Le cannabis médical deviendra disponible pour les patients qui en ont besoin, étant donné que le conseil des ministres de la Thaïlande donne son consentement à ce que la loi sur les drogues soit réformée. Pour en savoir plus, en anglais, veuillez lire les informations ci-dessous.

The cabinet on Tuesday approved a draft amendment to the 1979 Narcotics Act to legalise cannabis for medical and research purposes. However, all use of the drug will be kept under strict control. Government spokesman Buddhipongse Punnakanta said the amended version of the act will "level up" marijuana to a Category 2 drug from its current Category 5 status. Mr Buddhipongse said this means the draft amendment to the law will allow the use, import and export, as well as possession of marijuana exclusively for medical purposes.

Thaïlande : Le cannabis autorisé pour la recherche et l’usage médical

Un rapport d’analyse coûts-avantages de la fondation sur les drogues établit que la suppression des lois rigides sur les drogues pourrait bénéficier à l’économie de la Nouvelle Zélande à hauteur de 450 millions de dollars par année. Pour en savoir plus, en anglais, veuillez lire les informations ci-dessous.

Reforming New Zealand’s “punitive” drug laws - including the decriminalisation of all drugs and introduction of a legal market for cannabis - would benefit the country by at least $450 million a year, according to a cost-benefit analysis commissioned by the Drug Foundation.

The report, produced by economist Shamubeel Eaqub from consultancy Sense Partners, says there would be a net social benefit of at least $225 million from investing an extra $150m in addiction treatment, drug education, and harm reduction interventions.

It estimates there would be a net social benefit of $34m to $83m from replacing the Misuse of Drugs Act, passed in 1975, with a new law based on a health-based approach to the issue.

Creating a legal, regulated market for the purchase of cannabis would bring $185m to $240m in new tax revenue while also saving the justice sector $6m to $13m, the report says.

The release of the report comes as the Government carries out inquiries into New Zealand’s mental health and addiction services, while also preparing for a referendum on legalising the personal use of cannabis by the next election - a commitment in the Greens’ confidence and su

Un argument économique solide pour la réforme des politiques des drogues en Nouvelle Zélande

La régulation au Royaume-Uni assurera que les produits à base de cannabis seront fournis uniquement par des cliniciens agréés figurant sur la liste du SRGMC. Pour en savoir plus, en anglais, veuillez lire les informations ci-dessous.

Today is undoubtedly a landmark moment but - as foreshadowed in earlier posts - the regime will be more restrictive than many persons in the media, and certain commentators, had claimed a few months ago. The reason is that the medicines legislation (and not just the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971) was/is bound to set the ‘pace’ in relation to Cannabis-based medicinal products (CBMPs).

The Misuse of Drugs (Amendments) (Cannabis and Licence Fees) (E.W.&S) Regulations 2018 (SI 2018 No.1055)

A useful and comprehensive statement of the current position has been published by the MHRA, “The supply, manufacture, importation and distribution of unlicensed cannabis-based products for medicinal use in humans ‘specials’”.

A letter dated 31st Oct 2018 from the DHSC and NHS England is informative but there are two statements within it that need to be treated with discretion:

“Moving cannabis based products for medicinal use to schedule 2 will mean those [products] can be prescribed medicinally where there is an unmet clinical need”

Prescrire des produits médicinaux à base de cannabis : aller de l’avant à partir des points de repère

Au Royaume-Uni, les personnes de couleur sont ciblées de manière disproportionnée par les forces de l’ordre malgré le fait qu’elles consomment des drogues de manière plus limitée. Pour en savoir plus, en anglais, veuillez lire les informations ci-dessous.

The oppression of people of colour in the name of the "war on drugs" has long been associated with mass incarceration and the overuse of stop-and-search.

Of those incarcerated for drug offences in US federal prisons, nearly 80 percent are black or Latino. In state prisons, these groups account for almost 60 percent of the prison population. Cannabis laws in the US also heavily fall on the black community, with African-Americans nearly four times more likely to be arrested for possession of the drug compared to the white population, despite using cannabis at roughly the same rate as the white population.

The issue of race and drugs is not just a problem in the United States. Around the world we see people of colour being subject to police harassment, arrest, imprisonment and even, in some countries, the use of extrajudicial killings – all under the guise of repressing the drugs trade. This is why there is a need for people of colour to come together to discuss the impact of drugs.

Le Royaume-Uni doit adopter une approche de justice raciale au sein de sa politique des drogues

Fêter le 10e anniversaire d’INPUD est l’opportunité pour des personnes du monde entier de collaborer pour défendre les droits et la santé des usagers de drogues. Pour en savoir plus, en anglais, veuillez lire les informations ci-dessous.

The world over, communities of people who use drugs experience endemic violence, abuse, stigmatisation, and discrimination. In the last year alone, tens of thousands of people who use drugs have died as a result of prohibition, as a result of criminalisation, and as a result of the social exclusion they suffer for nothing more than their status as drug users. All over the world, people who use drugs are incarcerated and imprisoned; they are incarcerated without due legal process in forced labour camps; they are tortured and executed; they are denied access to healthcare, service provision, and harm reduction; they are harassed and assaulted by the police. This is a time of humanitarian calamities for our communities. Huge numbers of people continue to die from avoidable opiate overdose as a result of using heroin that is contaminated or of unknown purity and strength, due to the unregulated black-market of prohibition. Overdose mortalities are rising exponentially globally. Overdose deaths are now the most prevalent cause of death of under 50s in the USA. Further to this tragic and unnecessary loss of life are the tens of thousands of drug users murdered in state-endorsed killings. Tens of thousands have been killed by the police in numerous contexts in only the last year.

INPUD : Journée internationale des usagers de drogues 2018

Le Congrès mexicain devrait amender la loi nationale dans un délai de 90 jours. Pour en savoir plus, en anglais, veuillez lire les informations ci-dessous.

Mexico’s Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that an absolute ban on recreational use of marijuana was unconstitutional, effectively leaving it to lawmakers to regulate consumption of the drug.

Announcing it had found in favor of two legal challenges filed against prohibition of recreational marijuana use, Mexico’s top court crossed the threshold needed to create jurisprudence: five similar rulings on the matter.

That creates a precedent other Mexican courts will have to follow.

“This is a historic day,” Fernando Belaunzaran, an advocate of drug reform and member of the opposition leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), said.

The Supreme Court made its first ruling to allow a group of people to grow marijuana for personal use in November 2015.

La Cour suprême du Mexique déclare que l’interdiction du cannabis destiné à un usage récréatif est inconstitutionnelle

L’atelier vise à améliorer la capacité du personnel pénitentiaire à protéger et assister les détenus, y compris les usagers de drogues. Pour en savoir plus, en anglais, veuillez lire les informations ci-dessous.

The Zimbabwe Civil Liberties and Drug Network (ZCLDN) has this year held two capacity building workshops on promoting harm reduction in the country’s prisons. The two workshops held in August and October were attended by senior Zimbabwe Prison and Correctional Services officers and middle management officers.

The capacity building workshop was attended by senior officers from the Harare Metro province based at the Harare Central, Chikurubi Maximum, Women and Farm prisons. ZCLDN director, Wilson Box said the workshops were meant to enhance knowledge of drug and substance use among prison officers and change attitudes and values towards drug use and reduce risk behavior associated with substance use among key populations including drug users. “Prisoners are key populations and they are vulnerable to be infected by diseases. Therefore, there is need for humane treatment of prisoners including those who use drugs and we need to introduce the concept of harm reduction and drug policy reform,” Box said. The prison officers went through the process of implementing and disseminating drug use and harm reduction strategies to inmates

Le personnel pénitentiaire du Zimbabwe suit une formation sur la promotion de la réduction des risques

Le Ministère a reconnu qu’un meilleur monitorage est nécessaire. Pour en savoir plus, en anglais, veuillez lire les informations ci-dessous.

Ontario’s corrections ministry says it does not track the number of opioid overdoses in its jails, even though prisoners have died and staff are routinely treating inmates for overdoses.

That has observers of the jail system wondering how the province expects to combat a major health crisis and keep people safe without a full statistical picture of the drug overdose problem.

Last May, this newspaper sent a freedom-of-information request to the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services, asking how many overdoses there have been in provincial jails, and how many times staff have administered the antidote naloxone.

Five months later, the answer has arrived.

The number of overdoses and cases where naloxone is used are “not maintained in a central databank,” the ministry says in a letter.

As a result, counting up the totals would require “an extensive manual search within each inmate’s file in each provincial jail covering the specified time period.”

We also asked how many drugs seizures there were in jails during two six-month periods in 2017 and 2018. The ministry says it seized suspected drugs 206 times from May to October on 2017, and 111 times in the five months after that (with figures not available for the sixth month).

Even then, it cautions that jail staff can’t really say whether the seized materials are drugs, since this would require testing.

Ministry spokesman Brent Ross sent a statement Monday saying that “the ministry is developing a tracking system for naloxone use, which will act as an indicator of the number of overdoses taking place.” He said he can’t speculate when the tracking system will begin, “but work is ongoing.”

Drogues en prison : le Canada déclare qu’il ne surveille ni les overdoses, ni l'usage de naloxone

Il y avait une overdose en moyenne par jour au Portugal avant la dépénalisation ; en 2016, ce chiffre a baissé à 27 pour l’année entière. Pour en savoir plus, en anglais, veuillez lire les informations ci-dessous.

By Heather Knight, San Francisco Cronicle

San Francisco likes to think of itself as on the cutting edge of everything. If it’s smart and compassionate public policy, the thinking goes, it probably started here.

But any quick walk around downtown - with widespread human misery on full display - makes it obvious our city doesn't have all the answers. So who does? When it comes to drug policy, experts from around the world are looking to Portugal.

Portugal? It doesn’t come up in most San Franciscans’ daily conversations, but maybe it should.

On Monday morning, I got the chance to interview Dr. Joao Castel-Branco Goulao, a physician and Portugal’s national drug coordinator. He helped his country craft its drug policies — which are widely praised as both humane and effective.

Neither adjective would be used to describe San Francisco’s drug policy, which seems to revolve around looking the other way as users inject in public, toss their dirty needles on the sidewalks, and become sitting ducks for dealers

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