A Summit on the Horizon: Planning Underway for the 2026 Philippine Drug Symposium

The ISSUP Philippine Chapter is pleased to announce its participation in the planning and organization of the Drug Symposium with the tentative title “Advancing Recovery, Hope, and Compassion through Evidence-Based, Human Rights-Centered Drug Policy”. The Symposium is tentatively scheduled for September 2026 in Metro Manila, Philippines, and is organized in partnership with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the University of the Philippines - Institute of Human Rights (UP-IHR), and SM Supermalls, with coordination led by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). 

The Symposium builds on the success of the Philippine Drug Policy and Law Reform Summit in July 2024; where the Summit generated meaningful policy-level agreement, this Symposium aims to connect these policies to concrete action in communities across the Philippines. Guided by five interconnected pillars (Evidence and Research; Health and Recovery-Oriented Systems; Family and Community Engagement; Trauma-Informed Care in Practice; and From Policy to Practice), the Symposium will focus on practical knowledge exchange, capacity building, and the identification of scalable innovations that communities and local government units can readily adopt. 

The Symposium program will span several days and is being designed to move fluidly between high-level plenary discussions and hands-on working sessions. The Chapter looks forward to working alongside our fellow organizations, government agencies, and communities to make the September 2026 Drug Symposium a decisive step forward for evidence-based, compassionate, and rights-centered drug policy in the Philippines!