If you are interested in the history of our association, click on the buttons on the left-hand side, and you'll find a year-by-year account of our history

2007

After the drug consumption room was opened, the first year of operation is of great significance for the Düsseldorfer Drogenhilfe e.V. A completely new range of offers with specific (legal) regulations and an interdisciplinary team is integrated into range of services offered. The drug consumption room has to be integrated into the existing system; it is a service that is open daily all year round and has more opening hours and more staff than all other departments.

The members of the "partnership for order" (Ordnungspartnerschaft) meet four times a year. Looking back, it is clear that a good working relationship with the health authorities as well as with the authorities of law and order besides a high usage rate and no complaints speak for themselves.

The annual grant from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia is cut further and, within the framework of the municipalisation of state funds, the state subsidies are paid out and accounted for via the town of Düsseldorf.

The Landschaftsverband Rheinland refuses to finance clients that are allocated an apartment by the Department for Social Security and Integration. The ensuing negotiations result in the town of Düsseldorf renting six apartments that can be put at the clients' disposal out to the association. The Landschaftsverband endorses this arrangement.

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2006

In the summer, building work starts on the drug consumption room in the back yard of the DrogenHilfeCentrum on Erkrather Str. 18. Its doors open on 28 December 2006.

Funding from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia for low-threshold centres (drop-in centres) and the extended basic financing (counselling for women as well as counselling for migrants) are stopped.

2005

In a meeting held on 16 December 2004, the town council decided to expand drug advice in Düsseldorf by adding a drug consumption room. At the beginning of 2005, we are ordered to plan and implement this facility. This means that the year is significantly influenced by the work done on the drug consumption room.

The Düsseldorfer Drogenhilfe e.V. drew up a concept with regard to this that is available on the download page.

2004

Work in the juvenile detention centre of the correctional facility of Düsseldorf is resumed again in 2004 with an established post funded by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the town of Düsseldorf, in cooperation with the civil servants of the correctional facility. Two groups, one-to-one talks, preventative measures on the topics of hepatitis, HIV and AIDS as well as talks with staff of the correctional facility are all offered here.

On 1 June, the financing of the assisted-living accommodation and the individual assistance is changed so that individual cases are funded by the Landschaftsverband Rheinland instead of a lump sum being given.

In 2004, we also want to invite people who are not part of our target group to become interested in the Düsseldorfer Drogenhilfe e. V. and its work by inviting them to two events on the topic of art and culture in the drop-in shop of the DrogenHilfeCentrum. As part of the campaigns on the International Women's Day in Düsseldorf, a "Women's Comedy Show" is held - and a "poetry slam" also takes place in collaboration with Zack in November.

2003

As part of the restructuring of the Düsseldorfer Drogenhilfe e.V., it is decided that the association will be taken over by the Liga der Wohlfahrtspflege (German League for Non-Statutory Welfare). The former members declared their withdrawal on 31 December 2003 and the six welfare organisations join the association on 21 November 2004. A new statute is developed, descriptions of products and services agreed on with the town of Düsseldorf and a long-term contract regarding funding concluded.

Funding for the male prostitute project "Jonas" (out-reach counselling with the contact bus for drug-dependent men and boys that prostitute themselves to fund their drug habit) provided by the labour exchange runs out in September after three years. Financing of this important service for a target group that is very hard to reach can be ensured further thanks to fines levied by the courts.

Although the state has stopped funding "immediate assistance", the cooperation with several detoxification clinics initiated during this project is able to be continued. As ever, drug addicts for whom traditional forms of assistance are too tedious or who are at risk of dying or of chronic, irreparable damage to their health if they do not get immediate assistance can be assigned to in-patient detoxification programmes within a few days.

In collaboration with the Jugendgerichtshilfe (juvenile legal support agency) of the town of Düsseldorf, groups for young people who have been in court for infringing the Narcotics Law are set up. These are young people who have taken cannabis and/or "party drugs" but who are not yet dependent on them.

In the spring, two members of staff of the Düsseldorfer Drogenhilfe e.V. agree to do a training course to become trainers of the advanced training course MOVE (motivating short-term intervention with drug-taking young people) and offer a three-day MOVE course in the drug counselling centre for the first time ever.

As part of the campaign week "There's always a story behind addiction", held by the Düsseldorfer Fachstelle für Suchtvorbeugung (Düsseldorf specialist department for addiction prevention) for the fourth time after 1991, 1997 and 2000, Horst Eckert reads from his book "Aufgeputscht" ("Energised"), a detective story set in Düsseldorf's drug scene, at the Café KoLa at the DrogenHilfeCentrum. This reading by the author himself is to be the beginning of the attempt to integrate art and culture in our building besides our original target group.

2002

In September 2002, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia unexpectedly announces that it is no longer going to continue funding the projects "Drugs and AIDS" or the "emergency aid" for 2003. This is why a post has to be cut.

2001

In the summer of 2001, as part of a job-creation scheme, the mobile counselling service in the contact bus that reaches out to boys and men who prostitute themselves to buy drugs is expanded to offer another service.

A cooperation agreement regarding out-patient rehabilitation for addicts is signed with the Fachambulanz (the drug counselling office) of the Diakonie in Düsseldorf. Thus addicts of legal and illegal addictive substances are treated together in therapy groups. This means that, within the framework of out-patient, therapeutic services, virgin territory is being entered. Acknowledgement by the pension insurance institutes is applied for in 2001 and approved in 2002.

At the end of the year, the members of the German League for Non-Statutory Welfare withdraw from the association. This is to be seen as a signal to restructure the drug advice.

2000

The residential groups set up as part of job-creation schemes and in cooperation with the assistance given to the homeless in the town of Düsseldorf become part of the regular funding of the Landschaftsverband Rheinland in the year 2000. The assisted-living accommodation according to § 39 BSHG (Federal Social Security Act) comprises 24 places.

1999

In 1999, the services funded by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia – namely the out-patient drug therapy, counselling for migrants and immediate assistance – are expanded. In August, the association is re-named the Düsseldorfer Drogenhilfe e. V.

1998

The association goes online with its own web site and carries out online counselling. Besides this, the staff go out in a bus that has been converted into a counselling room several times a week to look for prostitutes selling their bodies for drugs and offer the addicted girls and women advice and ways into the Düsseldorf system of assistance.

1997

In July 1997, the DrogenHilfeCentrum is opened on Erkrather Strasse. The support that the clientele gets in the medical surgery, the emergency overnight accommodation, advisory centre, the drop-in centre, residential groups, via street work and the gender-specific services on offer is intended to help them to survive their period of addiction without suffering any permanent damage.

Thanks to the DrogenHilfeCentrum being set up, the drug counselling service can concentrate on looking after people at risk from drugs and those already on drugs and who want to come off them as well as the people they are in contact with and multipliers and to develop high quality, appropriate services for them.

1996

With regard to the ever-growing drugs scene around Düsseldorf's main railway station, considerations are first voiced in 1996 regarding a building in which drug addicts who cannot or do not want to stop taking drugs at present could get support.

1995

In 1995, the head of the Drogenberatung Düsseldorf (Düsseldorf's drug counselling service) develops a treatment concept for out-patient therapy and rehabilitation for drug addicts interested in coming off drugs. The drug counselling office is thus able for the very first time to carry out and invoice out-patient treatment with qualified staff who have had appropriate additional therapeutic training thanks to such treatment being acknowledged by pension and health insurance institutes.

1987

In 1987, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia sets up funding for the focus of our work on "HIV and AIDS" as well as on the "Test project for medically assisted rehabilitation of drug addicts" with appropriate scientific support and the use of a total of two full-time and one part-time specialist staff members. The Drogenberatung Düsseldorf e.V. was the first of a handful of other facilities to be chosen to carry out the psycho-social support of those receiving drug substitutes within the framework of a cooperation agreement with the municipal health authority that ran for three years. After this test project came to an end, the one full-time and one part-time methadone-related post were terminated.

Increasing impoverishment is countered by the state with a further model project "Low-threshold drug work" with scientific support. It serves to better reach the target group of people illegally consuming drugs and who do not yet go to an advisory centre and is regarded as an upstream service that could lead to users being transferred to other third-party systems. For this reason, one and a half full-time members of staff and later a socio-pedagogical member of staff are hired on fixed-term job contracts as part of a job-creation scheme. Two freelancers (students of social pedagogy or social work) round the team off.

The association rents another floor in the rear building on Bolkerstrasse for the low-threshold area. Street work as well as "safer use" and "safer sex" work is integrated into the work carried out there as part of the association's AIDS prevention work. The pilot project proves its worth and later gets regular funding.

1985

The drug advisory service in Düsseldorf's old part of town, the Altstadt, moves from Heinrich-Heine-Allee to Bolkerstrasse 14 in 1985.

1977

In the period from 1973 to 1977, the Federal Ministry for Youth, Family and Health funds the drug advisory service as a pilot facility. The Max Planck Institute, which takes on the task of scientific support, sets minimum criteria and, by recording data and drawing up statistics, the work carried out becomes more easily comprehensible.

In the meantime, the drug scene takes on a permanently criminal nature. In addition, the beginning of the 1980s sees the start of illnesses caused by HIV infections, which leads to an increasing worsening of the health as well as the social and emotional state of drug addicts.

1973

After in-patient therapeutic drug facilities have initially been set up (the Drogenberatung Düsseldorf e. V. also tries to set up a therapeutic residential community in 1973), addicts are increasingly found places on in-patient drug withdrawal treatment schemes.

1972

In 1972, the Narcotics Law (Betäubungsmittelgesetz, BtmG) replaces the law governing opiates. In order to be able to finance their drug habit, addicts are increasingly turning to criminal activities. The Drogenberatung Düsseldorf e.V. reacts to these altered circumstances by hiring additional full-time workers. The tea-room character of the advisory centre is changed in favour of a more targeted and broader range of advisory and support services.

Owing to the large feeling of public insecurity and the helplessness of the immediate family members, informative work is also intensified. In this context, a member of staff specialising in addiction prevention is the first position in the association to be funded by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

1971

On 10 February 1971, an association was founded with the name "Drogenberatung Düsseldorf e.V." ("Drug counselling Düsseldorf"), which, according to the statute, serves the following purpose: "The job of the association is to advise and assist young people and adults at risk from or dependent on drugs along with their family members as well as to increase public awareness of drugs and drugs misuse". Founding members include the town of Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf-based welfare organisations, parties represented in the town council, church youth associations and the youth organisation "Die Falken".

In the first few years of its counselling work at Heinrich-Heine-Allee in the Düsseldorf Altstadt, staff are mainly confronted with consumers of so-called soft drugs such as hashish, marijuana, LSD and mescaline. Drug use is closely linked to the protests and attitudes towards life that were common in these years. The substances are predominantly tried out by youths and young adults who feel they are distanced from society.

By consuming drugs, they are also looking for the meaning of life and various ideologies. In order to expand their consciousness, people read books written by authors such as Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, Herman Hesse and the like. Popular singers and musicians of that era such as Janis Joplin, Frank Zappa, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Cat Stevens and so on become idols.

A drop-in centre in the form of a cafe and a shelter are set up in the drug counselling centre for the target group mentioned above. The clientele meets up there to discuss life, the universe and everything in a safe environment.

The work done with drug users is also characterised by the fact that the few - and often part-time – members of staff are busy heading off emerging crises such as bad trips and giving first aid in emergencies caused by drug use.

After hard drugs such as heroin come onto the market and it becomes ever more common to take more than one drug, the clientele also changes. In those years, Düsseldorf's first drug scene developed in Düsseldorf's old part of town, the Altstadt, where hard drugs where also sold and where the first drug-related deaths took place.