In this video, INCB President Dr. Naidoo discusses drug prevention and treatment, access to essential medicines for HIV treatment and pain relief, cannabis policy reform, and the role of the INCB as a partner for implementing the conventions.
We are now seeing a long overdue, and most welcome, reassessment in US federal drug policy, but much remains to be done to move away from a punishment paradigm.
The Global Day of Action was an incredible show of people power, but we need to keep this pressure on and keep pushing for reform. If we do, we can change the public and political rhetoric around drugs.
It was refreshing to hear so many government officials at this COPOLAD meeting discussing the need for evidence-based drug treatment, but also for access to harm reduction services and for the decriminalisation of drug use.
As countries around the world grow weary of a system devised in very different circumstances and that fails to meet the policy needs of the contemporary age, the time for platitudes is surely past.
Mary Chinery-Hesse, an IDPC Board Member gives some feedback on the launch of the first report of the West African Commission on Drugs, and the lessons we can draw from the report for the region.
The intention of the event was to foster open dialogue and debate about the links between drug policy and development, particularly in preparation for joint advocacy at the 2016 UNGASS.
Though now under military control, it is hoped that some space for open, inclusive drug policy debate can be sustained, especially as Thailand is likely to chair the next CND in 2015, a key moment in preparations for UNGASS 2016.
