The Case Study Database promotes a debate among legal professionals about the absence of basic constitutional principles in Brazil’s Drug Laws such as the right to health care, limits on the punitive power of the State and, above all, the democratic spirit of the rule of law.
On November 17, Bolivia, Brazil and the United States planned to ratify agreements on a trilateral coca monitoring effort. Officials delayed signing the accord until Friday, and then postponed it indefinitely.
With the astonishing admission of the Colombian president that the war on drugs is not working, the time is right for the international development community to add its voice.
The Global Drug Survey is an anonymous online survey that addresses how people are using illegal drugs as well as alcohol, tobacco and prescription medications. It combines basic information on what drugs people use, how often they take them, and the medical, social and legal consequences of drug use.
On Tuesday 6th December, IDPC, in collaboration with Harm Reduction International and the Kenya AIDS NGOs Consortium (KANCO), will organise a satellite session entitled "Putting health and human rights at the centre of drug policy: Recommendations from the Global Commission on Drug Policy".
The Portuguese drug decriminalisation and harm reduction model has been in place for a decade and is a proven success, but austerity measures may threaten drug treatment.
Many civil society organisations working on HIV, AIDS and human rights express grave concern about the manner in which the KORUS Free Trade agreement was passed in the South Korean Parliament in November. The South Korean government has reportedly pushed its parliament to ratify the agreement without transparent and open public debate. This act of secrecy and lack of accountability to the public was demonstrated by the chaos that prevailed in the South Korean Parliament on Tuesday.
Five years ago, Felipe Calderón took office as Mexico’s president and launched a crackdown against organised crime. Since then there has been a horrible predictability about the country’s drug war: each year the number of deaths has risen, most of them concentrated in a handful of cities. But this year both those tendencies look as if they have started to change. The annual death toll seems to have plateaued at around 12,000. Hotspots have cooled, only for violence to invade places previously considered safe.
The EMCDDA and the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) pledged to scale up their cooperation today in a joint statement adopted at the 2011 ESPAD project meeting. The event, hosted by the EMCDDA in Lisbon (27–29 November), brings together participants from 39 European countries.