26 June is an interesting date for the death penalty abolition movement: it is International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, and some countries use it to execute people for drug related offenses, such as China and maybe this year, Sri Lanka. To counter that narrative, the International Drug Policy Consortium as made 26 June a Global Day of Action: “Support. Don’t Punish”, to “reclaim and shift that day’s narrative”. But 26 June is also International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, an equally important day for human rights activists and the death penalty abolition movement.

As Naomi Burke-Shyne, Executive Director of Harm Reduction International opened the HR19 conference, she mentioned the death penalty for drug-related offenses and HRI’s latest publication on this subject: “at least 35 countries retain the death penalty for drug offences in law, although UN experts have repeated time and again that it is a clear violation of international human rights law”. Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights concurred in her keynote speech: “I remain concerned about the continuing use of capital punishment for drug offenses in a number of States, and moves towards its re-introduction in others. (…) We strongly recommend States amend their penal codes and no longer impose the death sentence for any crimes, including for drug-related offences.”

During the 2nd Plenary session on Drugs and Beyond: Upholding Human Rights, Sarah Belal, Justice Project Pakistan, presented the plight of Pakistani migrant workers sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia and the inspirational methodology of Justice Project Pakistan to free them: litigation, communication and advocacy. In February 2019, 2000 Pakistani prisoners were released from Saudi jails.

Drug policy reform, harm reduction movement and the death penalty abolition movement have much in common

In 1961, the United Nations adopted the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, a treaty aimed at combatting drug abuse through coordinated international action. The accord seeks to prohibit the use, trade, and production of certain drugs except for medical and scientific purposes, and to combat drug trafficking. Yet despite efforts like this, failed interventions and policies, as well as human rights violations related to drug use, have continued to stand in the way of progress at the local, national, and global levels. We have much more to do to confront the many harms that drugs inflict on health, development, peace, and security, in all regions of the world.

Still, there have been some wins along the way—including in Switzerland. Between 1991 and 2010, overdose deaths in the country decreased by 50 percent, HIV infections decreased by 65 percent, and new heroin users decreased by 80 percent. Today, the so-called “four-pillar model” that guides Swiss drug policy—prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and law enforcement—is internationally recognized as a major step in redefining how to tackle narcotic drugs.

Yet while scholars and practitioners have drawn lessons on public health, public order, and public policy from this partial success, few have considered how it might inform the process of social innovation. Building on a review of scholarly literature, press coverage, film material, reports by civil society organizations, and other literature on Swiss drug policy, we analyzed texts that offered insights into the country’s development of new approaches. In the process, we identified five main factors that drove success, and that may help other leaders of social change think about and improve their own innovation processes.

Inside Switzerland’s radical drug policy innovation

In 2015 Tori Cooper decided to leave a successful nonprofit career to blaze a trail advocating for the rights of the transgender community. Despite the fact that an estimated 1 million adults in the United States identify as transgender, services and advocacy programs that address the unique needs of this population can be hard to find. Cooper founded Advocates for Better Care Atlanta, an organization that focuses on economic and health equity for trans people.

“I just decided it was time to move things forward,” says Cooper, an African American trans woman from Georgia. “I realized that I might be the person and the agency that would be able to do the things that folks really need and want most.”

Cooper has her work cut out for her. According to a report released by the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) in 2015, the unemployment rate for trans people was 15 percent, triple the national rate, while the unemployment rate for trans people of color was 20 percent. Twenty-nine percent of trans respondents reported living in poverty, with 12 percent reporting an annual household income under $10,000.

Such economic and social stresses contribute to high rates of drug use among transgender people. According to the report, 29 percent of trans survey participants reported illicit drug use or prescription misuse in the past month, a rate nearly triple that of the US population (10 percent). This indicates a need for services, but unfortunately, few harm reduction programs are designed with trans folks in mind.

How can harm reduction do better for transgender people?

The Harm Reduction Consortium is a global coalition of seven independent organisations who exists to end the global war on drugs and promote services instead that protect the health and human rights of people who use drugs. We want to upskill our members and selected partners in communicating more effectively and proactively, as well as engaging with the media confidently. In order to achieve that, we are seeking to appoint an experienced individual or organisation to provide training and coaching in communications, crisis management and media engagement.

The Harm Reduction Consortium exists to end the global war on drugs and the related abuses of human rights around the world, and to scale-up harm reduction services that seek to protect the health of people who use drugs.[1] The Harm Reduction Consortium comprises seven of the leading international and regional harm reduction, drug policy and drug user networks:

International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) – the lead organisation for the Harm Reduction Consortium, and for this specific project

Women and Harm Reduction International Network (WHRIN)

Middle East and North Africa Harm Reduction Association (MENAHRA)

Eurasian Harm Reduction Association (EHRA)

European Network of People who Use Drugs (EuroNPUD)

We link together international policy making processes with local NGOs, service providers, charities and networks on the ground – to make sure that their voices are heard. As seven independent organisations bound by an agreed Memorandum of Understanding, the Harm Reduction Consortium has a proven record of successful collaboration, advocacy and delivery.

The Harm Reduction Consortium members have a compelling message and story to tell: the global war on drugs is having disastrous consequences all around the world. But we are not doing this as effectively and proactively as we would like – for a number of reasons, including:

a lack of communications and media capacity and expertise

differing levels of training and experience across the consortium members

a lack of confidence for some partners when engaging with the media

the use of technical jargon and complex language that may not resonate with target audiences outside of our sector ‘bubble’, and

inexperience in adapting and tailoring our narratives for different audiences.

We are therefore seeking to build confidence and capacity among our members and selected key partners in the following areas:

We are looking for individuals or organisations that can provide high quality communications, messaging and media coaching to the Consortium members in order to deliver our messages convincingly and impactfully.

Additional considerations for the project:

the workshop will be for approximately 20-30 people from around the world

each of the seven Consortium members is unique in its structure, staffing and capacity: some are staffed by only one or two full-time people, and only a few have dedicated communications staff – so the training curriculum needs to take this into account

although our members are spread across the world, we’ll be bringing them together from 20-21 November 2019 in Vilnius, Lithuania, and the successful individual or organisation will be expected to travel to Vilnius on these dates

the training should cover both reactive communications (i.e. crisis management) as well as proactive communications skills (identifying, pitching and framing stories, etc.)

as the Harm Reduction Consortium exclusively comprises not-for-profit organisations, any additional pro bono or discounted support as part of the proposal will be very much welcomed, and

proposals that also incorporate an element of post-training follow-up support and coaching for individual organisations will be prioritised.

Please also note that this training represents the first phase of a larger initiative to address and improve the messaging and framing of our collective communications work. Anticipated next phases (in 2020 and 2021) include a review of the language used, development of optimal messaging and framing for a broad audience, and the creation of communication tools incorporating these findings. Additional RFPs will be launched for these subsequent phases, although the Consortium is open to working with the same individual or organisation on multiple phases over time.

increased confidence and knowledge across Consortium members for both proactive and reactive communications – measured, as an example, through self-report tools before, immediately following, and six months after the intervention, and

Participants are able to develop and deliver proactive communication action plans.

At the end of the training, we want all participants to improve their capability to:

understand media dos and don’ts – opportunities to grasp and mistakes to avoid

be comfortable giving live interviews for TV and/or radio

deal with confrontational journalists and difficult questions

prepare and articulate key messages and reinforce them with credible and memorable examples tailored for different audiences

be aware of their voice, body language and presentation styles

maximise opportunities for attracting media attention, and

become more effective in managing social media channels.

The seven independent organisations that comprise the Harm Reduction Consortium, as well as around 5 or 6 other selected partners. These organisations are based around the world, but will be brought together for the purposes of this training. Before and after the training, each partner can be easily contacted by email, phone and Skype.

The 20-30 participants themselves will come from a wide range of professional backgrounds, and will range from senior management to programmatic staff within their organisations. Few will have specific communications or media training or experience.

Selection of successful candidate, and kick-off meeting: Aug / Sept 2019

Consultation with participants and research into their skills /needs: Sept / Oct 2019

Development of training curriculum: Oct / Nov 2019

Delivery of two-day training in Vilnius, Lithuania: 20-21 Nov 2019

Potential follow-up with participants: Jan-April 2020

Indicative budget: USD 7,000 – including the consultant’s travel costs to/in Vilnius for the training itself. Other costs for the training (i.e. venue, catering, participant travel) will all be borne directly by the Consortium.

Approach and methodology in meeting RFP goals

Outline of proposed training curriculum (content / topics covered)

Formats and approaches to be used in the training

Approach to measuring progress and evaluation training effectiveness

Detailed costs and desired schedule / split of payments

Project team and relevant experience / qualifications

Testimonials from past training participants

Description of how this training might feed into, and inform, the anticipated next phases of the Consortium’s work in 2020 and beyond

Please send a PDF version of the proposal (max. 3 pages in English), by email to:

The deadline for proposals is Sunday 11th August 2019

We are looking for individuals/organisations that:

have relevant experience and expertise in communications and media training

can demonstrate an understanding of the challenges facing the Consortium and how these might be addressed

present detailed budgets that take into account the not-for-profit nature of the Consortium, and

help to place this specific training and follow-up within the broader effort to improve the Consortium’s messaging, framing and storytelling.

Short-listed candidates will be contacted in August 2019, and a final decision will be made as soon as possible.

Any questions or requests for clarification should be sent to jbridge@idpc.net.

[1] For a more detailed description of the “harm reduction” approach to drugs, see: https://www.hri.global/what-is-harm-reduction

Harm Reduction Consortium request for proposals: Consultant for communications and messaging training

The Civil Society Task Force (CSTF) was a joint initiative of the Vienna and New York NGO Committees on Drugs, with the goal of ensuring and supporting strong civil society participation in the build-up to the High-Level Ministerial Segment of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in March 2019, and at the meeting itself. For more information about the CSTF and its work, please visit www.cstfondrugs.org.

This short survey has been designed to evaluate the levels of participation and satisfaction of civil society organisations with the CSTF and the Ministerial Segment. We estimate that this survey should take around 10 minutes to complete online.The survey will stay online until September 20, 2019.

The survey has been prepared in English. To translate into other languages, please open the survey with the Google Chrome browser, and right click for the option to translate. You may respond to the survey in any language.

Civil Society Task Force (CSTF) - Evaluation

Over the last few months, two important conferences on drug policy and harm reduction took place in Europe: activists were sharing best practices and tools at the International Harm Reduction Conference in Porto, whereas researchers were presenting their findings at the annual conference of the 

International Society for the Study of Drug Policy

 in Paris. The two conferences shared the topic but crucially did not form joint advocacy efforts. What drug policy movement needs now is to connect these two worlds. Here are my highlights from both conferences.

 like probably always was the place where every person is not just tolerated but welcomed with a warm hug. Coming from Russia, where harm reduction is not really a mainstream, it felt like a huge opposition gathering. The topics I followed were drug policy, human rights and providing funding for harm reduction.

In accordance with the slogan of the conference — “people before politics” — quite a lot was said about human rights. We, as a society, tend to blame individuals and trust the system to fix them, but it is in fact more fair to blame the system and the state, and give individuals the tools and autonomy to change it. Changing the existing drug policies is a political process, as well as citizen discussion, so we need to use the 

 further. For example, professor Rodrigo Uprimny who is also one of the members of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural rights spoke about the “Berlin wall” between Geneva as the home of human rights and Vienna as the host of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs. “We should build the bridge and make drug policy a human rights issue,” he said. The first step was done by the Chief Executives Board of the 31 UN agencies which, right before CND, adopted a common 

 on drug policy that endorsed decriminalisation of possession and use of drugs.

 said in her talk, by documenting the harm caused by repressive drug policies we can easily show what putting politics before people means. If only we could do the same with stigma and discrimination that these policies entail. People who use drugs are 

, stalked by the police, and at the same time have a hard time accessing legal aid almost everywhere in the world. There was a special session at the conference aimed at discussing the practices of paralawyers, or street lawyers, as a solution to this issue. Such programs of peer help to victims of human rights violations or violence have been implemented in Denmark, Indonesia, and Russia, among others, and they were proven to be effective even in such severe circumstances as in the case of the Philippines.

For people coming from countries with draconian drug policies, like myself, the Portugese officials said a lot of groundbreaking things like ”criminal justice is never good for issues related to drug use” coming from the police representative or everyones favorite from a member of parliament Ricardo Baptista-Leite ”harm reduction and love have one thing in common they both should be unconditional”. To get to the world with a human-rights-based drug policy, we should encourage politicians to meet with people who use drugs, and, more generally, make people living at the margins of the community visible to the community and be helpful not only to people who use drugs but also to politicians and the police, ”allow them to take credit and praise them.”

The future is intersectional

This article presents the way in which black women have been criminally punished in Brazil. It recalls how black women were punished with systematic rape during the slavery period. In contemporary times, when women are criminally punished they are considered abnormal, emotionally unbalanced and morally unstable, which leads to diagnoses of “incurable” ills such as madness and hysteria, which serve to corroborate a private sphere of punishment by religious networks and psychiatric establishments. 62% of women are confined due to guilt by association or drug trafficking. This piece of information leads the article to question the precarious nature of the war on drugs and to raise the need to strengthen the voices of women in prison – an emerging item on the human rights agenda.

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