El porcentaje de personas usuarias de cannabis que experimentan el consumo como un problema parece haber disminuido considerablemente en los Estados Unidos.

Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

By Julian Santaella-Tenorio, Natalie S.Levy, Luis E.Segura, Pia M.Mauro, Silvia S.Martins


Cannabis use disorder (CUD) prevalence among people reporting past-year cannabis use declined from 2002–2016. We examined whether similar reductions in CUD were observed among people reporting daily/almost daily cannabis use. We expected that CUD prevalence among people reporting daily/almost daily use would not decrease.


We used 2002–2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) data, including 22,651 individuals using cannabis 300+ days in the past year. CUD was defined using DSM-IV criteria for cannabis abuse and/or dependence. Age categories included: 12–17, 18–25, and 26 + . Annual prevalence of CUD, cannabis dependence, cannabis abuse, and each individual abuse/dependence items accounted for the complex survey design. Differences in trends over time were examined by age group.


From 2002–2016, the prevalence of CUD among people reporting daily/almost daily cannabis use decreased by 26.8% in adolescents, by 29.7% in ages 18–25, and by 37.5% in ages 26 + . Prevalence of DSM-IV cannabis dependence decreased significantly among adolescents (-43.9%) and young adults (-26.8%) but remained stable in adults 26 + . Reductions in most dependence items were observed in young adults, with less consistent patterns in adolescents and adults 26 + . Prevalence of DSM-IV cannabis abuse decreased overall and for each abuse item across all age groups.


Contrary to expectations, CUD prevalence decreased significantly across all ages reporting daily/almost daily cannabis use between 2002–2016. Cannabis dependence prevalence decreased for adolescents and young adults and was stable only among adults ages 26+ reporting daily/almost daily cannabis use. Potential drivers of this decrease should be further explored.

Trastorno por uso de cannabis entre personas que consumen a diario/casi a diario en los Estados Unidos, 2002-2016

La Asociación para los Derechos de las Mujeres y el Desarrollo (AWID) documenta un proceso de construcción entre varios movimientos para forjar una respuesta feminista frente a la opresión que la guerra contra las drogas inflige a las mujeres y a las personas que no se ajustan a los códigos convencionales de género.

From South Africa to Myanmar, from Brazil to Kyrgyzstan, women are resisting the war on drugs. Killings, criminalization, incarceration, denial of medical care, and social stigma are just a few of the effects the war on drugs has had on communities around the world. It targets particular groups, with gender-specific impacts. The war on drugs is clearly a feminist issue.

Yet the effects of repressive drug policies on women, trans and gender-diverse people are rarely discussed in feminist spaces.

Our purpose with this documentation is to share AWID’s experience of strengthening relationships and building trust between feminist movements and women who work on humane drug policy in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) region, and supporting the inspiring global movement-building process led by women who use drugs

We are keen to share this experience because it has been a valuable and deep learning process for AWID as an organization. We believe this process could be useful to groups and movements involved in other cross-movement conversations, and to strengthen relationships and build new alliances.

How feminism can be enriched by the experiences of women who use drugs

How we designed a movement-support process with women who use drugs

The key learnings we drew from this experience

It is critical for feminist movements to develop awareness of the gendered, racial and class aspects of repressive drug policies and the associated criminalization and stigmatization of people who use drugs.

Harm reduction movements intersect with movements of sex workers, people living with HIV, racial justice, and LGBTQI+ movements, among others.

We must expand what feminist logistics mean to us, and make feminist spaces more accessible, safe and welcoming for women who use drugs. This is a particularly important lesson for us in AWID, as an organization that hosts convenings.

We are honored to share our learnings and experience. It has been an incredible opportunity to build new relationships with a growing and inspiring movement led by and for women who use drugs and are affected by drug policies. We have learned a lot, and hope you will too!

Los movimientos feministas y las mujeres en lucha frente a la guerra contra las drogas

ONUSIDA destaca la gran importancia de la participación y el liderazgo de las comunidades para abordar con eficacia la epidemia del VIH.

This report argues that power in fact rests in the hands of the people, as can be seen in countless local, national and international movements to redistribute power and bring greater attention to neglected issues.

Mass movements to redistribute power often have humble beginnings, born out of desperate need or simmering injustice—sparks of frustration that ignite infernos of change. In the early days of the HIV response, grossly insufficient leadership and medical care ignited a global civil society movement. It was the loud and persistent voice of people living with HIV and key populations at high risk of infection that accelerated the pace of research on antiretroviral medicines and drove down their prices, and it is that same determination that continues to expand the provision of affordable, life-saving treatment to millions of people around the world living with HIV.

El poder para las comunidades

La delegación de las ONG de la Junta de ONUSIDA formula una serie de recomendaciones sobre cómo las comunidades pueden contribuir a que se alcance una cobertura sanitaria verdaderamente universal.

Each year, the NGO Delegation to the Programme Coordinating Board (PCB) prepares a report on an aspect of the response to HIV that merits greater prominence, stronger policy perspective and clearer agreement across the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

For 2019, the NGO Delegation report focuses on the essential role of people living with HIV and other key populations, women and young people in making Universal Health Coverage (UHC) truly universal as an effective and efficient strategy that benefits all in need, including those most marginalized.

UHC is a critical issue for both the global health agenda and the global HIV response. It has been the subject of discussions and debates at national, regional and international levels. In some of those multisectoral forums, civil society–– including organizations and networks by and for people living with HIV and other key populations, women and young people––have expressed their needs and concerns in relation to UHC.

The forums have included the Thematic Session on UHC at the 44th UNAIDS PCB Meeting in June 2019, the first United Nations (UN) High-Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage in September 2019, and the associated multistakeholder hearing in April 2019. The High-Level Meeting culminated in the approval of the Political Declaration on Universal Health Coverage.

The Political Declaration on Universal Health Coverage sets out Member States’ conceptual understanding of and political commitments to UHC. The text has been criticized by some in civil society for not explicitly naming key populations who are crucial to the HIV response, such as gay men and other men who have sex with men, people who use drugs, sex workers and trans people. That omission–– especially when compared to the Declaration's naming of "all children, youth, persons with disabilities, people living with HIV, older persons, indigenous peoples, refugees and internally displaced persons and migrants"––risks rendering certain populations invisible in UHC.

Another criticism of the Declaration is that it lacks a practical performance framework that will make results transparent and measurable.
In addition, the text fails to mention key conditions for ending the AIDS epidemic, such as the decriminalization of all key populations, a matter that is critically important to both key populations and the entire HIV response.
The Political Declaration does, however, provide a starting point for:

educating communities about why UHC is important to the HIV movement; ▪ raising awareness about health as a human right; and

initiating advocacy actions to strengthen government commitments to UHC and ensure that UHC at the country-level is truly universal.

Globally, the Declaration provides a consensus tool through which stakeholders can hold governments to account and advocate for action, including for ensuring that UHC is truly universal.

The 2019 NGO Delegation Report builds on the foundations laid thus far for UHC, while looking ahead to its next phase, when the Political Declaration will be operationalized. During that phase, countries will contribute to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 3.32 and several other targets by accelerating the development and implementation of UHC plans, packages and partnerships.

To support this, the NGO Delegation report goes beyond civil society’s previous advocacy messages ("what we need from UHC") to a more forthright approach ("what we bring to UHC").

The report focuses in particular on the contributions of organizations and networks led by people living with HIV and other key populations, women and young people, which have played a unique and essential role in responses to HIV, and whose work can now be replicated, adapted and scaled-up in the context of UHC and other areas of health.

The 45th Meeting of the PCB is one of the first major international gatherings to take place since the UN High-Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage. This report seeks to maximize this opportunity and the leadership role of the Joint Programme and Member States by:

increasing understanding, and illustrating good practices and lessons learned about the significant contributions which communities, organizations and networks of people living with HIV and other key populations, women and young people can make to UHC, based on their experiences of responding to HIV; and

reconfirming existing PCB decision points and recommending new ones, so the Joint Programme can support those contributions within the operationalization of the Political Declaration and the fulfilment of a truly universal UHC.

Para que sea realmente universal: Por qué la cobertura sanitaria universal no tendrá éxito sin las personas que viven con el VIH y otras poblaciones clave, las mujeres y los jóvenes

La organización HRI actualiza datos fundamentales sobre la prestación de servicios de reducción de daños en todo el mundo, destacando unos avances muy discretos.

The 2019 update to Harm Reduction International’s flagship publication, the Global State of Harm Reduction, includes updates to some of the key data in the report, including the opening of new drug consumption rooms, availability of needle and syringe programs, and references to harm reduction in national policy documents, among many other things.

The Global State of Harm Reduction is a biennial report from Harm Reduction International. First published in 2008, it involves a coordinated effort across practitioners, academics, advocates and activists to map global data and responses to drug-related harms.

It is the only report to provide an independent analysis of the state of harm reduction in the world and has become the go-to source on global harm reduction developments for researchers and advocates in our sector and beyond.

In November 2019, the Public Health and Social Policy team at Harm Reduction International worked to provide an update one year on from the publication of the Global State of Harm Reduction 2018.

La situación de la reducción de daños en el mundo 2019

El Observatorio de las Drogas y las Toxicomanías (OEDT) ofrece una visión general de los mercados informales de drogas en la UE, y pone de relieve su constante expansión y diversificación.

The EU Drug Markets Report 2019 is the third comprehensive overview of illicit drug markets in the European Union by the EMCDDA and Europol. The analysis presented in this report spans numerous topics such as the links between drugs and other crimes, the licit economy and society more generally as well as the processes and players involved in the trade, from production and trafficking to distribution. Taking an evidence-based approach, the report reviews the markets for heroin, cocaine, cannabis, amphetamine, methamphetamine, MDMA and new psychoactive substances. It also provides action points to inform policy development at EU and national level. This publication is an essential reference for law enforcement professionals, policymakers, the academic community and indeed for anyone seeking up-to-date information and analysis on drug markets in Europe.

Informe sobre los mercados de drogas en la UE 2019

El IDPC y TNI retrazan el largo proceso que conllevó el desarrollo de la Posición común del sistema de la ONU sobre políticas de drogas. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

La Posición común del sistema de la ONU sobre políticas de drogas está disponible aquí

In November 2018, the UN System CEB adopted the ‘UN system common position supporting the implementation of the international drug control policy through effective inter-agency collaboration’, expressing the shared drug policy principles of all UN organisations and committing them to speak with one voice. The CEB is the highest-level coordination forum of the UN system, convening biannual meetings of the heads of all UN agencies, programmes and related institutions, chaired by the UN SecretaryGeneral. The CEB’s mandate dates back to the early days of the formation of the UN system, when ECOSOC in 1946 requested the UN Secretary-General to establish a standing committee to coordinate the activities of the multiple specialised entities of the UN system. The resolution led to the establishment of the Administrative Committee on Coordination (ACC), the predecessor of today’s CEB.

The 2000 Millennium Summit represented the first significant streamlining of inter-agency structures, away from individual programme areas, and focusing on cross-sectoral policy objectives, such as sustainable development and gender mainstreaming. It marked ‘the beginning of a new phase, where the organizations of the system now have, in the United Nations Millennium Declaration, a single overarching policy framework, to which they are individually and collectively committed’. The CEB, the new name given to the ACC in 2001, ‘intended to reflect this new state of play and this collective commitment’: ‘The expression “Chief Executives Board” rather than Committee is meant to reflect the transition from a collection of organizations that come together to “compare notes”, to a collegial body whose participants share a collective responsibility for nurturing the new reality that the system has come to represent’.

The subsequent 2005 World Summit Outcome Document called for ‘stronger system-wide coherence’ by strengthening linkages between the normative work of the UN system and its operational activities, and invited the UN Secretary-General ‘to launch work to further strengthen the management and coordination of United Nations operational activities so that they can make an even more effective contribution to the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals’.9 In response, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan set up the High-level Panel on UN System-wide Coherence, which published its report with recommendations in November 2006 under the title ‘Delivery as One’, focusing on the areas of development, humanitarian assistance and the environment. The work of the UN ‘is often fragmented and weak’ and, according to the Panel: ‘Inefficient and ineffective governance and unpredictable funding have contributed to policy incoherence, duplication and operational ineffectiveness across the system. Cooperation between organizations has been hindered by competition for funding, mission creep and by outdated business practices’. The Panel also called on the CEB to review its functions ‘with a view to improving its performance and accountability for system-wide coherence’, because although the CEB ‘has led to some improvement in interagency coordination […] the Board’s potential has been underexploited and its decision-making role has been underused’.

The transition from the ‘Millennium’ to the ‘Sustainable’ Development Goals in 2015 was accompanied by a policy review of operational activities for development in the UN system, because ‘the integrated nature of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development requires a United Nations development system that works in a coordinated and coherent manner’. The General Assembly also requested the UN SecretaryGeneral to present proposals to improve the collective support of the UN development system for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, including through a more robust Resident Coordinator system.

Referring to the Secretary-General’s ‘overall vision to focus on root causes and the prevention of crises and vulnerabilities across all pillars’, Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed ‘emphasized that tangible results achieved on the ground benefitting the people that the United Nations system served would be the true test of the reform efforts’. She underscored that the UN system ‘would have to embrace change in order to live up to the ambition set by Member States through the 2030 Agenda and other commitments’ and that ‘a common understanding of the direction of change was emerging towards a better coordinated, integrated and coherent country presence, with real accountability for system-wide results’.

Within this broader UN reform context, and following up on the outcomes of the 2016 UNGASS, the drugs issue came to the agenda of the CEB as one of the cross-cutting issues for which a more coherent approach needed to be developed. The resulting UN System Common Position on drug policy, released in January 2019, commits to ‘supporting Member States in developing and implementing truly balanced, comprehensive, integrated, evidence-based, human rights-based, development-oriented, and sustainable responses to the world drug problem, within the framework of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’. It supports ‘policies that put people, health and human rights at the centre’ and promotes ‘measures aimed at minimizing the adverse public health consequences of drug abuse, by some referred to as harm reduction’, ‘sustainable livelihoods through adequatelysequenced, well-funded and long-term developmentoriented drug policies in rural and urban areas affected by illicit drug activities’, and ‘alternatives to conviction and punishment in appropriate cases, including the decriminalization of drug possession for personal use’. It also calls ‘for changes in laws, policies and practices that threaten the health and human rights of people’ and ‘to cooperate to ensure human rights-based drug control and address impunity for serious human rights violations in the context of drug control efforts’. The CEB members also committed to stepping up their joint efforts to ‘provide Member States with a necessary evidence base to make informed policy decisions and to better understand the risks and benefits of new approaches to drug control, including those relating to cannabis’.

The CEB Common Position – not a binding document for Member States but a powerful instrument to harmonise the voice and activities of all UN entities – represents a significant step towards improving UN system-wide coherence and can guide the global drug policy debate towards a more health, development and human rights-based approach. Crucially, to ensure that the Common Position does not simply remain a piece of paper, a UN system coordination Task Team has been established to ensure that coherent efforts are undertaken to realise its commitments, and it will serve as an authoritative policy directive to UN Resident Coordinators for implementing drug-related programmes on the ground and assisting Member States in policy development.

Achieving more system-wide coherence under the banner of ‘Delivering as One’ or ‘One UN’, and aligning with the overarching SDG framework has been a particularly difficult challenge in the area of drug policy. This briefing paper reconstructs the long and troubled process that led to the adoption of this ground-breaking UN System Common Position.

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