Amnistía Internacional insta a los Estados miembros de la ONU a garantizar que el respeto y la protección de los derechos humanos sea una parte integral de la UNGASS 2016 y su documento final. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

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Amnesty International urges UN Member States, ahead of the next inter-sessional meeting of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), to ensure that the respect and protection of human rights are an integral part of the UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on drugs and its Outcome Document. More than a month after formal negotiations began in Vienna, crucial references to human rights are still absent from the current draft Outcome Document, while certain recommendations fall below international human rights law and standards.

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

Los Estados deben reafirmar su compromiso con los derechos humanos en la próxima Sesión Especial de la ONU y detener las contravenciones cometidas en nombre del control de drogas

Las ONG que están siguiendo más de cerca el proceso de preparación no anticipan cambios importantes, pero sí vislumbran oportunidades para avanzar en la dirección acertada. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

With the UN’s drug control policy setting bathed in opaque diplomatic light, civil society advocates are left looking for the subtleties of language and tone to spot any sign of change. The NGOs closest to the United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on the world’s drug problem in April aren’t expecting dramatic changes, but they do see things moving in the right direction. 

In the words of the Grateful Dead, what a long, strange trip it’s been. Debates at UNGASS 2016, the UN General Assembly’s third grand meeting to discuss and agree policy around drugs, will be inseparable from what happened at the first in 1990 and what took place in the decade that followed, which was characterised by both the UN’s strongest actions to control the supply of and demand for non-medical drugs and growing doubts about the wisdom of the strategy.

That decade was foreshadowed by the 1988 Vienna Convention on Trafficking, which broke new ground in asserting that criminalisation of drug use, and not just trafficking, was also a matter of treaty compliance. It set the stage for UNGASS 1990’s adoption of a Global Programme of Action and the branding of the years 1991–2000 as the United Nations Decade Against Drug Abuse.

The establishment of the United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) in 1991 was seen as the beginning of a new era in the fight against drugs. A three-day meeting of the General Assembly in 1993 was intended to foster an unheralded degree of international cooperation in the post-Iron Curtain years. It was to be a new era.

“We have the machinery; we need now to make it work better,” declared the British delegation in 1993.

“In particular, we need a more solid international front in support of the 1988 United Nations Convention. This is an instrument with teeth, and we need to make it bite.”

The confidence in this better engineered project to reduce both the supply and demand for drugs echoed throughout the second grand meeting, UNGASS 1998. “A drug-free world – we can do it!” was the meeting’s slogan – and the concluding line of a UN-funded TV ad featuring helicopters spraying herbicides, fields of burning drug crops, armed soldiers and a farmer processing coffee.

Click here to read the full article, part 1.

Fordham says that, for many countries, acknowledgement of harm reduction does not extend to all types of drug use. Stimulants and crack cocaine fall outside the harm-reduction comfort zone. “And then the real outer limits of harm reduction, what’s still a fight, is around safe injection rooms, drug consumption rooms. That is not accepted at the UN level. It’s seen as too controversial, too much to do with facilitating drug use. And then also heroin-assisted treatment – that’s heroin prescribing for people who are dependent on heroin and finding substitution treatment isn’t working. Those are the outer limits.”

The IDPC has published a list of five UNGASS ‘asks’, which largely concern good faith. But the final one – “commit to the harm reduction approach” – is specific without insisting on a form of words.

“When we say that, we say commit to it in its broadest sense,” says Fordham. “We have this debate with member states about how hard you push for the words ‘harm’ and ‘reduction’ to appear next to each other in a political document. That’s still a difficult fight to win.”

“There will be a fight over it, and it’s a fight worth having,” says Steve Rolles, Senior Policy Analyst at Transform, a British charitable think tank that campaigns for the legalisation and regulation of drugs. “But as long as the principle is captured, I think the semantics may not be the biggest concern.

“The objectors will look increasingly childish and petulant given realities on the ground and in the UN system – harm reduction has a more accepted definition in the UN context, in terms of the UNODC, UNAIDS, World Health Organization (WHO) technical guidelines – so it’s not impossible they will finally cave in, especially if the US changes its position.”

One break from the past is already evident, however. At UNGASS 2016, civil society groups will be more visible and engaged than ever.

“The civil society engagement has been exponentially greater than last time – the reform movement has expanded enormously,” says Rolles.

Click here to read the full article, part 2.

Dunne says the NDP is “quite a significant shift from its predecessors”. And that shift is no more evident than in the policy’s ground-breaking recognition that the harms of illicit drugs may stem from the very laws against them. In launching the policy in September, Dunne said that “the laws we make need to be reasonable, and it is crucial that our enforcement response is proportionate”.

And yet, the policy also says that New Zealand’s Misuse of Drugs Act will not be changed. It’s a political contortion, but one likely to be reflected at UNGASS. Fordham sees a groundswell around the proportionality of drug offence sentences.

“This will be a key debate in the UNGASS process, and for the first time, we’re seeing language coming from member state submissions about the need to address the proportionality of sentences that’s in the submission from the US. Many of the Latin American countries also have a massive incarceration issue.”

She says sentences for low-level drug offences in many countries exceed those for rape, aggravated assault and, in some countries, even murder.

“There’s an acknowledgement that we’ve gone down a route that is far too repressive, and that has created a number of their problems. And has that really made our communities safer? Probably not.”

New Zealand Drug Foundation Executive Director Ross Bell says New Zealand goes into UNGASS in a unique position in that its attempt to find a new way to deal with new drugs, the Psychoactive Substances Act (PSA), has little support at international level. The government would be in an awkward position if a substance that made it through the PSA’s approval process was subsequently scheduled under the UN drug treaties, as mephedrone was last year at Britain’s behest.

Click here to read the full article, part 3.

UNGASS 2016: ¿perspectivas de cambio?

Con miras a la UNGASS 2016, Georgia puede entenderse como prueba de que los enfoques basados en la represión frente a las políticas de drogas resultan más perjudiciales que beneficiosos. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

In the Republic of Georgia, there is one crime that is punishable with more prison time than rape or even murder: possession of more than one gram of heroin, regardless of intent.

Georgia positions itself as a model for government reform and new thinking. We have one of the youngest prime ministers in the world and government buildings of glass to symbolize transparency and visible change. But on drugs, old-school punitive policies remain the norm. Starting in 2007, the government enacted a policy of wide-scale street sweeps, drug testing, crippling fines, and harsh sentences.

Each year, police in Georgia detain tens of thousands of people in the streets and subject them to urine drug tests. If this single test is positive (contrary to standard practice, no confirmatory test is used) a fine equaling twice the monthly salary of the average Georgian is imposed. Subsequent positive tests during a 12-month period can result in prison time.

A new study by me and colleagues from the addiction research center Alternative Georgia takes a hard look at the impacts of this approach. We found that these punitive measures didn’t stop people from using drugs—in fact, 89 percent of people punished for drug use after positive urine tests returned to drugs immediately.

But the street sweeps did result in behavior change, though presumably not the kind authorities intended: drug users adopted risky practices to avoid being identified by the police.

For instance, many people switched from heroin to buprenorphine or amphetamines to evade standard the drug tests. These drugs are commonly used in a way that requires a group of injectors to collaborate, either because the drug is expensive or because a group of people is required to procure and cook the substance. In either instance, injection often happens with several people sharing a common container, filters, or large-volume syringes used for loading smaller syringes, increasing the risk of blood-borne infections.

Chemicals are used for processing many of the homemade stimulants and opioids that people switched to in order to avoid police detection. Some of these—such as phosphorus, iodine, potassium permanganate, and gasoline—cause serious soft tissue damage, necrosis, gangrene, and neurological side effects.

Police crackdowns have also driven people who use drugs into their homes, where they more often inject alone to avoid detection, increasing their risk of dying from an overdose. And attempts to self-medicate and substitute traditional drugs with new ones have resulted in most drug injectors switching to unstructured poly-substance use, meaning they consume whatever drugs are available at the time, often in combination, in an effort to mimic the effect of their drug of choice.

Georgia: una buena prueba de que los duros castigos no acaban con el uso de drogas

La Fundación Rights Reporter (RRF) abre el plazo para recibir propuestas para su concurso de pósters ‘Hablemos claro sobre las drogas’, pieza de su campaña de sensibilización sobre las posibles alternativas a las políticas de drogas punitivas. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

The Rights Reporter Foundation (RRF) is now accepting submissions to the “Let's Get Real About Drugs!” poster contest, as part of our campaign to raise awareness on alternatives to punitive drug policies. The contest is targeting the 20-year review of global drug control efforts at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on drugs in New York, April 2016. For details and the rules of the contest, please see below.

What is the UNGASS and why is it significant in drug history?

In April 2016, the UN will hold a General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on drugs – a meeting of high-ranking government officials in New York to review the past 20 years of global drug control efforts and to adopt an outcome document. The last UNGASS on drugs took place in New York 20 years ago, in 1998. That meeting was dominated by the slogan “A drug-free world: we can do it!” and, accordingly, the target adopted was to significantly reduce the demand and supply of illicit drugs within 10 years.

Twenty years later, we can see that member states have failed to achieve these targets. The problem is, that drugs are here to stay - a drug-free world is an illusion. However, we have learned in these 20 years what really works instead of more repression: more prevention, more treatment and more harm reduction. What works is not punishment - but investing in public health, respecting human rights and providing social care for vulnerable people. We have robust scientific evidence proving that programs such as needle and syringe programs, community treatment, street outreach, drug consumption rooms, opiate substitution treatment, drug checking, interactive school prevention, social reintegration are not only very effective in reducing drug-related harms, but save money for the whole of society. Still, governments spend trillions of dollars on drug law enforcement, but only a fragment of what would be needed on harm reduction programs. The first draft of the UNGASS outcome document does not event mention harm reduction programs. This is unacceptable in the 21st century!

For further reading on the UNGASS 2016 and its significance, see:

What is UNGASS 2016? (Open Society Foundations)

The International Drug Policy Consortium’s official website

UNGASS: Weighing the Chances (Drugreporter)

We can see from recent UN statements that there is a spirit of reform in the air – but without pressure from civil society, we cannot expect governments to do anything other than congratulate themselves for what they have done already. There is very little knowledge or discussion, amongst the general public, about the failure of the punitive drug policies and the success of harm reduction – therefore we need to raise public awareness of the harms caused by this system, and promote alternatives to the current framework. This is the intended purpose of the posters we are calling for. The posters will be exhibited in New York City during the UNGASS in April.

This contest aims to contribute to the above aim by highlighting the unintended consequences of drug control efforts on public health, crime, environment, human rights – by articulating personal stories and tragedies, lost opportunities and liberties, and the irreversible damage that has been caused to lives and property. We are also looking for posters pointing out what really works instead of punishment: harm reduction and treatment programs, reality-based education, pragmatism, success stories, lives spared and money saved. We are looking for creative, attention-grabbing and poignant images which will graphically express the everyday reality and impact of the global drug war on public health, public security and human rights.

Deadline for poster submission is the 15th of March, 2016

Click here to have more information about the contest rules, recommended topics and prizes.

Hablemos claro sobre las drogas – Concurso de pósters

Este estudio subraya la necesidad de adoptar un enfoque de reducción de daños para mitigar las consecuencias negativas del uso de drogas inyectadas. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

In the early 1990s, drug production in Colombia diversified to include heroin as well as cocaine, and since then the country's role in the heroin trade has substantially increased. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Colombia produced approximately 70 to 100 metric tons of heroin between 1998 and 2004. Studies have found an increase in local heroin use since the mid-1990s. This is a strong cause for concern, given the potential for HIV to spread through networks of injection drug users and disseminate to the general public.

In 1999 the Colombian Ministry of Health confirmed the first cases of HIV among people who inject drugs (PWID). The threat of an HIV/AIDS epidemic in Colombia may be especially pressing, as increased incidence of heroin injection has accompanied the rise in heroin use. However, despite such concerns, drug injection in Colombia remains a largely understudied practice.

A recent study by Pedro Mateu-Gelabert, PhD, principal investigator with New York University's Center for Drug Use and HIV Research (CDUHR) and NDRI, Inc., examined injection risk behaviors among heroin injectors in the Colombian cities of Medellín and Pereira to explore the implications for possible increased HIV transmission within PWID.

"The two cities were chosen because they are epicenters for street level drug sales and preliminary research indicated a sizeable number of young PWID in both cities," said Dr. Mateu-Gelabert.

, the study, "Heroin Use and Injection Risk Behaviors in Colombia: Implications for HIV/AIDS Prevention," began with six non-randomly selected PWID "seed" participants over the age of 18, who were chosen to recruit their peers, who in turn recruited their peers. Through six to seven waves of recruitment in each city, the study accumulated a total of 540 participants. Field researchers conducted a structured hour-long interview with each participant, and collected a small blood sample via finger prick to test for HIV. On average, participants were 25 years of age, with the median age being 24. By sample design, all participants injected heroin.

For their first time injecting, most participants (60%) report they were assisted by a close friend, 12% reported they were helped by other known people, and 17% reported they self-injected. On average, participants started injecting drugs at 21 years of age. Participants reported an average of 3.2 injections per day, 73% responded one to three times a day, and the other 27% reported injecting four or more times per day.

"Syringe sharing was quite common among participants," says Dr. Mateu-Gelabert. "42% said they used previously used syringes provided by other PWID. Forty-nine percent of participants also reported sharing cookers, filters, or rinse water."

Aplicación de intervenciones de reducción de daños entre personas que se inyectan drogas para evitar la epidemia del VIH en Colombia

La regulación de las drogas llevaría a priorizar las cuestiones relacionadas con la salud y los derechos humanos. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

In my experience, good public policy is best shaped by the dispassionate analysis of what in practice has worked, or not. Policy based on common assumptions and popular sentiments can become a recipe for mistaken prescriptions and misguided interventions.

Nowhere is this divorce between rhetoric and reality more evident than in the formulation of global drug policies, where too often emotions and ideology rather than evidence have prevailed.

Take the case of the medical use of cannabis. By looking carefully at the evidence from the United States, we now know that legalizing the use of cannabis for medical purposes has not, as opponents argued, led to an increase in its use by teenagers. By contrast, there has been a near tripling of American deaths from heroin overdoses between 2010 and 2013, even though the law and its severe punishments remain unchanged.

This year, between April 19 and 21, the United Nations General Assembly will hold a special session on drugs and the world will have a chance to change course. As we approach that event, we need to ask ourselves if we are on the right policy path. More specifically, how do we deal with what the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has called the "unintended consequences" of the policies of the last 50 years, which have helped, among other things, to create a vast, international criminal market in drugs that fuels violence, corruption and instability? Just think of the 16,000 murders in Mexico in 2013, many of which are directly linked to drug trafficking.

Noticias

Los Estados deben reafirmar su compromiso con los derechos humanos en la próxima Sesión Especial de la ONU y detener las contravenciones cometidas en nombre del control de drogas

UNGASS 2016: ¿perspectivas de cambio?

Georgia: una buena prueba de que los duros castigos no acaban con el uso de drogas

Hablemos claro sobre las drogas – Concurso de pósters

Aplicación de intervenciones de reducción de daños entre personas que se inyectan drogas para evitar la epidemia del VIH en Colombia

Kofi Annan: por qué ha llegado el momento de legalizar las drogas