By Michel Kazatchkine and Mary Chinery-Hesse

Over the past three decades, European governments have been moving to protect people who use drugs from drug-related health harms.

Drug use has been recognised as a public health concern, and needle and syringe programmes, safe injection facilities, and drug checking, combined with a wide range of treatment options, have been set up throughout Europe.

Furthermore, ceasing to see people who use drugs as criminal offenders has led many countries in Europe towards de jure or de facto decriminalisation of drug use and possession for personal use.

In Portugal, consumers may be actively directed to these facilities by the police or social services.

These measures have contributed to easing the problems related to open drug markets and other public safety issues and contributed to decreasing the stigma and discrimination associated with drug use.

A fundamental contradiction in EU drug policy

It was almost dawn. My phone was ringing over and over, but it was the loud banging at the door that woke me up. It was my mother. She had come to tell me that my 19-year-old daughter was dead from a drug overdose.

It was hard to process those words in that moment. My initial despair and grief shifted to rage. I wanted the person who gave my daughter the drugs to pay. It didn’t matter if it was her boyfriend or friends—I wanted to hurt and punish that person.

I had these feelings despite knowing that that person who gave my daughter the heroin that was most likely contaminated with fentanyl—the synthetic opioid that is up to 100 times stronger than morphine—was not responsible for my daughter’s death.

As a person who uses drugs, I know that no one person is to blame. What is responsible for the hundreds of thousands of deaths from drug overdose is a broken drug policy, a system that prioritizes punishment over treatment, and a culture of prohibition that leads us to use drugs alone and in shame.

Indeed, while the nation continues to double down on tough approaches to deal with the overdose crisis, fentanyl will continue to poison the U.S. drug supply, and people will continue to die. More than 70,000 people died of drug overdose in 2017 in the United States—a record. And as law enforcement becomes more intense, the potency of prohibited substances increases.

These punitive approaches and the harm they cause are no more apparent than in drug-induced homicide laws, which make it a crime to give drugs that result in a death. While originally designed to target cartel dealers, they are overwhelmingly used to prosecute friends and loved ones of an individual who has lost their life due to an overdose.

Reframing the blame for the war on drugs

By Pien Metaal, Constanza Sánchez, Natalia Rebollo

How to reconcile migrant communities’ right to the enjoyment of cultural life (including the use of traditional plants) with international drug control obligations.

For the past several years, Fundación ICEERS, with the support of allied organisations such as the Transnational Institute (TNI), has been assisting in the legal defense of people with a migrant background who are prosecuted in Spain (or other European countries) for the possession or importation of coca leaf for the purposes of traditional use. These people originate from countries with a legal framework allowing for licit traditional use of coca leaf, such as Colombia, Bolivia, Peru and Argentina. These cases have had different outcomes and, when people have been convicted, sentencing has not been uniform. In this sense, communities have struggled to exercise their basic rights to enjoy their own culture, illustrating new challenges for human rights and drug control. These challenges need to be met within the framework of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a new reference for UN drug control mechanisms and the global drug policy debate at large.

Almost two years ago ICEERS celebrated the positive result of a court case related to coca leaf in Girona, Spain. After three years of uncertainty, the Public Prosecutor decided during trial to withdraw the charges of drug trafficking against a Colombian citizen residing in Catalonia for receiving by mail a 2 kilogram package of ground coca leaf. Although the withdrawal of charges against the accused, who had been charged with a crime against public health, was very welcome news to the person involved, to his family and friends, and to drug policy reformers, the prosecutor’s decision to withdraw charges, unlike an acquittal or a decision by the judge to reject the charges, does not result in any formal legal precedent which could be relied upon by others accused under similar circumstances.

Last November we also learned about the latest court decision from a case related to coca leaf possession in Spain, in which we had worked closely with the defense team for over two years. This case relates to the broader issue of traditional use of this plant, beyond its local native contexts, and how migrants from the Andean Amazon region are deprived of a legitimate cultural practice, which is embedded in the places from which they come.

Coca: Migrants and traditional Use

A leading Dutch harm reduction organisation, Mainline, launched a crowdfunding campaign (https://www.voordekunst.nl/projecten/8383) to open the first ever museum dedicated to drugs. Read our interview with Machteld Busz, the director of Mainline – and support their cause!

When and why did you decide to create the first museum dedicated to drugs and the people who use them?

Machteld Busz: About two years ago, and we started getting serious in developing the plan about one and a half years ago. Poppi: Drugs Museum Amsterdam is set up as a social enterprise. We want to educate the general public about drugs, drug dependency, drug policies, and drug culture. Secondly, we hope to make profits and return those to our foundation. And third we would love to employ people who use drugs at some point in the future. First things first however; we need to get some funds together to get us off to a flying start.

In the promotional leaflet you promise to “blow our minds” with psychedelic artwork and ancient artefacts. Can you talk a bit more about the preparation of the exhibition? How did you collect artefacts and who were the artists you worked with?

We started collecting drug-related art alongside our ‘normal’ harm reduction work. We rely heavily on friends from the field who share a passion and donated or lent art. Now that we have decided to start a museum we can start a more comprehensive and serious collection. We will start the museum ‘lean’, with a series of exhibitions, events, and art-shows. We want to gradually ‘fill’ the eventual museum. In doing so, we want to combine new technology such as virtual reality, or ‘immersive art’ in the form of a situation room, with science and more traditional art to engage people on a deeper level. That would be the ‘blow your mind’ part!

Poppi: Drugs Museum Amsterdam – Interview with Machteld Busz

GENEVA (17 May 2019) — The ten United Nations human rights treaties are legally binding treaties, adopted by the UN General Assembly and ratified by States. Each Treaty establishes a treaty body (or Committee) comprising elected independent experts who seek to ensure that States parties fulfil their legal obligations under the Conventions. This system of independent scrutiny of the conduct of States by independent experts is a key element of the United Nations human rights system, supported by secretariats in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

In April this year, the Chairpersons of all 10 treaty bodies* were informed that six of them are very likely to have sessions in 2019 cancelled for financial reasons – an unprecedented consequence of some UN member States delaying payments due to the organisation.

This means that reviews already scheduled with States, as well as consideration of complaints by individual victims of serious human rights violations - including torture, extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances – will not take place as scheduled. The cancellation of sessions will also have numerous other negative consequences, and will seriously undermine the system of protections which States themselves have put in place over decades.

The Chairpersons of the ten Committees are deeply concerned about the practical consequences of cancelling these sessions and have sent a letter to the UN Secretary General and the High Commissioner for Human Rights, requesting that they, together with Member States, find ways of addressing this situation, as a matter of urgency.

UN budget shortfalls seriously undermine the work of the Human Rights Treaty bodies

Bree Cassell first injected heroin when she was 15 years old. Despite wanting to do so, she was so scared of the needle that it took two men to hold her thrashing body down, and a third to inject the drug into her vein.

Now 26, Cassell frequents a syringe exchange program in Wilmington, North Carolina, for sterile injection equipment, overdose prevention supplies, and friendly faces.

The small exchange—just a whitewashed room in an aging strip mall—doesn’t boast much. But the two women who run the exchange, Becca Lilly and Bernadette Calicchio, have done their best to make it welcoming and comfortable to people who seek refuge there.

Bright Christmas lights deck the walls and old tables are draped in cheerfully-patterned cloths. The exchange offers free clothing, food and toiletries. On one desk a collection of greeting cards is marked, “Write a card to someone you love. We’ll provide the stamp and mail it.”

In late April I visited the exchange for its inaugural Women’s Day, a Friday afternoon where only women could visit the program. The ladies had decked a long table with snacks and party favors, wrapped in pink crepe paper, to welcome their guests.

While we waited for people to show up, I sat down with Cassell and Lilly to learn about their experiences with drug use. Both were introduced to IV heroin, at 15 and 16 years old respectively, by male friends. Both have engaged in sex work to buy drugs at the request of male partners. Both have experienced the difficulty of finding affordable drug treatment programs for women.

Women who use drugs: Challenges demand self-led harm reduction

Ask any Cambodian about the key issues facing their country and chances are that crime will be near the top of the list. But on nearly all counts, the country’s justice system is failing.

According to the National Police, 2,969 crimes were committed last year, up from 2,817 in 2017. The number stands in contrast to the nation’s bulging prison population, however.

In November, Interior Minister Sar Kheng revealed that there were 31,008 inmates in Cambodia’s 28 prisons, of which almost 72% were being held in pre-trial detention.

That means there are roughly 190 prisoners per every 100,000 people, a bigger proportion than in most other Southeast Asian nations, and higher as a percentage than even authoritarian China.

The prison population has ballooned in recent years after the government launched in 2017 an anti-drug crackdown, similar in tone but not atrocity to the one Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has championed. As a result, the number of inmates rose by 30% in 2017 alone, mostly for drug-related offenses.

The injustice of Cambodian justice

Earlier this month US and Afghan forces bombed 68 drugs labs in South-western Afghanistan, claiming that they caused the Taliban losses of over $1 million per day. 

write that not only have the effects of these strikes been exaggerated, their promotion obscures a new reality on the ground: a dramatic growth in the methamphetamine industry in Afghanistan, fuelled by a ready supply of a home grown ephedra crop.

It’s an old saying that the definition of madness is to do the same thing again and again and expect a different result. Yet this is what the United States Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A) and their counterpart the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces (ANDSF) did on 6 May 2019 when they bombed 68 drugs labs in Southwestern Afghanistan. They even repeated the madness of grossly exaggerating the scale of financial losses these raids caused the Taliban, claiming losses of $1 million per day.

This latest raid on drugs labs in Afghanistan follows a year-long campaign that USFOR-A claimed destroyed 200 labs and denied $46 million to the Taliban in revenue. The campaign all but ceased in September 2018 after being subject to considerable criticism for its exaggerated estimates of the amount of drugs destroyed and the values denied to both drug traffickers and the Taliban. In striking inactive labs and misunderstanding the taxation system that operates in these areas, the campaign had a negligible effect on revenues and proved a poor use of resources.

New US airstrikes obscure a dramatic development in the Afghan drugs industry – the proliferation of low cost methamphetamine 

Ministers in Luxembourg have outlined proposals for the country’s upcoming legalisation of “recreational” cannabis.

The justice minister Félix Braz and health minister Etienne Schneider have elaborated on the government’s plans to legalise the production, sale, and use of cannabis for recreational purposes – after the move was announced last November.

After returning from a research trip to Canada - where cannabis has been legal since October 2018 – the ministers stated that Luxembourg will permit adults aged 18 and over to possess up to 30 grams of cannabis while in public. Minors aged between 12 and 17 will not be criminalised for possessing up to five grams of the drug, they said, but the ministers did not specify what consequences they may face.

The government also intends to introduce strict regulations on the sale of cannabis. The THC content of cannabis will have an upper limit, which has yet to be fixed, and people who sell cannabis outside of the legal framework will face harsh punishments - "even harsher penalties than now", according to reports.

Luxembourg unveils proposals for cannabis legalisation law

Although President Rodrigo Duterte's name was not on the ballot in the May 13 midterm elections in the Philippines, the vote served as a referendum on his disruptive and unorthodox leadership.

Over the past three years, the controversial Filipino leader has defied practically every political convention and general public decorum. To the utter shock of even his closest aides, he has insulted the Catholic faith, cussed at American leaders, openly embraced China as a "friend", and unleashed a scorched-earth drug war that has claimed the lives of thousands of people.

The democratic opposition sought to leverage the elections to check Duterte's worst instincts. Instead, they suffered their greatest electoral defeat in recent history, setting the stage for an imperial presidency with potentially dire consequences for Philippine democracy.

Duterte's allies won a significant part of the 18,000 elected offices up for grabs in municipal, city, provincial and legislative races across the country. Most crucially, they secured a supermajority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The Philippines' Duterte: In pursuit of an imperial presidency

Canada needs a safe drug supply to reduce the number of overdose deaths, drug policy experts told a public forum Wednesday night in Vancouver that centred on whether Ottawa should legally regulate the use of illicit drugs.

Zara Snapp, who is the co-founder of Instituto RIA in Mexico, researches solutions to drug policy issues including how to curb the number of opioid overdose-related deaths.

"Now we're falling behind because we are using techniques that we had from 20 years ago and we need to advance," Snapp said.

She said the Canadian government could take control of the illicit drug supply.

"That's where really the conversation around safe supply is so important and how the government could provide the policy interventions that organizations, and local and provincial governments need in order to open up safe supply sites."

Snapp said medical-grade heroin is already being produced in Europe and suggests Mexico could be a source of opium for legal use in other countries in the future once policies are changed.

'Safe supply' at heart of regulating illicit drug use, say experts in Canada

UN human rights experts called on the United Nations to establish an independent investigation into human rights violations in the Philippines, citing a sharp deterioration in the situation of human rights across the country, including sustained attacks on people and institutions defending human rights.

“Given the scale and seriousness of the reported human rights violations we call on the Human Rights Council to establish an independent investigation into the human rights violations in the Philippines,” said the independent experts, referring to the body made up of 47 UN Member States elected by the UN General Assembly.

“We have recorded a staggering number of unlawful deaths and police killings in the context of the so-called war on drugs, as well as killings of human rights defenders. Very few independent and effective investigations have taken place, independent media and journalists are threatened, the law has been weaponised to undermine press freedom, and the independence of the judiciary is undermined,” the experts said.

“We are extremely concerned over the high number of killings which are being carried out across the country in an apparent climate of official, institutional impunity.

“In the past three years, we have repeatedly brought to the attention of the Government cases alleging a range of gross human rights violations, such as extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, including of children, persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, trade union and land right activists. Those cases also included allegations of arbitrary detention, torture or inhuman or degrading treatment, gender-based violence against women human rights defenders, attacks against the independence of judges and lawyers, freedoms of expression and of assembly, as well as people’s right to food and health. Sadly these cases are just the tip of the iceberg with many more cases being reported regularly.

“It is time for the Human Rights Council to take action against these sustained attacks on human rights defenders and independent watchdog institutions,” the experts said.

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