How Brazil’s overcrowded and underfunded penitentiary system contributes to the country’s public security crisis

On July 30, inmates killed nearly sixty fellow prisoners during a five-hour clash between rival gangs in Altamira prison in the northern state of Pará, an event that recalled the deaths of fifty-five inmates from different prisons in Amazonas state in May. Just two years earlier, in 2017, more than 120 inmates died over two days of fighting among rival gang members at prisons across Brazil’s northern states.

Outbreaks of deadly violence are not uncommon in Brazil’s prisons, which have struggled to accommodate the country’s steadily increasing prison population. In fact, the homicide rate for inmates is six times higher than the already-high national average. Yet voters and politicians have tended to view violence within prisons as separate from the public security crisis nationwide. When President Jair Bolsonaro and his Justice and Public Security Minister, Sergio Moro, promised voters that they would be tough on crime, much of their rhetoric focused on harsher penalties and jailing more criminals, rather than true penal system reform. However, the prevailing policy of mass incarceration may only exacerbate the existing violence and poor conditions that plague Brazil’s penitentiary system, while doing little to improve public security nationwide. Years of research and experience suggest policies targeting the inflow of inmates and recidivism—the likelihood of a convicted criminal to reoffend—are far more effective at reducing overall crime rates.

What Does Brazil’s Penitentiary System Look Like?

With over 811,000 inmates, Brazil registers the world’s third largest prison population, behind China (1.6 million) and the United States (2.1 million). Between 2000 and 2015, the United States’ prison population increased by 14 percent, while Brazil’s increased by a whopping 170 percent. Although the United States still incarcerates a larger percentage of its population than any other country in the world, incarceration trends are on a downward path: the country’s incarceration rate (which takes into account population change) peaked at 1,000 inmates per 100,000 adults during 2006 and 2008 and has declined every year thereafter. Experts attribute this to a decreasing crime rate and changes in prosecution and sentencing patterns. In contrast, Brazil’s trend shows that the incarceration rate is still increasing. According to Brazil’s Ministry of Public Security, the country’s prison population will surpass one million in 2021, and reach 1.5 million by 2025. Yet, Brazil has just half of the cell space needed to accommodate its inmates today.

Brazil's mass incarceration policy has not stopped crime 

The local community raised complaints to the city council about crime they associated with drug use in their neighbourhood. As a result, the council issued local organisation TB/HIV Care to seize services in one of the city’s major hot spots.

To avoid a complete shutdown, a series of roundtable talks are ongoing. The situation shows an urgent need of continuous advocacy in support of harm reduction as an effective approach to not only tackle HIV, but also reduce crime and public order problems.

People who use drugs in Durban have already seen their health deteriorate rapidly in the complete absence of clean gear. HIV is on the rise and people suffer from overdose and abscesses. Worse, people feel that they are being completely left behind. Mainline gives a shout out to our South African friends: continue the fight!

Needle and syringe programmes under pressure in South Africa

By Alfredo Pascual / Marijuana Business Daily

Paraguay plans to open up the application process next month for businesses seeking to secure a production license for the country’s new medical cannabis industry.

The nation’s health minister, Julio Mazzoleni, announced during a press conference on Thursday the approval of a resolution establishing the guidelines to apply for the first commercial production licenses.

Five vertically integrated licenses will be up for grabs. The licenses cover cultivation as well as the manufacture of medical cannabis products.

Separately, the Senate approved a bill that would allow home growing of cannabis for medical purposes.

Paraguay legalized medical cannabis in December 2007 and in August 2018 the regulatory decree that spells out how the law should be implemented was approved. But until now no business opportunities for domestic production were available.

Paraguay to open application process for medical cannabis production licenses in October

The Barbados government has given members of the Rastafarian movement the assurance that it has set aside at least 60 acres of land for its members to grow marijuana legally.

Agriculture Minister Indar Weir, speaking in parliament on Friday, is also promising the group that it would play a major role in establishing a medicinal cannabis industry.

But Weir told legislators that the proposed legislation spoke only to the use of medicinal cannabis.

“I feel the responsibility to make sure that we make it absolutely clear that what we are dealing with here is medicinal cannabis and we ought not to introduce the confusion that most people seem to be going through with regard to what is the decriminalisation of recreational cannabis.

In his presentation on the Medical Cannabis Bill 2019, Weir said that Barbadians would benefit from the establishment of a medical cannabis industry and that any foreign investors interested in becoming involved in the industry would have to allow Barbadians to own 30 per cent of its business.

“This is designed to make sure every last Barbadian is given a chance to participate. We're not just singling out one group, but that every group that has an interest will be part of this industry.

Barbados government promises Rastafarians 60 acres to grow marijuana 

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?"

Colorado reviews new social equity marijuana business licenses

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?

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

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

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?

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

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

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.

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