Instead of stemming the flow of narcotics, the global “war on drugs” has only managed to cause untold suffering to millions of people across the world. The voice of communities involved in illicit cultivation have long been excluded from national and international policymaking platforms. What alternative approaches are there to current regime? Is it possible to put human rights first? Guests: 

Martin Jelsma: Director Drugs & Democracy programme, TNI.

TNI's State of Power podcast: Alternative approaches to drug policy 

The NCPI Data Platform is the online platform for policy data related to the AIDS response collected in line with the global commitments outlined in the 2016 United Nations Political Declaration on Ending AIDS by UNAIDS and the World Health Organization (WHO). The purpose of the platform is to make policy data available, promote accountability and support joint analysis of policy information with other relevant data to inform national AIDS responses.

The main data source is the National Commitments and Policy Instrument (NCPI), a component of Global AIDS Monitoring (GAM). The 2016 Political Declaration adopted at the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS in June 2016 mandated UNAIDS to support countries in reporting on the commitments in the Political Declaration. UNAIDS, WHO and the United Nations Children’s Fund have collected country progress reports from United Nations Member States to monitor the current and previous political declarations every two years since 2004 and every year since 2012.

The NCPI has been a component of global AIDS monitoring since 2003 and was implemented every two years until 2014. The NCPI underwent an extensive review between 2014 and 2016. The new version of the NCPI was implemented for the first time in 2017; it is included in GAM every two years. A shorter questionnaire consisting of a subset of NCPI questions is included in GAM during interim years.

The NCPI is a questionnaire consisting of two parts: part A, completed by national authorities, and part B, completed by civil society representatives and other nongovernmental partners involved in the AIDS response. During the recommended process for completing the NCPI and GAM reporting overall, countries are encouraged to conduct a validation workshop to jointly analyse indicator data, including on AIDS expenditure, and policy data, in order to identify progress, gaps, challenges and the next steps towards national targets and commitments.

UNAIDS: Laws and policies analytics

People on the front lines of the opioid crisis have long said creating a supply of clean drugs and removing the criminal element will cut down on the number of people dying of overdoses in British Columbia.

Over 4,500 people have died from drug overdoses in B.C. since 2016, the year the province declared a public health emergency, and coroners reports show fentanyl was involved in approximately 85 per cent of those deaths.

As the body count mounts, the calls from health-care workers, addiction specialists and politicians for decriminalization and a safe drug supply are getting louder.

Last month, the B.C. Nurse Practitioner Association and the Harm Reduction Nurses Association, representing thousands of nurses, called on the province to decriminalize drugs. This month, the City of Vancouver released a video calling for a regulated safe supply. On Wednesday, addiction medicine physician Derek Chang published an op-ed calling on Canadians to make decriminalization a federal election issue.

Melissa Nicholson, a clinical nurse educator at Providence Health Care's Urban Health Program, said the overdose prevention site at Vancouver's St. Paul's Hospital has had 12,400 visits since it opened in May 2018. She said the opioid epidemic is so bad because of the abundance of contaminated street drugs.

"I think a lot of people would advocate that a regulated drug supply is really what we need to be seeing," she said, adding that frontline workers do not have anything but band-aid tools to help addicts for the time being.

'We don't have a choice': Experts call for the decriminalisation and safe supply of drugs in British Columbia

 in June, Junnosuke Taguchi was just another pop star-turned-minor actor. Dressed in funereal black, Mr Taguchi prostrated himself in contrition before a scrum of reporters after his release on bail for drugs charges. A police raid on his apartment in Tokyo had uncovered rolling papers, a seed-grinder and 2.2 grams of marijuana (enough to roll a couple of joints).

While other countries legalise marijuana or instruct the police to turn a blind eye to casual use, Japan maintains strict prohibition. Possession is punishable by up to five years in prison—seven if the intent is to profit from distribution. Teams of detectives are dispatched to raid the homes of pot-smokers in remote rural areas. Every summer police comb the cooler northern countryside for wild cannabis, methodically pulling up millions of plants and incinerating them in bonfires.

Strict enforcement of the Cannabis Control Act leaves most young people with little exposure to the sort of drug-taking that is commonplace elsewhere, says an official with the justice ministry, and so narrows the “gateway” to harder substances. Hard drugs are indeed vanishingly rare: police reported only 14 heroin-related crimes last year. But the anti-cannabis regime is not purely punitive. Nearly half of offences go unprosecuted, and even those that are often end in suspended sentences. The emphasis, at least for young, first-time offenders, is on rehabilitation.

Read the full article here (restricted access).

Japanese law and social mores still treat users of "soft" drugs severely

Despite recommendations of global community-led networks, the International AIDS Society (IAS) have chosen the United States as the site for its next International AIDS Conference in 2020. We will not be participating in this 2020 International AIDS Conference being organised in San Francisco and Oakland. We are proud to stand in solidarity with GNP+, ICW, NSWP, MPACT, ITPC, and with Mexican HIV activists and networks of people who use drugs, who are working hard to plan a community centred, alternative gathering to be held between the 5th and 7th July 2020.

The IAS decision to hold the AIDS Conference in the United States shows a disregard for their own organisational values, which include an explicit focus on human rights and inclusivity, whilst encouraging meaningful engagement of people living with HIV and key populations. Moreover, it highlights a concerning willingness to ignore community voices and further marginalise and exclude already marginalised and discriminated against populations.

INPUD Statement: HIV2020

MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines will not allow visits by the United Nations to investigate its bloody war on drugs, its foreign minister said on Wednesday, calling its human rights experts “bastards” who had already demonstrated prejudice.

The United Nations Human Rights Council approved a resolution in July to compile a comprehensive report on President Rodrigo Duterte’s three-year crackdown, during which at least 6,700 people have been killed in what police say were shootouts with dealers who resisted arrest.

Thousands of mostly urban poor drug users have also been killed, many in mysterious circumstances. Human rights groups accuse police of systematic cover-ups and summary executions of anyone associated with drugs, which police reject.

Asked in a television interview if U.N. investigators would be allowed to work in the Philippines, Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin said: “No. Because they have already prejudged.”

'Not a chance' - Philippine minister says no access for U.N. drugs war probe

By Catherine Cook / Harm Reduction International and FCAA

What are the possible reasons a donor might begin/enter into funding harm reduction work?

Donors choose to fund harm reduction because it is evidence based, cost-effective, and has been proven to reduce HIV transmission. We will not end AIDS by 2030 without a significant scale-up of harm reduction programming:

 There is an abundance of scientific research showing the effectiveness of harm reduction interventions in preventing HIV infection. The priority interventions for people who inject drugs – as outlined in World Health Organization, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and UNAIDS technical guidance – are needle and syringe programmes and opioid substitution therapy. However, only 1% of people who inject drugs live in countries with high coverage of harm reduction interventions. Consequently, HIV infections among people who inject drugs continue to rise in many countries in the world, particularly in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa. Funding for harm reduction in low- and middle-income countries falls far short of need. Harm Reducation International (HRI) research found this to reach only 13% of the $1.5 billion that UNAIDS estimate is required to cover 90% of people who inject drugs with services by 2020.

Harm reduction has been demonstrated to be a high impact, “value for money” investment for donors. Harm reduction interventions are relatively inexpensive to implement and are proven to be cost-effective HIV prevention measures. HRI summarised some of this evidence in our report 

The Case for a Harm Reduction Decade: Progress Potential and Paradigm Shifts

 (p.11). It is becoming increasingly important for civil society and community advocates to be able to convey cost-effectiveness evidence when advocating for harm reduction funding.

Resourcing harm reduction blog series: Harm Reduction International

Federal and provincial governments agree the death toll from opioid overdoses amounts to a national health crisis.

In British Columbia — where the situation has been declared a public emergency — advocates say a "safe supply" of drugs is needed.

Exactly what it sounds like. In a February 2019 'concept document' provided to Vancouver City Council, the Canadian Association of People Who Use Drugs describes "safe supply" as "a legal and regulated supply of drugs with mind/body altering properties that traditionally have been accessible only through the illicit drug market."

The supply would include heroin and other opioids, cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, hallucinogens such as MDMA and LSD, and marijuana — free of charge.

Thousands of Canadians have lost their lives to the opioid crisis in recent years. The dead include people of all ages from every walk of life.

Last July, the City of Vancouver approved a "safe supply statement" to share with other levels of government and to advocate for access to a regulated drug supply.

"We often hear this crisis referred to as an overdose crisis, but really, we are in a drug poisoning crisis," the statement reads.

"One of the primary causes of overdose is the contamination of the illicit drug supply, and we believe that future deaths could be prevented if people could access a regulated safe supply."

What is a 'safe supply' of drugs and how would it work in British Columbia?

A Labour government could reportedly consider legalising all drugs if it was recommended by royal commission.

“There is nothing more important than preserving the life of our citizens," Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, told 

Our current approach to drugs is simply not doing that."

She said the party would "establish a royal commission to review independently all drugs legislation and policy to address related issues of public health."

Labour would then follow its recommendations, if it suggested decriminalising some or all drugs including cocaine or heroin.

Overdose prevention clinics - state run facilities where users could safely inject themselves - would also be considered, Ms Abbott told the newspaper.

UK Labour party to ‘consider legalising all drugs’ including cocaine and heroin

By Maria Cattaui and Richard Branson / Contributed to the Globe and Mail

Cannabis has been considered one of the “most dangerous” psychoactive substances with little to no medical benefit since the first United Nations drug control treaty was established in 1961. It was strictly prohibited and, for decades, countries have fought, literally, to enforce the ban on its production, sale, possession and consumption, with the aim of eliminating it from society.

Faced with reality, however, countries are now increasingly recognizing that prohibition enforced by repression has utterly failed to curb supply and demand, while exacting a heavy toll on society in terms of money wasted, lives lost to crime, incarceration, and discrimination.

The past decade has seen monumental change. Nearly 40 countries around the world have legalized the substance for some form of medical use and, in January, 2019 the World Health Organization published a review of the potential risks and benefits of cannabis (the first such review sanctioned by an intergovernmental body since 1936), acknowledging the medicinal usefulness of cannabis.

This situation has led to a growing trade of plant-based medical cannabis products among countries where it is legal in some form, with many of these concentrated in the Americas (Canada, Jamaica, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay – and currently under consideration in Brazil). Canada alone exported almost 1,500 kg in 2018, three times the volume exported in 2017. Colombia, meanwhile, aims to produce more than 40 tons of cannabis for medical use per year as of 2019.

The market is clearly going mainstream, And this, despite the fact that the use of cannabis is still banned in most countries and that cross-border trade of medical cannabis is subjected to stringent regulations, with systems tracking the product from seed to sale. These international guidelines, however, are still set within the prohibitionist framework and fail to address some of the most important aspects – ethical as well as financial – of this burgeoning trade for medical cannabis, including: trade relations between the northern and southern hemispheres, environmental concerns, fair trade practices, social justice and other sustainable development goals.

Cannabis in the Americas: It’s time to talk about marijuana policy

At various points in the past the idea of a Royal Commission on drug policy has been proposed a useful way of breaking the drug policy impasse. Both the Greens and Lib Dems have previously proposed Royal Commissions before eventually calling for specific reforms, including legalising and regulating cannabis for recreational use.

The Labour Party has now announced that, if elected, they will launch a Royal Commission into the drugs issue. The shadow Home Secretary, Diane Abbot said today that: “We will establish a Royal Commission to review independently all drugs legislation and policy to address related issues of public health”. And that “There is nothing more important than preserving the life of our citizens. Our current approach to drugs is simply not doing that.”

We are delighted that the Labour Party recognises the failure of our drug laws to protect citizens and promote health. It is also clear that this movement is occurring across parties. They have all identified a problem. The question is, whether a Royal Commission is the best solution.

A Royal Commission on drug law reform in the UK: Is it the best approach?

New marijuana business licenses reserved for low-income demographics are set to launch in Colorado in 2020, but questions remain about who should receive these licenses and how they should be regulated.

Created by Senate Bill 224, a 2019 law that overhauls the state's medical and recreational marijuana regulations, the new licenses are intended to add more diversity to Colorado's cannabis space while providing opportunity to entrepreneurs who don't have traditional training or funding outlets. Also known as micro licenses, the new permits would require the new businesses to use the facilities of established pot companies as they research and create their own cannabis products.

Colorado cannabis regulators and industry members began addressing the upcoming accelerator licenses during a state Marijuana Enforcement Division stakeholder meeting Friday, September 13. But instead of the usual roundtable discussion, the group of cannabis organization leaders, business owners and regulators broke into working groups to discuss issues such as how long the agreements should last between the accelerator and endorsing businesses, how the state could incentivize potential endorsers, and what criteria should qualify the new licensees.

"People from around the world look to us as an example on how to do things right," MED director Jim Burack said during the meeting. "What exactly is this relationship between endorser and accelerator? How do we ensure this business relationship is mutually beneficial?"

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