TalkingDrugs
TalkingDrugs is an online drug-information platform run by the United Kingdom-based non-governmental organization Release. The platform seeks to reduce the stigma around drug use and to critique drug-control policies from the standpoint of a “harm reduction” approach. The platform describes itself as “anti-racist, sex worker allied, trans-inclusive, [and] abolitionist.” 1 2
Contents
Release, the U.K.-based organization that operates TalkingDrugs, is a left-of-center NGO that runs a project called the Harm Reduction Hub, a drop-in center located in London that offers syringes, needles, legal referrals and advice, fentanyl test strips, the overdose-reversal drug Naloxone, condoms, and “[s]afer drug consumption items for other routes of administration.” 3
Background
TalkingDrugs is an online drug information and drug policy advocacy platform run by the U.K.-based non-governmental organization Release. To this end, the platform publishes articles discussing and critiquing global drug policy, articles on the uses and efficacy of psychedelics, and articles calling for further research into the potential impacts of some drugs on “gender diverse” individuals. 1 4 5 6
TalkingDrugs asserts that intersectionality is one of its core values. To this end, TalkingDrugs states that it is “resolutely in support of allies across racial justice, social equity, sex work, drug use, trans rights, abolition, environmental justice, decolonisation and other anti-oppressive causes.” 1
Moreover, TalkingDrugs claims it supports “abolition,” which it defines as its opposition to incarceration or similar punitive drug-control measures. Part of its mission to this end is to “decolonize our understanding of drugs.” 1
Release
Release is a U.K.-based nongovernmental organization that opposes restrictive drug-control measures in favor of a harm-reduction approach. Part of the organization’s mission revolves around destigmatizing activities such as drug use and sex work; the group claims that the stigma around these activities contribute to individuals involved being “traditionally underserved.” To this end, Release has published a “Sex Workers and the Law Booklet,” which is aimed at being a “practical guide for those whose sex work [sic] and those involved in the industry as well as statutory and voluntary agencies, and other professionals who come into contact with those involved in the sex industry.” 7 8 3
Release runs a project called the Harm Reduction Hub, a drop-in center located in London that offers syringes, needles, legal referrals and advice, fentanyl test strips, the overdose-reversal drug Naloxone, condoms, and “[s]afer drug consumption items for other routes of administration.” 3
Funding
As of January 2026, Release named the AB Charitable Trust, the London Legal Support Trust, Ethypharm, and the Trust for London as financial supporters. 8
Release, including the TalkingDrugs project, is extensively funded by the Open Society network founded by George Soros. In 2018, the Foundation to Promote Open Society gave $279,860 to Release. The grant was earmarked for maintaining TalkingDrugs, sponsoring two cohorts of its drug policy reform fellowship program, and to “organize public live events featuring the Black Lives Matter movement UK, drug user activists, sex worker activists and LGBTIQA+ advocates.” The Foundation to Promote Open Society also gave $223,360 to Release in 2017, in part for the maintenance of its TalkingDrugs platform. 9
In 2023, the Open Society Action Fund gave $75,750 to Release for “drug policy reform in Europe.” 9
Between 2020 and 2022, the Foundation to Promote Open Society gave a combined $942,000 to Release in three grants. In 2016, the Foundation to Promote Open Society gave two grants totaling $398,068 to Release. 9
People
As of January 2026, Andre Gomes was the editor of TalkingDrugs. Previously, Gomes was an account executive with the U.K.-based communications firm Portland, an account executive at Incisive Health, and a data analyst for Bloom Consulting. 10