IDHDP aims to provide the voice of doctors to advocate for changes in harmful drug policies and to promote harm reduction and policies based on health, science, human rights and compassion.

IDHDP tiene como objetivo promover la voz de los médicos que abogan por cambios en las políticas de drogas nocivas y promover la reducción de daños y políticas basadas en la salud, la ciencia y los derechos humanos.

IDHDP a pour but de se faire le porte parole des docteurs en faveur de plaidoyer pour que des changements opèrent dans les politiques nuisibles en matière de drogues et pour promouvoir la réduction des risques et des politiques fondées sur la santé, la science, les droits humains et la compassion.

International Doctors for Healthy Drug Policies (IDHDP)

LONDON [27 JUNE 2019] – Harm Reduction International and almost 120 human rights organisations from around the world – including Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists – published open letters today calling on the United Nations’ major drug control bodies to intervene and help stop Sri Lanka’s move to resume executions after 43 years.

President Maithripala Sirisena signed the execution warrants this week for four people convicted of drug-related offences.

The letters – sent to the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) and UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) – underscore that the death penalty for drug offences violates international human rights law. The signatories state that “Remaining silent as Sri Lanka puts an end to a 43-year de facto moratorium on executions would strike a blow to the INCB’s and UNODC’s commitments to human rights compliance as a core principle of international drug policy.”

Giada Girelli, human rights analyst at Harm Reduction International, said: “There is simply no evidence that the death penalty is an effective deterrent against the drug trade. President Sirisena’s move is a gross violation of human rights – UN bodies must urge authorities in Sri Lanka to reverse this and work to consign the death penalty to the history books.”

Harm Reduction International’s latest research shows that global executions for drug offences fell by almost 90% from 2015-18, in large part because of judicial reforms in Iran. Of the 35 countries that retain the death penalty for drug offences, only four carried out executions in 2018 (China, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Singapore).

Over 100 human rights groups urge UN to demand Sri Lanka halt executions of drug offenders

Millions of children and adults around the world, afflicted with terminal or lifethreatening illnesses, suffer from severe physical pain, screaming out and begging for help. There is an effective treatment available that is easy and cheap to produce. And yet, for various reasons, including government regulations based on disproportionate concerns about misuse, and a historical neglect of suffering even within medical systems, most people are unable to access this treatment.

The lack of access to morphine and similar opioids is a reality specific to most low- and middle-income countries, and it is a critical issue from an ethical, human rights, medical and humanitarian perspective.

Join us for a panel discussion during which experts will discuss this urgent human rights issue and concrete measures to address it.

Ending the agony: access to morphine as an ethical and human rights imperative 

On Friday 14th July, the Government published its new Drug Strategy: ‘2017 Drug Strategy’. The previous drug strategy, published in 2010, was heavily criticised for its almost exclusive focus on abstinence, and total de-prioritisation of harm reduction initiatives.

This briefing, endorsed by eight of the UK’s leading harm reduction and drug treatment organisations, looks at whether the focus on harm reduction has improved under the new strategy, and discusses challenges in the funding environment which will have a disproportionate impact on harm reduction services.

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

Still no harm reduction? A critical review of the UK government’s new drug strategy

The Government has now published the 2017 Drug Strategy. We express great concern at the lack of focus on harm reduction - an evidence-based response that protects people and ultimately saves lives - at a time when drug-related deaths are the highest on record.

Heroin and morphine deaths rose by 109 percent in the England and Wales between 2012 and 2016, when the evidence is overwhelming that harm reduction initiatives can reduce them. Initiatives such as opioid substitution treatment (OST) and needle and syringe programmes are only mentioned fleetingly within the Strategy, and others such as drug consumption rooms and heroin assisted therapy (HAT) are completely absent.

It is appalling that the Government acknowledges in the strategy that the rise in drug-related deaths is ‘dramatic and tragic’, but proposes no concrete action plan to reduce them. For example, the strategy comments on the importance of naloxone to prevent overdose deaths but proposes no national systematic approach to naloxone provision, nor any new funding for this vital intervention. It is shocking that whilst drug-related deaths have outstripped both road traffic fatalities and deaths from blood borne virusesivv , there is no coordinated response from central government.

This erosion of services continues against a backdrop of funding for all drug services being continuously reduced. Public health spending has reduced by more than 5% since 2013 , and according to analysis a further £22 million in cuts are to made for drug treatment by the end of 2017/18 . Without funding drug services will not be able to function effectively.

The Government has dismissed decriminalisation of drug possession offences as being simplistic. Yet the World Health Organisation and a multitude of United Nations agencies have called for the end of criminal sanctions for possession and use of drugs in recognition that criminalisation creates barriers to those needing treatment and increases health harms.

People who use drugs are often vulnerable and marginalised.This new Drug Strategy simply does not begin to support them and reduce drug-related deaths. We call on the Government to implement the recommendations of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to tackle opiate related deaths, these include: optimal OST prescribing; easier access to naloxone; a national HAT programme; and that drug consumption rooms are implemented where there is need. The Government must also ensure a minimum level of care by requiring local authorities to provide drug treatment and harm reduction services by law.

English Harm Reduction Group response to the 2017 UK Drug Strategy

Drawing on contributions from leading practitioners, experts in public health, and people who have experienced problematic cannabis use, VolteFace’s groundbreaking report investigates how the harms posed by cannabis use can be better managed.

The report finds that cannabis has been neglected in public health discourses, and the current legal state of cannabis has obstructed access to existing support and guidance. Evidence of good practice within the sector and feedback from contributors has been used to formulate sensible, innovative policy options tailored to the needs of people experiencing problematic cannabis use.

Join the report's author and contributors with an audience of academics, policymakers, campaigners and public health workers where the report's findings will be explored and challenged.

Chris Ford (Clinical Director, International Doctors for Healthier Drug Policies (IDHDP))

Will Haydock (Senior Programme Advisor, Public Health Dorset; Visiting Fellow, Bournemouth University)

Suzi Gage (Lecturer in Psychology - Epidemiology, Health Behaviours and Genetic Factors, University of Liverpool)

Lizzie McCulloch (Policy Advisor for VolteFace and author of Black Sheep).

Black Sheep: An investigation into existing support for problematic cannabis use

Twenty eight-year-old Divya Devi placed her hands on her bloated belly, closed her eyes, and leaned her head back against a wall. A black hairband held her thinning hair together. She breathed heavily through her mouth and looked exhausted. Devi was one of the many patients biding their time in the packed waiting room of the palliative care center inside the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi on that September morning. Those who could, sat. The others lay down. Almost all of them were terminally ill with cancer. Devi had breast cancer that had spread into her liver.

Devi’s husband, Tarun Kathuria, was standing in a corner. A few days before this visit, Devi’s oncologist told Kathuria that Devi might live just for a week or two and referred her to the palliative care center. That morning, the couple left their two-year-old daughter, Riddhima, with neighbours in Dwarka in west Delhi before coming to the centre.

Like Devi, most patients are referred for palliative care when all treatments fail and the patient is terminally ill. “That’s a wrong approach,” said Sachidanand Jee Bharati, assistant professor of palliative medicine at AIIMS.

Too little, too late: Why palliative care is vastly inadequate in India

Over 600 participants from 58 countries attended the First European conference on addictive behaviours and dependencies held in Lisbon in 2015. The conference sold out several months before the event. Selected presentations and posters are still available on the conference website at www.lisbonaddictions.eu

Following this success, the organisers have decided to launch Lisbon Addictions 2017, which will take place in the Lisboa Congress Centre (a new venue, which can accommodate up to 850 participants), from 24 to 26 October 2017.

Once again, the conference will be jointly organised by the Portuguese General Directorate for Intervention on Addictive Behaviours and Dependencies (SICAD), the journal Addiction, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) and the International Society of Addiction Journal Editors (ISAJE).

Second european conference on addictive behaviours and dependencies

The World Federation for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence (WFTOD) and EUROPAD will select up to 12 oral presentations to be presented during the next American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence (AATOD) congress (Baltimore, Maryland, USA, October 29-November 2, 2016).

We would like to extend a cordial invitation for you to submit an oral presentation concerning the bio-psycho-social aspects of heroin addiction.

Selected oral presentations will be published as short communication in Heroin Addiction and Related Clinical Problems. Deadline for submission is May 31, 2016

Symposium of the world federation for the treatment of opioid dependence

LONDON (2nd August 2016) – Civil society groups from across the globe, 

have called on UN drug control authorities to urge an immediate stop to the extrajudicial killings of suspected drug offenders in the Philippines. Since 10th May 2016, more than 700 people have been killed by police and vigilantes in the Philippines for being suspected of using or dealing drugs, as a direct result of recently-elected President Duterte’s campaign to eradicate crime within six months.

Until now, however, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) – the UN agencies responsible for global drug control – have failed to condemn the Philippines for these gross human rights violations committed in the name of drug control.

375 non-governmental organisations today sent an open letter to the UNODC Executive Director, Mr. Yury Fedotov, and the INCB President, Mr. Werner Sipp, asking them to take immediate action aimed at putting a stop to the extrajudicial killings.

“We are calling on the UN drug control bodies to publicly condemn these atrocities in the Philippines. This senseless killing cannot be justified as a drug control measure”, said Ann Fordham, Executive Director of the International Drug Policy Consortium. “Their silence is unacceptable, while people are being killed on the streets day after day”, she continued.

The open letter asks the UNODC and the INCB to call on President Duterte to:

Immediately end the incitements to kill people suspected of using or dealing drugs,

Act to fulfil international human rights obligations, such as the rights to life, health, due process and a fair trial, as set out in the human rights treaties ratified by the Philippines,

Promote evidence-based, voluntary treatment and harm reduction services for people who use drugs instead of compulsory rehabilitation in military camps, and

Not to reinstate the death penalty for drug offences.

Senior Research and Communications Officer

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Key data on the Philippines drug policy crisis:

President Rodrigo Duterte was elected President on 30th May 2016 and began his presidential term on 30th June. He declared a war on drugs in which both police and civilians are encouraged to kill drug user/traffickers

704 people have been killed between the 10th of May 2016 to the 29th of July 2016 (ABS CBN News)

Communications Office Secretary Martin Andanar said 60,000 drug dependents have surrendered to authorities (Daily Mail).

Statements by international human rights groups:

Amnesty International, 10th May: Philippines: New President should break cycle of human rights violations, not compound them

Amnesty International, 30 June: Philippines: President Duterte must break the cycle of human rights violations

Human Rights Watch, 25th July: President Duterte’s Mixed Messages on Rights in the Philippines

Human Rights Watch, 12th July: Philippine Officials Shrug at Surge in Drug Killings

Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates & Citizen’s Council for Human Rights, 14th July: Stop the bloodshed, human rights defenders tell Duterte

Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates & Citizen’s Council for Human Rights, 14th July: Extra Judicial Killings: Normalizing Criminality Under the Guise of Peace and Order

Drug Policy Alliance, 25th July: Philippines President Makes Good on Pledge to Mass Murder People Who Use or Sell Drugs, Calls for "No Mercy" in State of the Nation Address

Asian Network of People Who Use Drugs & International Network of People Who Use Drugs, July: Philippines: An Entreaty to End the Killing, to End the Poverty and Exclusion

Over 300 NGOs call on the United Nations to take immediate action on the hundreds of extrajudicial killings of suspected drug offenders in the Philippines