Release movement

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The release movement was a self-help movement for drug addicts that originated in London in 1967 and has also founded centers in the Federal Republic of Germany since 1970. Beyond the self-help aspect, the release movement was politically active, against the criminalization of drug addicts and for the establishment of an appropriate support structure. She pioneered drug accepting work .

History and positions

British journalist Caroline Coon is credited with founding the release movement . Under the impression of a minor drug trial against Mick Jagger , who had hired a top attorney and was acquitted, Coon founded Release London in 1967 together with law students in London and offered legal advice to indigent drug addicts. The offer was soon expanded to include general counseling services and finally comprehensive alternative therapy options. In September 1970, the Association for Combating the Danger of Drugs opened the first German release center in Hamburg and began offering telephone advice. The first therapeutic residential communities were planned. In November 1970, the second German release center was established in Heidelberg , from which the Free Clinic Heidelberg grew in 1972 . Release initiatives soon arose in Berlin , Munich , Bremen and Frankfurt am Main . After a professionalization and bureaucratisation process, the release movement has merged into established drug aid agencies. The large Hamburg addiction aid provider, jugend hilft jugend eV, has its roots in the release movement.

Politically, the release movement can be seen as a consequence of the extra-parliamentary opposition . Drug consumption was attested to have a dual character: on the one hand, in the tradition of the hippie movement, it was accepted as a way to expand consciousness, and on the other hand, it was treated therapeutically as an expression of alienation in capitalist societies and the resulting psychological deformation. The socially critical release positions were presented for the German-speaking countries in the widespread text “Help yourselves”.

literature

  • Team of authors: Help yourself. The release report against addiction. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1974, ISBN 3-499-11543-3 , 2nd edition / 1. Edition 1971
  • Eckhard Joite (Ed.): Fixen. Opium for the people. Consumer logs. Wagenbach, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-8031-1038-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Martin Schmid: Drug Aid in Germany. Origin and development 1970-2000 , Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2003, p. 130 f.
  2. ↑ On the development of the German release movement, cf. Team of authors: hust yourselves! The release report against addiction , Reinbek near Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1971, p. 70 ff. (Chronological work report ).
  3. ↑ accept eV - Federal Association for Accepting Drug Work and Humane Drug Policy