Colombia’s Constitutional Court gave the the government three years to adopt measures to end an ongoing humanitarian crisis in prisons, many of which are overcrowded.

The ultimatum is targeted at six prisons known to have the worst conditions. These include Tramacua in Valledupar, the Modelo in Bogota, Bellavista in Medellin, San Isidro in Popayan, and the prisons in Cucuta and Barrancabermeja. Within these institutions, prisoners cannot expect provision of even basic services such as adequate healthcare, food and clean water. Limited access to showers result in prisoners either unable to sufficiently clean themselves or cleaning themselves with buckets of dirty water, spawning a multitude of health risks. Additionally, the Constitutional Court highlighted how many prisoners are not afforded a cell, much less a bed, pillow or sheets.

These are problems that result from a prison system that is operating at nearly 150% capacity, with nearly 40,000 more prisoners than the system is able to accommodate.

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Colombia's constitutional court gives government ultimatum to solve prison crisis

Colombia’s health ministry is recommending the immediate suspension of aerial spraying of glyphosate – a herbicide that is the cornerstone of US-financed efforts to wipe out cocaine crops.

The ministry on Monday made its decision after the World Health Organisation’s research arm said last month that glyphosate – originally sold as Roundup – was probably carcinogenic in humans.

The Colombian authorities said they were acting in accordance with a constitutional court ruling requiring them to take precautions whenever credible health risks were apparent.

President Juan Manuel Santos has yet to respond to the ministry’s recommendation.

More than 1.6m hectares (4m acres) of land in Colombia has been sprayed with the weed killer over the past two decades to kill coca plants. Coca leaves are used to make cocaine. The spraying program is partly carried out by US contractors.

Colombian authorities call for end to glyphosate aerial spraying of coca crops

Patients, family members and activists stood with legislators today as they announced the introduction of Assembly bill A.7060 that would direct the state to establish a program to help critically ill patients obtain emergency access to medical marijuana as soon as possible. The bill, introduced by Assembly Health Committee Chair Richard N. Gottfried and Assembly Minority Leader Brian M. Kolb, comes 298 days after Governor Cuomo signed the medical marijuana bill into law on July 5, and nine months after the Governor urged the Health Commissioner to do everything in his power to get medical marijuana to children suffering from life-threatening forms of epilepsy. To date, not one patient has received medical marijuana, and at least three children who might have benefitted from medical marijuana, have died since the bill was passed.

“This bill would create emergency access to medical marijuana for patients with the most urgent needs – including children suffering from severe epilepsy,” said Assembly Health Committee Chair Richard N. Gottfried, sponsor of the original medical marijuana bill. “Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb and I introducing this bill shows the broad, bipartisan support for emergency access. It is good and compassionate public health policy. If ever there was a basis for emergency action, the suffering of these children is it.”

“Thousands of patients in New York State deal with excruciating pain each day and simply can’t wait for the wheels of government to turn. Bureaucracy should not stand in the way of relief for people suffering from debilitating illnesses and diseases,” Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb said. “Assistance is well within reach. The Department of Health must be diligent in building the medical marijuana program, but that does not preclude the state from offering immediate assistance to people in dire need.”

Bipartisan legislation introduced in New York to expedite access to medical marijuana for critically ill patients

On 28th April, eight people were executed in Indonesia for drug offenses. Despite repeated pleas for mercy from family members, citizens, human rights organizations, the United Nations, and governments around the world, Australians Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, Nigerians Martin Anderson, Raheem Agbaje Salami, Okwuduli Oyatanze, and Silvester Obiekwe Nwolise, Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte, and Indonesian Zainal Abidin faced a firing squad at just past midnight Indonesia-time. Serge Atlaoui from France has been given a temporary reprieve and Mary Jane Veloso from the Philippines was given a last-minute reprieve.

The offenses for which these ten have received capital punishment range from transport of heroin to intent to distribute marijuana. Some were young, one was mentally ill, others were in situations of economic necessity. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon had called on Indonesia to halt the executions. Though he has said that the United Nations opposes the use of the death penalty for drug related crimes, over 30 countries around the world continue to use capital punishment for drug offenses, executing thousands of people a year.

Eight people executed for drug offences in Indonesia

In the early hours of April 29th, Indonesia executed eight convicted drug traffickers. Seven of the eight were foreigners: two Australians, a Brazilian and four Nigerians. The sentences have provoked outrage from the prisoners’ home countries, none of which hands down the death penalty to drug offenders. Brazil and the Netherlands had already withdrawn their ambassadors, following an earlier round of executions in January. Indonesia is rare in executing drug smugglers; in most of the world they are condemned to long stretches in prison instead. Where else does trafficking earn a death sentence?

Thirty-two countries, plus Gaza, impose the death penalty for drug smuggling, according to Harm Reduction International (HRI), a drug-focused NGO. All but four (America, Cuba, Sudan and South Sudan) are in Asia or the Middle East. But in most of these countries executions are extremely rare. Fourteen, including America and Cuba, have the death penalty on the books for drug traffickers but do not apply it in practice. Only in six countries—China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore—are drug offenders known to be routinely executed, according to HRI’s most recent analysis. (Indonesia will soon join this list, following its recent executions.) In Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, South Sudan and Syria the data are murky.

Which countries have the death penalty for drug smuggling?

Vancouver's celebrated supervised injection site (SIS) Insite has rightly garnered scores of media attention over the past decade. But, there is another, lesser-known SIS providing equally vital services to drug users, albeit without the same legal guarantees from the federal government.

The Dr. Peter Centre (DPC), located in Vancouver's downtown West End, has operated an SIS since 2002 alongside its broader health services for people living with HIV/AIDS. It currently has a three-booth drug injection room compared to Insite's 12-booth service, with roughly 25 percent of the centre's visitors having used the SIS on offer.

Yet, despite the length of time the DPC has provided this life-saving service with proven results -- it prevents infections, there have been no overdose deaths, 63 percent of Day Health program participants have engaged in addiction counseling, and around one third entered rehabilitation -- the centre has still never been officially sanctioned by Canada's federal government.

Instead, the DPC has been frustrated by over a year-long wait for a decision on its application for an exemption of Canada's Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA). Such an exemption would be the same granted to Insite, which won a 2011 Supreme Court battle on whether the federal government should allow access to SISs. The ruling deemed that exemptions for these facilities should be granted, "where evidence demonstrates that a site stands to decrease death and disease without negatively affecting public safety.

Canadian government leaving Vancouver’s other supervised injection site in legal limbo

The global counternarcotics regime, created and enforced by the United States since the 1950s, now faces profound challenges.

An increasing number of countries in Europe and Latin America find that the regime’s emphasis on punitive approaches to drug use and the suppression of illicit drugs to be problematic and are asking for reform.

This reaction is hardly uniform throughout the world, however, as critical players such as Russia and China, remain committed to the preservation of the regime’s long-standing punitive approach.

Meanwhile, drug policy changes at the national and state level in the United States, including cannabis legalization in some states, are making it increasingly uninteresting, difficult, and inappropriate for it to play the role of the world’s toughest drug cop.

At the global level, we find that much has changed since 1998 that undermines the previous global consensus on punitive counternarcotics strategies:

Illicit markets and networks have shifted.

The harms and costs of drugs are unevenly distributed.

States no longer agree on what drug policies work.

This moment of global disagreement, which will be reflected at UNGASS 2016, provides an important opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness and problematic side-effects of existing counternarcotics policies and to emphasize evidence-based strategies. While drug policies work best when tailored to local circumstances, our case studies find important consistent lessons from across the globe.

The emerging global ‘dissensus’ on drug policy: Seizing the opportunity

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), as part of the UN Secretariat, opposes the death penalty in all circumstances and encourages every country to join a moratorium on its use and to eventually abolish this practice.

Under international law, if the death penalty is to be used at all, it should only be imposed for the most serious crimes, namely those involving intentional killing, and only with appropriate safeguards. Drug-related offences generally are not considered to fall under the category of 'most serious crimes.'

Based on its mandate, and the international drug control conventions, UNODC works with countries to build their capacity to interrupt drug trafficking. It also offers assistance for prevention and treatment services that benefits drug users and which is founded on scientific evidence, international best practices and the fundamental right to health.

In the case of Indonesia, UNODC is ready to support the country's efforts to confront its drug control challenges including its need to address drug abuse, prevention, treatment and rehabilitation. Our work includes legal, policy and technical advice for the development of national and regional programmes to counter drugs, crime and corruption. Such efforts are essential for protecting the health and welfare of all those who live in Indonesia and elsewhere.

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