Dans ce film, des activistes et des membres de la communauté décrivent les défis auxquels ils sont confrontés et le besoin d’accéder à des interventions de réduction des risques pour améliorer leur état de santé et protéger leurs droits. Pour en savoir plus, en anglais, veuillez lire les informations ci-dessous.

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Women who use drugs are collectively failed by India’s HIV response! This systemic neglect involves government departments, civil society and the private sector. While government programs have done well to address issues of women’s empowerment and increase their access to education, health and social entitlements more broadly, there are virtually no initiatives that address the various specific needs of women who use drugs.

Out of the 120 hospital-based de-addiction centres run by the Government of India’s Department of Health and Family Welfare and over 400 NGO-run centres through the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, none are focused on issues of women, and most have little experience in supporting women who use drugs. A few private facilities cater to these needs, but they are expensive and out of reach for most women.

While the Department of AIDS Control is now funding Targeted Interventions for HIV prevention among these women, they are limited to the north-eastern part of the country. Besides this, interventions are primarily designed for male drug users, although some of which have been able to successfully reach their female partners with services.

In this new film Out of the Shadows: Women Who Use Drugs in India activists and community members describe their challenges and their need for accessible, targeted, and quality harm reduction interventions to improve their health and protect their rights. Marginalized and unreached, these women are not well served by current interventions, and unsafe sexual behaviour and shared injecting equipment significantly increase their risk for HIV and hepatitis C infection. Exclusion, discrimination and violence further compound their vulnerability.

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Sortir des ténèbres: les femmes consommatrices de drogues en Inde

L’initiative a obtenu plus de 22 390 signatures sur le site du parlement autrichien, rendant cette initiative politique l’une des plus populaires dans l’histoire du pays. Pour en savoir plus, en anglais, veuillez lire les informations ci-dessous.

An Austrian parliamentary citizens initiative for cannabis legalization has become the third most successful civil activism in Austria’s democratic history.

"Reaching more than 22,392 signatures on the website of Austria’s parliament by Sunday noon makes it the third most important political issue in which Austrians take an active interest", said Toni Straka, chairman of the Hemp Institute.

Initiator Bernhard Amann, chairman of Legalize!Österreich, said, "this huge success motivates us to organize a parliamentary hearing in order to reduce information deficits as most Austrian politicians still reject any legalization moves".

Initiative citoyenne parlementaire en Autriche pour la légalisation du cannabis 

La surpopulation carcérale est largement répandue en Amérique Latine, mais le Costa Rica a doucement commencé à reformer ses politiques. Pour en savoir plus, en anglais, veuillez lire les informations ci-dessous.

Prison overcrowding is a widespread problem in Latin America, primarily because of harsh drug-sentencing laws and inadequate budgets, but Costa Rica may be setting a useful example for dealing with it. In most countries, guards control the perimeter, but groups of prisoners or criminal gangs organize and control life inside the prison compound. Rehabilitation and re-integration programs are limited.

Not surprisingly, there is little political leadership for prison reform; the issue wins few points with the general public. Even dramatic events – like prison riots in Venezuela or prison fires in which hundreds of young men die as in Honduras – don’t generate interest in prison reform. A key component of the criminal justice system – as a deterrent, a punishment, and as a provider of rehabilitation and reintegration services that will reduce recidivism – the prisons are often neglected.

While Costa Rica faces growing drug-related problems, a multi-country analysis by the Washington Office on Latin America of persistent criminal justice and prison problems in Latin America – aimed at identifying strategic solutions – indicates that the country stands out as having undertaken at least modest reforms of its prisons to prevent them from becoming the breeding grounds for increasingly hardened criminals and gangs.

Costa Rica: un nouveau modèle pour les standards en prison en Amérique Latine?

La loi 20 000 permet de planter 850 mètres carrés et un total de 450 plantes. Pour en savoir plus, en anglais, veuillez lire les informations ci-dessous.

By Sergio Sánchez Bustos, President Latinoamerica Reforma Foundation

On September 8th the Chilean government approved the legal permission to the first cannabis crop in Chile for medical purposes to 

municipality. In this project our Foundation, 

 has worked as scientific and political advisor.

The permission is for a crop of 850 square meters, and for a total of 450 plants approximately, and is totally legal, according to 20.000 law.

They will be growing for a study on cancer patients, who have pain and already are under treatment. The whole group will be 200 adults, and it is expected a long term, study of at least one year. The patients will come from Daya Foundation and from the own Municipality, and it is expected to improve their life quality, decrease the pain and vomits and nauseas.

This project has been made possible because the intense work of activists in Chile, who have allowed this historical step forward a new drug policy in Chile. Other projects are waiting to be allowed right now, and it is possible that in a few months they will get the permission.

Le gouvernement chilien donne son aval pour les plantations de cannabis medicinal 

Les propositions de réforme mises en avant pendant la réunion recommandent une révision des systèmes juridiques dans la région afin de réduire les taux d’incarcération et d’assurer la proportionnalité des peines pour les délits mineurs. Pour en savoir plus, en anglais, veuillez lire les informations ci-dessous.

Poor young men, slumdwellers and single mothers are hurt the most by anti-drug policies in Latin America, according to representatives of governments, social organisations and multilateral bodies meeting at the Fifth Latin American Conference on Drug Policies.

During the Sept. 3-4 conference held in San José, Costa Rica, activists, experts and decision-makers from throughout the region demanded reforms of these policies, to ease the pressure on vulnerable groups and shift the focus of law enforcement measures to those who benefit the most from the drug trade.

Today things are backwards – the focus is on “the small fish” rather than “the big fish”, Paul Simons, the executive secretary of the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD), told IPS.

The proposals set forth during the meeting recommended an overhaul of the legal systems in Latin America, to reduce incarceration and establish sentences proportionate to minor crimes. The participants argued that laws and the justice systems should focus on cracking down on the big interests involved in drug trafficking.

They also recommended that amounts for legal personal possession should be established, along with measures such as the decriminalisation of some drugs or the creation of markets controlled by the state, along the lines of what Uruguay is doing in the case of marijuana.

The current policies give rise to cases like that of Rosa Julia Leyva, an indigenous Mexican woman who now works in the Mexican interior ministry’s National Commission on Security.

Leyva was imprisoned in 1993 for carrying a woven bag with a small package of heroin, which was given to her by a friend who paid her plane ticket in exchange for help with her baggage. It was the first time she had ever left the Petatlán mountains in the southwest state of Guerrero. Until her arrest, she told IPS, she thought she was carrying money or clothes.

At the time, she was the prototype of the women who are constantly thrown into Latin American prisons for drug smuggling: an illiterate 29-year-old, the mother of a five-year-old daughter, sentenced to a quarter century in prison for possession of heroin.

Les politiques latino-américaines sur la drogue sont alimentées par la pauvreté 

Cette résolution appelle les Etats à développer des solutions nouvelles et efficaces pour gérer les problèmes de dorgues dans la région. Pour en savoir plus, en anglais, veuillez lire les informations ci-dessous.

The impact of drug policy on human rights is gaining attention worldwide. The violence linked to trafficking worsens while prisons strain at the seams due to the prohibitionist approach toward drugs that targets minor players for prosecution. At the same time, the problem´s health and social ramifications are largely ignored. In this context, the UN General Assembly´s Special Session on the World Drug Problem (UNGASS) in 2016 represents a crucial opportunity to explore new approaches and center the global debate on the respect for human rights. CELS and many other groups are working toward this, and drug policy is being actively discussed in forums such as the Organization of American States (OAS) and the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Last Friday, the OAS held its first-ever Special General Assembly to analyze the impact of the global drug problem on the region. The Assembly passed a resolution reinforcing that this problem must be addressed from a broad human rights perspective. The resolution also calls on States to assess the results of innovative policies in the region, such as those of Uruguay; it requests that the organization´s Committee on Hemispheric Security investigate the structural causes that contribute to violence and crime; and it proposes that the resolution itself serve as a contribution to the UNGASS in 2016.

The document also references a resolution presented by Argentina and Uruguay and adopted by the OAS General Assembly in June, which specifically addressed the need to promote and protect human rights while working toward new, effective policy solutions to the drug problem in the region. In this resolution, the General Assembly underscored the important role that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) can play on the issue of drug policy.

Now the region must broaden this debate and take action to contribute to meaningful reform. Countries should rethink policy objectives and current norms, working to reduce violence and militarization while also strengthening public health responses. Latin America has suffered the consequences of the failed “War on Drugs” in the last 50 years, and the region´s experiences must inform the global debate.

At the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday, Argentina and 15 other countries from various regions made a statement urging the body to take a leading role in preparations for the UNGASS. “It is important to analyze the different dimensions of the issue beyond the traditional approach, which still relies heavily on the reduction of drug demand and supply through prohibition, law enforcement and criminal justice,” the countries stated, emphasizing the "pressing need to take into account a human rights and public health approach.”

The process leading up to the UNGASS represents a unique opportunity to reflect on the existing model, evaluate its successes and failures, and propose new strategies or alternatives. The ongoing debate on drug policy must be expanded, incorporating other UN agencies, non-governmental organizations, scholars and scientists to discuss profound changes and insist upon a human rights focus. Latin American countries are playing a key role in promoting this debate and should continue supporting efforts to reassess policies rooted in criminal prosecution. Human rights groups from the region have participated constructively in these discussions and will keep working to reduce the damage done under the current, misguided approach.

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Politique des drogues et droits humains: Les derniers débats internationaux

Cette résolution propose le développement de réponse efficaces aux nouveaux défis posés par le problème mondial de la drogue. Pour en savoir plus, en anglais, veuillez lire les informations ci-dessous.

On the 19th of September, 2014, during the first plenary session of its XLVI Special Session, being held in Guatemala City, the Organization of American States (OAS) adopted by acclamation a resolution that underscores "the importance of hemispheric and international cooperation to jointly tackling the world drug problem, by promoting and strengthening comprehensive policies and, where appropriate, the modernization and professionalization of government institutions."

The resolution entitled "Reflections and Guidelines to Formulate and Follow Up on Comprehensive Policies to Address the World Drug Problem in the Americas" recognizes the importance of implementing the three United Nations conventions on drugs, which constitute the international system's drug control framework, as well as the need for States to consider "regularly reviewing the drug policies adopted, ensuring that they are comprehensive and focused on the well-being of the individual, in order to address their national challenges and assess their impact and effectiveness." The resolution also proposes developing responses to the new challenges posed by the world drug problem "that prevent social costs or contribute to their reduction; and, when appropriate, reviewing traditional approaches and considering the development of new approaches, based on scientific evidence and knowledge."

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