I’m headed to Kenya next week for work I told my friends – Really? The response. Does Kenya have a particular drug problem? Why are you headed there? My reply, where doesn’t have a drug problem? Here’s my story of why I went and what I discovered on my Kenyan drug policy reform campaign journey.

We were off to launch Anyone’s Child Kenya – the latest extension to our successful campaign. Anyone’s Child is a growing network of families whose lives have been destroyed by the drug war, who speak out for the need to legalise and regulate drugs.

I first met Lugard, the Kenyan founder, a few years ago at our office in Bristol. He visited as an African fellow on a training programme organised by Release. I’d mentioned the Anyone’s Child campaign and how we were trying to tell the real stories of the drug war, and he’d told me the story of his friend who had died from police brutality because of her involvement with drugs. He mentioned how much it had impacted him and driven him in his work (read more here).

We then invited him to attend the 2016 United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, where we held a rally of families from across the world who wanted to change the debate around drugs. The mood was clearly both rallying and inspiring, and Lugard returned home and felt compelled to set up his own extension of the Anyone’s Child campaign in Kenya – an African first!

Kenya and the universal power of story

Release - the UK’s centre of expertise on drugs and drugs law - has been providing free and confidential specialist advice to the public, and campaigning for the reform of drug policy, for 50 years. To celebrate our 50th anniversary, we hosted the Museum of Drug Policy in London from November 3rd-5th.

The Museum’s exhibitions depicted the human suffering caused by the drug war, and highlighted how drug policy and drugs policing intersect with issues of social control, especially in relation to class and race. Alongside the Museum, we also celebrated the work that Release has undertaken over the past five decades. For more information on Release's history, click through our interactive timeline.

The Museum of Drug Policy is a pop-up arts and cultural hub featuring live programming and art from around the world that highlight how drug policies impact and shape our communities. It provides a powerful, emotional experience that illustrates the harms caused by current prohibitionist drug policies and advocates for new approaches rooted in dignity, health, and human rights. The Museum transports audiences across the globe, pushing visitors to think and act outside the box through interactive installations, powerful documentary photos, multimedia displays and more.

The Museum of Drug Policy is supported by the Open Society Foundations and was first launched in New York City in April 2016.

Release teamed up with partner organisations to design and present numerous panels and interactive workshops alongside the exhibition. Partners included drug policy and harm reduction organisations, sex workers organisations, LGBTI groups, and movements working on issues of race.

Release’s 50th anniversary: the Museum of Drug Policy

Estonia is a country hit hard by the opioid overdose epidemic. People struggling with overdoses in other countries can learn a lot from the Estonian example about what works and what does not work in preventing deaths and suffering. We interviewed Mart Kalvet, an activist representing LUNEST, the Estonian organisation of people who use drugs.

Drugreporter: Tallinn is often called the overdose capital of Europe. Why do so many people in Estonia die of overdose?

Mart Kalvet: People in Estonia, especially in Tallinn, surrounding areas, and in the Ida-Viru County, where the concentration of Russian-speaking people and/or people without citizenship is greater, die of overdoses at a greater rate because they use street opioids, often in combination with other substances – both legal, like alcohol and prescription medicines (clonazepam, diphenhydramine, etc.), as well as illegal, like amphetamines. Most of the people who die of overdoses are injecting drug users. The primary cause of death is almost always listed as fentanyls, because fentanyls are pretty much the only street opioids available in Estonia. There is no one clear explanation as to why that is. The “original” fentanyl — 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine — had made occasional appearances on the market before the start of the current overdose epidemic, but didn’t catch on as the main drug of choice of opioid users before the year 2002. The combination of a long drought in Afghanistan, the post-9/11 US military action in the region, and scrupulous work by Estonian anti-narcotics agencies may have been seminal in crashing the heroin market and facilitating the emergence of suppliers of synthetic black market opioids in Estonia, but these factors don’t really explain why heroin never returned to Estonia, and why there’s no fentanyl problem to speak of (yet!) in the surrounding countries.

Although exact numbers of users of illicit drugs – especially injecting opioid users – have never been known, it is estimated that the population using injectable drugs in Estonia was almost halved after 2002 — if you were an opioid user at that time, you either quit heroin, because it was no longer available, or switched to fentanyl. A lot of the fentanyl users I’ve talked to claim that for them, heroin (which actually tries to make a reappearance on the market now and then, but has thus far failed to make a lasting comeback) has the same effect as injecting clear water. Toxicologists claim that, for fentanyl users, achieving the desired effect takes four or more times more heroin than for an average heroin user, which might mean that the opioid users here couldn’t afford to substitute fentanyls for heroin even if they wanted to.

Another aspect that probably affects the overdose rate is the fact that fentanyl has actually not been widely available in the Estonian black market for some time. Successful busts of great amounts of regular fentanyl by the police in the 2000s made it possible for trimethylfentanyl to emerge as the market leader. In recent years, a similar pattern has repeated — despite the recent blanket ban on all possible fentanyl-type drugs and their precursors, novel fentanyl analogues like furanylfentanyl, acrylfentanyl, carfentanil, ocfentanil etc. appeared on the wider marker… but not before the drug police had managed to infiltrate and take down a large network of trimethylfentanyl suppliers. There appears to be a disconcerting correlation between successful police action and spikes in overdose deaths. Correlation, of course, does not imply causation, and the amounts confiscated represent only a tiny percentage of the amount of drugs consumed daily in the country, but since similar trends are evident everywhere where attempts to solve the problems around the black market of drugs with brute force have been made, the unwanted consequences of enforcement of drug laws should not be overlooked.

I must stress that this is not the official position of Estonian state bodies. The police claim that the correlation is spurious, as according to their sources, the novel analogues had appeared even before the crackdowns. A coordinator of substitution therapy at a methadone centre who’s been active in the field of addiction treatment and harm reduction since the 1990s, told me that every time, before newer, more potent and deadlier drugs appeared on the Estonian market, there would be massive dumping campaigns conducted by organised crime groups who were giving away the new analogues for free for a couple of weeks, until their clientele had been properly hooked. Inquiries among former and active injecting drug users do not confirm such accounts — no-one I know has ever heard of drugs being given away for free — but as far as I know, the question of why these specific drugs have overtaken the market in these specific periods of time in Estonia, or why overdoses spike in the same years that police confiscate record amounts, has never been properly studied. Until that happens, hearsay, speculation, and anecdotal evidence are all we have to rely on.

What harm reduction measures are accessible for drug users to prevent overdoses?

We have harm reduction centres that distribute clean needles and syringes, as well as other gear, but the quality of their work is not uniform, and a lower level of quality appears to be in direct correlation with the overall attitudes of the personnel of these centres towards their clients — people don’t want to go to exchange needles or get methadone from a facility where they’re treated like human garbage. Until now, there have been no mechanisms in place for clients to express either their dissatisfaction with the services, or proposals for making them more efficient.

The official position of the coordinators of Estonia’s methadone program — as well as pretty much everyone involved with the field of drug policy in an official capacity — is that all interventions have to be evidence-based. Unfortunately, there’s no evidence of the level of efficacy of methadone-based substitution treatment for users of fentanyl and fentanyl analogues. That’s understandable, as Estonia is the only place in the world where fentanyls are the drug of choice for the overwhelming majority of street opioid users. Alas, the methadone program’s international evidence base rests on treating only heroin addiction. That may be the reason why a significant percentage of people receiving methadone also inject additionally — and are sometimes kicked out of the programs when caught. Most of the methadone patients for whom the therapy appears to be giving the best results seem to be people who started using opioids in the 1990s or early 2000s, when fentanyls were not yet the dominant opioids on the market, i.e. people who started their opioid use with poppy extract or heroin. The official bodies have noticed this, and we’ve been told by several official sources that a plan to expand the substitution treatment program with state-funded buprenorphine is currently being considered, so hopefully things will be changing in a better direction.

Naloxone is available in Estonia at five harm reduction centres in Tallinn and the Ida-Viru County. People who want to get it — drug users, their family members, and people with an otherwise heightened probability of witnessing an overdose — have to take a half-hour training course. Unfortunately, awareness of the effects of naloxone, its role in reviving overdose victims, and its availability among injecting drug users is relatively low. I have heard several accounts from people who were stopped and frisked, and after finding a naloxone kit on their person, taken to the police station for medical tests, and later fined and/or arrested. The police don’t hang around needle exchange facilities anymore, trying to arrest clients, but carrying a syringe, either used or clean, on your person is still considered probable cause for drug-testing by the police, which undermines the efforts of harm reduction workers. We’ve recently been told by representatives of the state police and border guard board that such practices are now heavily discouraged, which, if true, would definitely be an important step in the right direction… but I’d like to see that written into law as well.

Repressive drug policies fuel overdoses in Estonia – An interview with Mart Kalvet

Former prime minister Helen Clark will join one of world's leading drug policy reform think tanks, along with other former world leaders.

Clark, who last year lost her bid to become the next Secretary-General of the United Nations, ended her second four-year term with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in April.

And on Thursday (New Zealand time) she was announced as one of the new members of the Global Fund, which aims to reform drug policy in order to reduce societal harm. Helen Clark will be working alongside former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan, and prominent business people and cultural leaders such as Sir Richard Branson.

Helen Clark takes job at Global Commission on Drug Policy

With regional and international heads of state gathering in Manila, the Philippines, for the 31st Asean Summit, which kicks off on Friday and runs through Tuesday, it seems appropriate to examine whether or not there are more effective drug policies than those currently at play in dealing with the harms caused by the presence of drugs in society.

As former heads of state from Africa, Europe and Latin America, we recognise the fear that many communities feel, and the distress of policymakers in dealing with drugs. Sadly, however, this distress has too often resulted in punitive drug policies based on repression with a view of completely ridding society of drugs.

This aim of creating a “drug-free society” has not always dominated the public and political landscape in Southeast Asia. In several countries, traditional uses of some drugs such as cannabis, opium or kratom were tolerated. Indeed, the current prohibitionist international drug control regime is largely a Western construct, based on the UN conventions and political declarations, advancing a “drug-free society” as an objective.

ASEAN: Drugs might harm individuals, but current policies undermine social cohesion

Together with the Cannabis News Network, Martin Jelsma travelled to Colombia to report on the newly emerging medical cannabis industry in the country, specifically looking at the impacts of private investment and licensing on farmers and indigenous communities.

 features a wide variety of experts including Martin Jelsma (Transnational Institute), Andrés López (Director National Narcotics Control), Ricardo Vargas (Director de Acción Andina Colombia), Diana Paola Valenzuela (Institute of Studies for Development and Peace), Julian Caicedo (Anandamida Gardens) and more.  

Colombia Gold: 3 part video series on medical cannabis

By European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction

Europe’s ability to rapidly respond to public health and security threats caused by new psychoactive substances (NPS) will be significantly strengthened, thanks to new legislation published today by the European Union (1).

 and a faster risk-assessment process. The developments are in response to the recent growth in the market in NPS and follow a proposal from the 

 regarding information exchange on, and an early-warning system and risk-assessment procedure for, new psychoactive substances (amending the EMCDDA founding regulation); and

 including new psychoactive substances in the definition of ‘drug’.

New legislation published today to bring faster response to new drugs in Europe

The Philippine government says its war on drugs is producing results. But murder rates are rising, with a large number of deaths linked to police operations. The government denies that over 10,000 extrajudicial killings have taken place during Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs and instead points to a decrease in crimes such as kidnapping or theft.

Civilian deaths rise as Philippines war on drugs continues

สงครามยาเสพติดมีผลต่อสตรีอย่างไร? มันแตกต่างจากที่มันมีผลต่อผู้ชายจริงๆหรือ? ความรู้ของเรามีอยู่อย่างจำกัดมากก่อนที่เราจะสัมภาษณ์ผู้เข้าร่วมการประชุมเชิงปฏิบัติการนานาชาติในบูดาเปสต์

โปรดดูรายงานวิดีโอของเราและอ่านบทความของเรา!ผลกระทบต่อมิติทางเพศของการทำสงครามยาเสพติด

คำบรรยาย มันน่าประทับใจมากที่ได้เข้ามาในห้องเต็มไปด้วยผู้หญิง - จริงๆแล้วผู้หญิงเท่านั้นทั้งในหมู่ผู้ชมและบนเวทีของผู้บรรยาย ฉันไม่เคยเข้าร่วมการประชุมเชิงปฏิบัติการเรื่องหญิงเพียงอย่างเดียวก่อนที่ฉันจะมาสัมภาษณ์ผู้เข้าร่วมการประชุมเชิงปฏิบัติการเรื่องผลกระทบทางเพศของสงครามยาเสพติดในบูดาเปสต์ซึ่งจัดโดยโรงเรียนนโยบายสาธารณะของ CEU สำหรับช่วงเวลาที่ฉันสามารถเอาใจใส่กับผู้หญิงที่เข้าร่วมการประชุมเชิงปฏิบัติการเต็มรูปแบบของผู้ชาย แน่นอนว่าสิ่งที่ฉันรู้สึกว่าเป็นความสนุก แต่สิ่งที่พวกเขารู้สึกก็เหมือนการข่มขู่ในโลกที่ผู้ชายครอบงำ

ในโลกนี้ในฐานะนักสตรีนิยมกล่าวว่าเกือบทุกปรากฏการณ์ในชีวิตทางการเมืองสังคมและเศรษฐกิจของเราถูกสร้างขึ้นจากมุมมองของผู้ชาย สงครามกับยาเสพติดไม่ใช่ข้อยกเว้น ความคิดที่ว่าผลกระทบทางเพศจากการทำสงครามกับยาเสพติดน่าจะเป็นเรื่องที่เห็นได้ชัด

เพื่อรับข้อมูลเกี่ยวกับประเด็นที่เกี่ยวข้องกับนโยบายยาเสพติด

กรุณาดูด้านล่างสำหรับข้อมูลเพิ่มเติมเป็นภาษาอังกฤษ

How does the war on drugs affect women? Is it really so different from how it affects men? Our knowledge was very limited before we interviewed the participants of an international workshop in Budapest. Please watch our video report and read our article!

It was impressive to enter a room full of women – actually only women, both in the audience and on the speakers’ podium. I have never been at a female-only workshop before I came to interview the participants of a workshop on the gendered impacts of the war on drugs in Budapest, organised by the CEU School of Public Policy. For a moment I could empathise with those women who join a workshop full of males. Of course what I felt was amusement, whereas what they feel is more like intimidation in a world dominated by men.

In this world, as feminists say, almost every phenomena in our political, social, and economic life is constructed from the male perspective. The war on drugs is not an exception. The notion that there are overlooked gendered impacts of the war on drugs seems obvious.

Keep up-to-date with drug policy developments by subscribing to the IDPC Monthly Alert.

ผลกระทบต่อมิติทางเพศจากการทำสงครามยาเสพติด

The amount of street heroin testing positive for the deadly opiate fentanyl has skyrocketed over the past five years, according to tests of thousands of samples conducted by Canada’s health regulator. In 2017, 4,568 samples of street drugs seized by law enforcement tested positive for fentanyl, mostly in British Columbia, followed by Ontario, according to Health Canada’s Drug Analysis Service data provided to VICE News. In 2012, just 217 samples tested positive across the country, meaning the amount of drugs cut with fentanyl has increased more than 20-fold. Heroin has seen the biggest jump, with 60 percent of samples in 2017 testing positive for fentanyl or similar chemicals, compared to less than one percent five years ago. Fentanyl was also found in 1.8 percent of cocaine samples and 1.7 percent of meth samples tested this year.

Most heroin tested in Canada is contaminated with fentanyl

In September, we had the honour of bringing an ICEERS delegation to the United Nations, joined by UMIYAC (Union de Medicos Indigenas Yageceros de la Amazonia Colombiana) and Maloca International. We traveled to Geneva to attend the 36th session of the Human Rights Council and the 62nd session of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights that took place at the United Nations offices. Because it was also the 10th anniversary of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples there were also several other events taking place. It was in this context that our delegation had the opportunity to speak about ancestral medicine and medicinal plants with the different UN bodies that monitor the implementation of the core international human rights treaties. UMIYAC is an organization made up of representatives from five Amazonian indigenous communities: the Cofán, Siona, Coreguaje, Inga, and Kamentsá. As traditional healers and 

knowledge holders), their role is to steward ancestral knowledge, to protect their territories, and to offer physical and spiritual healing, such as the trauma left behind by the Colombian armed conflict. Maloca Internationale is an organization based in Geneva that works to promote the inclusion of traditional knowledge in the international legal system. Thanks to this initiative, and in name of all the spiritual authorities of the communities of the UMIYAC, we were able influence the international community through our written and oral declarations through the UN mechanisms.

Yagé and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples at the United Nations

Within the frame of the project "Strengthening NGO capacity and promoting public health and human rights oriented drug policy in South Eastern Europe", funded by EU and OSF, a visit to Slovenia took place on 26 - 28 of September. On behalf of the project partners (and members of DPNSEE), Mr. Sasa Mijovic (NVO4Life), Mr. Erlind Plaku (AksionPlus) and Mr. Nikos Stergiou (Diogenis Drug Policy Dialogue), were the delegates who participated in this activity. The meetings were concluded in an excellent climate and there was great exchange of experiences and good practices on drug policy in Slovenia and in the area of SE Europe.