitionism has put people who use drugs in the dock, criminalizing poverty, stigmatizing lives, and pushing them out. This year, we reversed the narrative: we were the ones who put the system on trial.
Through testimonies rooted in lived experience, legal perspectives, and expert evidence, the performance made clear something we already know: the so-called “war on drugs” has not reduced use or dismantled illegal markets, but it has produced criminalization, imprisonment, institutional violence, and systematic violations of human rights.
The People’s Jury delivered its verdict: the “war on drugs” was found guilty of being nothing more than a war on people, one that deepens the criminalization of women, migrants, racialized people, and people living in poverty. With that sentence, we collectively demanded drug policies centered on health, dignity, harm reduction, social justice, and the genuine participation of people who use drugs.
The Dialogue Continues: Community Radio and a Festive Closing
After the trial, the debate moved to a live community radio broadcast, where Tre Borràs, DoctorX, and Aura Roig reflected on the progress—and setbacks—since the beginning of prohibitionism, and explored alternatives from community, health, and human rights perspectives.
The day closed with music by Doplerfx and Polmay, and with a collective celebration as an expression of the belief that another way of being in the world is possible: with community, with joy, and with resistance.
The following day, DoctorX led the first edition of the workshop “Hacking Prohibitionism: Reducing the Impact of the Gag Law on Health” at L’Arravalera, as a participatory proposal to delve deeper into strategies for dismantling the punitive imagination and building alternatives through creativity and collective action.
Support . Don’t Punish is not an isolated event. It is a reminder that every day there is a choice: to continue reproducing punishment or to commit to care. We have already made our choice, and we do so from the neighborhood, from the street, and from the community.
Support. Don’t Punish 2026 Archive
As part of the record of this day, we also share the graphic materials from the international campaign and allied networks that accompanied this Global Day of Action.
