In 2010, observers of the UK heroin scene noticed signs of disruption in the normally well-supplied and efficiently administered UK heroin market. IDPC has been monitoring the situation closely, both in the UK and continental Europe. This briefing paper provides an overview of the European…
The Australian Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy has outlined the national drug strategy for 2010-2015, a framework for action on alcohol, tobacco and other drugs.
Efforts to reduce the demand for illicit drugs through school-based and mass education campaigns have been generally disappointing. In contrast, there is good evidence that reducing the demand for illicit drugs through drug dependence treatment can be effective at the individual and also the…
The Global Commission on Drug Policies has issued a series of background documents on drug policy, in an effort to bring to the international level an informed, science-based discussion about humane and effective ways to reduce the harm caused by drugs to people and society.
This paper, written in collaboration with the Correlation Network, describes the law enforcement and community involvement elements of the strategy, and provides available data on the results achieved so far.
In this paper, IDPC asks that the Commission considers a number of issues in relation to addressing punitive laws and practices that effectively criminalise the lives of people who use drugs in South East Asia and calls on governments to address these issues as a matter of urgency.
This report examines the role of the news media, a medium that has a potentially important role in influencing the prevalence, patterns and harms associated with illicit drug consumption in Australia.
This report looks at how evidence-based services such as heroin treatment, injection rooms, and needle exchange can lower HIV infection rates, improve health outcomes, and lower crime rates, based on the example of Switzerland.
This report summarises the insights gained from a literature review, a review of available data and information collected in a survey of individual national experts on GPS key indicators within the Reitox network. The survey aimed to explore specialist stances on the issue of varying survey…
The aim of this review is to provide an overview and analysis of the contents of the 2010 UNODC World Drug Report and highlight a number of key issues of interest and concern.
The document "The pharmacological rationale for methadone treatment of narcotic addiction", which presents the pharmacological principles applying to narcotics, is now available in Chinese, English, Fahsi, French and Russian.
Drugs produce negative consequences for both users and societies in general, and minimizing their consumption should be the main goal. The salient discussion is therefore about choosing among different strategies to achieve the same goal. This book contributes to the debate by shedding light on…
NGO Veza organised a study visit to Slovenia from 11th to 14th April 2010 for 22 representatives of institutions and civil society organisations working with drug users in Serbia. The main goal of this study visit was to enable participants to learn about the treatment and harm reduction services…
On the 19th and 20th March, 2010, the Andreas Papandreou Foundation (APF) and IDPC co-hosted the first informal policy dialogue for the South East European region. A report from the meeting's discussions is now available online.