In a geo-political context vastly different from the ‘mood of change’ that had characterised the 2016 UNGASS debate, it is critical that reform-minded NGOs keep the pressure on both governments and the UN – and continued advocacy at the UN level to challenge the international regime to retain the gains made at the UNGASS is a priority.
The ruling of the South African Constitutional Court regarding the unconstitutionality of full cannabis prohibition challenges the country's status quo, and raises the debate on which regulatory models should be followed.
Cracks in this well-trodden system have long been apparent in Vienna but finally reached a breaking point in an unlikely place – New York – as negotiations for the annual resolution “International cooperation to address and counter the world drug problem” (also known as the drugs “omnibus” resolution) came to a close last month.
The INCB’s intervention was an overwhelmingly positive one, promoting better access to controlled medicines, as well as an end to the application of the death penalty and extrajudicial killings in the name of drug control.
The 2011-2012 HIV outbreak among people who inject drugs in Greece might have subsided, but the structural conditions that facilitated it are still very much in place.
Axel Klein and Maria-Goretti Ane-Loglo discuss why scheduling tramadol would compound, not solve, West Africa's difficulties in managing the informal market.
IDPC and project partners have presented a series of policy guides to advocate reforms in drug and sentencing policies in South East Asia aiming to reduce incarceration and protect the rights of the incarcerated.
Next March, we hope that governments will acknowledge the disastrous human rights impacts of the last decade (and beyond) and openly admit that there is no progress to speak of towards eliminating the global drug market.
