Indonesia’s new anti-narcotics chief Heru Winarko called for an expansion of rehabilitation centers across the country on Wednesday, flagging a new approach in contrast to the blood-soaked war on drugs underway in its neighbor, the Philippines.

More users, addicts and even minor dealers would be diverted into centers run by medical professionals and counselors rather than heading straight into an over-crowded prison system, Winarko told Reuters in an interview.

“With the rehabilitation approach, we cut the demand,” he said. “If there is no demand, the supply will not come or reduce.”

Winarko took over as head of Indonesia’s anti-narcotics agency in March, replacing Budi Waseso, a former top police officer who advocated surrounding prisons with moats filled with crocodiles and piranhas to stop drug convicts escaping.

Rather than wildlife, Winarko said he planned to set up rehabilitation facilities near prisons.

“It is better if there is a rehabilitation center located close to a prison,” he said, noting that a former mental hospital near a correctional facility in Bali was being converted into a center for offenders to tackle addiction.

“When we do it like this, it will be amazing. The prison becomes a place for guiding people.”

Indonesia’s new anti-drug czar opts for counselling instead of crocodiles

New plans for treatment of drug addicts and abusers are a welcome step on the way to badly needed drug reform. The steps announced last week by the chief of the prime ministers Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) may make it possible to begin rehabilitation instead of criminal treatment. As welcome as the new programme is, it is still only a tentative step towards what is needed. It is time for bold steps and a new outlook on the problem.

Illegal drugs are not just a sore on society. The suffering of addicts and their families is indisputable. But big-time drug smuggling is a threat to national security. Illicit drugs are a direct gateway to graft, even at very high levels. The "big fish" makers and smugglers corrupt virtually everything and everyone they touch.

Because the five-decade "war on drugs" is such an obvious failure, it is vital to find and employ new methods. One of the first attempts to dip Thailand's toe in the river of national drug reform was announced last week by the junta-appointed ONCB secretary-general, Sirinya Sitdhichai. He has put in motion what he is too grandly calling "a comprehensive drug rehabilitation programme". In fact, the new policy brings only some small, if highly important changes.

Drug reform gets a push in Thailand

The new top police commander of the Philippines pledged on Friday to keep up President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drug war despite fresh international condemnation over the killings.

Director General Oscar Albayalde, who was sworn in Thursday, will now lead the narcotics crackdown that has killed thousands since Duterte came to power just under two years ago.

“How to sustain the drug war? In order to sustain it, we will not change anything,” Albayalde told reporters at his first press conference as commander.

He took over from Ronaldo Dela Rosa, who retired with hero’s honours this week after helping Duterte launch the crackdown.

“Why would we stop a programme that is very effective?” Albayalde added, citing “very good momentum and gains”.

Police on Friday announced another 13 alleged drug suspects were killed in a sweep that also led to the arrest of 58 people.

Albayalde’s comments came as the Philippines rejected a European Union Parliament resolution voted on Thursday that criticised the crackdown, the latest international condemnation of it.

New Philippine police chief vows to continue drug war

Sri Lanka will begin cultivating cannabis for medical purposes later this year, the health minister has announced.

Health minister Rajitha Senaratne said he plans for cultivation to take place across 100 acres of designated cannabis plantation land in the north-central Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa districts. This is estimated to produce 25,000kg of the drug annually, which will be used for domestic Ayurveda - a South Asian system of medicine - and for export to North America.

Farmers will be hired by the state to cultivate the cannabis, and production will be overseen by the military.

“If the private sector is given the green light for cannabis cultivation it will require permits and other regulatory mechanisms will have to be imposed. This way, there will be no need to issue permits, since no private parties are involved,” Senaratne told the 

Cannabis prohibition was initiated by British colonisers in Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon) in the late nineteenth and earlier twentieth century. Despite the country gaining independence in 1948, it has retained cannabis prohibition; the drug’s production, sale, and possession continue to be outlawed under the Poisons, Opium, and Dangerous Drugs Act.

However, despite cannabis’ illegality, authorities have acknowledged its medical potential. When batches are seized by law enforcement, small portions are often allocated to Ayurvedic practitioners to develop into medicine. However, this has proved insufficient; “by the time our native doctors get this cannabis, it is about four to five years old and it has lost its effectiveness,” Senaratne claimed.

Sri Lanka to open Asia’s first medical cannabis plantation

คณะกรรมาธิการสิทธิมนุษยชนแห่งชาติเตือนผู้นำโลกให้เคารพในสิทธิมนุษยชนขั้นพื้นฐานรวมทั้งในการใช้นโยบายควบคุมยาเสพติด

เพื่อรับข้อมูลเกี่ยวกับประเด็นที่เกี่ยวข้องกับนโยบายยาเสพติด

กรุณาดูด้านล่างสำหรับข้อมูลเพิ่มเติมเป็นภาษาอังกฤษ

Since my last update to this Council I have conducted missions to Libya, Peru, Uruguay, El Salvador, Guatemala, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Fiji. Recognising that not all States will accept a visit, I express my deep appreciation for these invitations, which demonstrate commendable openness to discussing human rights issues. In my statement to the Council in June, I will be addressing the issue of refusals of access to international human rights mechanisms, and to my Office. In every instance, I encourage the concerned States to embark on deeper dialogue and cooperation with my Office and the human rights mechanisms. Before I begin what will sadly prove to be a very long list of human rights violations and abuses, I would like to highlight a sample of advances which are underway in several countries.

In the Philippines, following the International Criminal Court’s announcement of plans to open an investigation, the authorities announced their willingness to work with the UN on drug-related challenges. I deplore the President Duterte’s statement last week to élite police units that they should not cooperate “when it comes to human rights, or whoever rapporteur it is” and the continued vilification of this Council’s Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial killings by the authorities. The Government has a duty to uphold human rights and to engage with persons appointed by this Council. I am concerned by deepening repression and increasing threats to individuals and groups with independent or dissenting views, including opposition Senators, current and former public officials, the Commission on Human Rights, human rights defenders and journalists. Several cases for impeachment or dismissal have been launched against members of the Supreme Court, the Office of the Ombudsman and other institutions representing democratic safeguards. Senator de Lima has now been arbitrarily detained for over a year, without clear charges. This authoritarian approach to governance threatens to irreparably damage 30 years of commendable efforts by the Philippines to strengthen the rule of law and respect for the human rights of the people. I further deplore President Duterte's encouragement to troops to violate fundamental rules of international humanitarian law, including his statement that they should shoot women fighters in their genitals because this would render them "useless".

More broadly, I urge all States to examine the effectiveness and human rights impact of their current approaches to the so-called “War on Drugs”. I urge more comprehensive implementation of the Outcome Document of the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on the World Drug Problem of 2016, including its 15 operational recommendations on human rights and related issues. The cross-cutting UNGASS 2016 approach constitutes a new and better linkage of the objective of drug-control – protection of the health and welfare of humanity – with the key priorities of the UN system, including the SDGs. I encourage the continuation of this structure for future UN drug policy debates. In this context, I note and commend the International Narcotics Control Board's recent call to all States to implement international drug control conventions in accordance with their commitments to human rights treaties and the rule of law.

สำนักงานข้าหลวงใหญ่ด้านสิทธิมนุษยชน ได้มีการรายงานสถานการณ์การละเมิดสิทธิมนุษยชนทั่วโลก

The Royal College of Physicians (RCP), one of the UK’s largest and most influential medical bodies, has expressed its formal support for the findings and recommendations of RSPH’s landmark drug policy report, 

 report, published in 2016 with the support of the Faculty of Public Health, advocates a new, public health-based approach to UK drug policy, including decriminalisation of personal possession and use of all illegal substances, and the transfer of lead responsibility for drug strategy from the Home Office to the Department of Health.

In a statement issued and covered in the 

, the RCP strongly supports RSPH’s position that drug use and harm must be treated as a health issue, and expresses concern over rising drug deaths and cuts to treatment budgets.

Welcoming the RCP announcement, Shirley Cramer CBE, Chief Executive of RSPH, said: “We are delighted that the Royal College of Physicians has voted to endorse our position on drug policy reform. That such an influential medical body has put its weight behind a public health and harm reduction approach to drugs, including the decriminalisation of personal possession and use, goes to show just how far the debate on this issue has moved forward – and how far behind the curve many politicians in the UK still are.

“There is a growing consensus, backed by a strong international evidence base, among the health community and among the public that criminal justice approaches to drug harm have failed, and that we must start treating drugs first and foremost as a health issue.

“It is critical that the health community speaks with a united voice on this issue in order to drive meaningful policy change, and so we hope other medical colleges will soon follow the lead of the RCP.”

Royal College of Physicians backs RSPH calls on drug reform

Canada is on track to become the second country and the first G7 member to legalize and regulate cannabis for non-medical purposes (Uruguay enacted cannabis regulation in 2013). The UN drug control treaties expressly disallow the legal regulation of cannabis for non-medical uses. However, according to international drug policy experts at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and the Transnational Institute (TNI), who testified last week before Canada’s Senate, there is a path forward with regard to the country’s drug treaty obligations.

In their remarks before the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade on April 19, John Walsh, WOLA Drug Policy Program Director, and Martin Jelsma, Drugs and Democracy Programme Director at TNI, left no doubt that moving ahead with cannabis regulation will place Canada out of compliance with its obligations under the UN drug treaties. But they also emphasized that Canada has viable options for aligning its impending cannabis law reform with its international legal obligations—pointing in particular to the procedure of 

 modification. Walsh and Jelsma are among the co-authors of 

 option in depth, launched during the March 2018 session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna, Austria.

Walsh’s overall message to the Committee was one of reassurance regarding the path that Canada is taking, noting that Uruguay enjoys continued good standing in the international community, more than four years after having enacted its cannabis regulation law. Walsh also underscored that time is on Canada’s side, since a number of other countries—including the United States of America—are heading in the same direction of seeking to legally regulate their cannabis markets. As Walsh told the Committee, 

“Already one in five Americans lives in a state that has voted to legalize, more ballot initiatives are on the way, and public opinion is increasingly in favor of legalization, which has appeal across the political and ideological spectrum.”



Jelsma outlined the rationale and international legal basis for the 

 treaty modification procedure, and described the advantages for Canada and other like-minded countries of taking the coordinated, collective approach required by an 

 agreement, rather than acting unilaterally and in isolation from one another. 

 agreement on cannabis regulation would allow a group of countries to modify certain treaty provisions amongst themselves alone and appears as a legitimate safety valve, and perhaps under current circumstances, the most elegant way out for a group of countries to collectively derogate from certain cannabis provisions,”

explained Jelsma.

Both expert witnesses made clear that cannabis regulation and the surrounding treaty tensions are not merely technical matters, but rather profoundly moral questions regarding the aims and impacts of drug control policies. At the hearing’s conclusion, when questioned directly about the morality of legalizing cannabis, Walsh took the opportunity to drive the point home. 

“In my view, legal regulation is responsible, and in that sense an ethical and moral response to a problem that will never be solved, a dilemma that’s always real, but something that can be managed better or worse," 

 "I’m persuaded that a regulatory approach is a better approach than simply leaving the market in the hands of criminal enterprise.”

International experts testify before the Canadian senate on addressing tensions with UN drug treaties

Zimbabwe has made it legal to produce marijuana for medicinal and scientific uses.

It follows in the footsteps of Lesotho, the tiny nation which last year became the first in Africa to issue a license for medical marijuana.

Zimbabwe has been considering legalising the drug for a number of months, and will now become one of the few countries able to turn it into a source of revenue.

It is now possible to request a license to grow marijuana, according to a recently issued government notice that was released by the country's health minister. Both individuals and companies can apply.

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