Tutorial on overdose intervention by Villa Maraini Foundation

Politicians often escalate drug war rhetoric to show voters that they are doing something. But it is rare to ignore generations of lessons as President Trump did earlier this month when he announced his support for the execution of drug traffickers.

This idea is insane. But the war on drugs has never made any sense to begin with.

Executing a few individual smugglers will do little to stop others because there is no high command of the international drug trade to target, no generals who can order a coordinated surrender of farmers, traffickers, money launderers, dealers or users. The drug trade is diffuse and can span thousands of miles from producer to consumer. People enter the drug economy for all sorts of reasons — poverty, greed, addiction — and because they believe they will get away with it. Most people do. The death penalty only hurts the small portion of people who are caught (often themselves minorities and low-level mules).

Indeed, on the ground, the threat of execution will even help those who aren’t caught because they can charge an increased risk premium to the next person in the smuggling chain. The risk of capture and punishment increases as drugs move from farm to processing lab, traversing jungles, through cities, across oceans, past borders, distributed by dealers and purchased by consumers. The greater the risk to smugglers in this chain, the more they can demand in payment.

The war on drugs breeds crafty traffickers

After the March 4 general elections in Italy, the 18th Legislature is starting its session facing an array of urgent problems – including a National drug policy reform. At least this is the main goal of several groups that in mid-February introduced a seven-item platform detailing a series of actual changes to the current repressive approach. Indeed, even the new President of the House, Roberto Fico, underlined that the Parliament is an ideal setting for civil society proposals and direct democracy action, a place where “popular initiative” bills deserve broader acknowledgement and consideration.

Building on this perspective of democratic participation and open debate, in recent years a coalition of groups and associations representing users, health professionals and advocates contributed in drafting some legislative proposals previously introduced in both branches of the Parliament. These bills are based on feedback from all actors in the field and provide a comprehensive strategy that also aims at strengthening individual and civil rights and lessening the burden on the criminal justice system.

The first and most important issue is the full revision of the current drug law (Dpr n.309/90, also known as Iervolino-Vassalli Act). Approved in 1990 during the ‘war on drugs’ frenzy, this law relays completely on a prohibitionist and punitive approach, further exacerbated in 2006 by the Fini-Giovanardi Act, which eventually was largely canceled by the Constitutional Court in 2014.

The new Italian Parliament must act on drug policy reform

IN NOVEMBER 2015, a Joint Oireachtas Committee published a report strongly recommending adopting a ‘harm reducing and rehabilitative approach to the possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use’. In July 2017, the new Irish National Drugs Strategy, under action 3.1.35, provided for a Working Group to be set up to “Consider the approaches taken in other jurisdictions to the possession of small quantities of drugs for personal use with a view to making recommendations on policy options to the relevant Minister within 12 months.” This group was established in December 2017 and will report in due course.

In effect, when we talk about a ‘harm reducing and rehabilitative approach to the possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use’, we are talking about what is more commonly called ‘decriminalisation’. Currently, it is a crime to possess drugs – the State’s response to possession for personal use is founded in criminal justice – in the time of police and courts and lawyers, and the attendant costs to the taxpayer. Those advocating for decriminalisation are simply saying that this is not an optimal approach – not that the State should not respond to possession of drugs, but merely that the response should, in line with national policy on drug use, be founded in health and not crime. The evidence supporting such a move is strong, but to people unfamiliar with the issues, decriminalising possession can instinctively seem like a bad idea, so there is work to be done by advocates to explain to people what a health led response to drug use is, what it isn’t and what will happen when, hopefully, Ireland chooses to implement a more empathic and evidenced informed health based response to the possession of drugs for personal use.

'We need to help people who use drugs make healthier choices, not treat them as criminals'

Malcolm Turnbull has raised human rights concerns with the Philippines despite the country's President Rodrigo Duterte's decision to skip a special summit of Southeast Asian nations in Sydney. The prime minister is hosting nine of the ten Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Mr Duterte opted to stay home to attend a military graduation ceremony. Some analysts say it was a calculated move to avoid scrutiny and protests over his war on drugs which has killed 12,000 people. Mr Turnbull had a bilateral meeting with the Philippines foreign secretary Alan Peter Cayetano. It's understood the pair had a frank and open discussion on human rights. They also talked about Australian assistance to help quash a five-month-long Islamic State insurgency in Marawi, Philipppines. Australia has helped train Filipino troops in urban combat and provided surveillance aircraft.

ASEAN summit: Turnbull raises Duterte's drug war

Removing newborn babies from women who are suffering from addiction helps neither mother nor child, says a doctor at the forefront of a movement to keep them together. The stress of that separation, Dr. Ron Abrahams believes, has been confused for withdrawal symptoms in the past. "Whenever you put a baby in an abnormal environment, it's going to exhibit abnormal behaviour," he says. "And that was interpreted by the medical system in those days as the baby withdrawing, when it was actually withdrawing from the mother."

Babies born into circumstances of addiction have usually been whisked away from their mothers immediately after birth. The newborns were then brought to neonatal intensive care units, to be monitored and treated for withdrawal symptoms. But babies are not born addicted, Dr. Abrahams says — they are born "exposed" to the drug. "Addiction is defined as seeking out the drug," he explains. "These babies don't seek out the drug, they are just experiencing some withdrawal from the drug that they were exposed to." That withdrawal can take about a week for these babies, he says, during which time there's a greater benefit in keeping them with their mothers.

Separating newborn babies from mothers with addiction does more harm than good, says doctor

The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), monitoring the implementation of the Convention by the States Parties, recommended Russia to reconsider their approach to drug policy. The CRPD was only recently established in the UN – The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities came into effect in 2008. Currently, there are 147 signatories. Russia ratified the Convention in 2012. In accordance with Article 35, the government submitted its first report on the implementation of rights expressed in the Convention, which was evaluated in 2018. At the same time, the Andrey Rylkov Foundation (ARF) as the Secretariat of the Russian Public Mechanism monitoring drug reform, submitted its 

, which highlighted the problems faced by persons with disabilities as a result of the repressive drug policy in the Russian Federation. The report stated that in 2013 over a million people with mental-health related disabilities (PMHD) were living in Russia. The estimated number of people who use drugs was between two and seven million.

In Russia, it is a widespread opinion that mental health issues amongst drug users are an effect of psychoactive substances. For this reason, instead of treating patients on general principles, they are subjected to repressive policies and unscientific methods of treatment, arrested by the police, convicted and sentenced to imprisonment. In total, 12 violations of the Convention were reported, including the general principle of non-discrimination. Upon examination of Russia’s report on the implementation of the rights expressed in the Convention, CRPD created recommendations for Russia. The recommendations contained several suggestions based directly on the ARF shadow report. Accordingly, CRDP urged to take into consideration the recommendations for Russia put forward in October 2017 by another UN committee – the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR). CESCR expressed concerns of the level of drug addition and the punitive drug policy, which prevents drug users from seeking medical assistance, entering harm reduction programs and imprisons them for drug-related crimes. Consequently, CESCR recommended Russia to reconsider imprisonment for drug possession and start combating the stigma towards drug addicts, providing them medical assistance, adopting harm reduction programs and take more effective measures to diminish the spread of HIV/AIDS.

The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recommends Russia to change their drug policy approach

КПИ является самым молодым правозащитным комитетом в системе ООН — Конвенция по правам инвалидов вступила в силу лишь в 2008 году. Сейчас под документом стоит подпись 147 участников.

Россия ратифицировала Конвенцию в 2012 году. В соответствии со статьей 35 Конвенции, правительство подало в КПИ свой первый доклад о выполнении ее положений, который и был рассмотрен в 2018 году. Тогда же Фонд имени Андрея Рылькова (ФАР), выступая в качестве Секретариата российского механизма мониторинга реформы наркополитики, подал свой 

, где обозначил проблемы, с которыми люди с инвалидностью сталкиваются в связи с репрессивной наркополитикой государства.

В докладе отмечалось, что в 2013 году в России числились более 1 млн людей с инвалидностью в связи с психическим расстройством (ЛИПР), а наркопотребителей насчитывалось, по разным данным, от двух до семи миллионов.

В отсутствие точной статистики вывод о масштабе числа ЛИПР, употребляющих наркотики, можно сделать из данных Всемирной организации здравоохранения (ВОЗ), согласно которым распространенность потребления среди людей, страдающих от психических заболеваний, не меньше, чем среди тех, у кого таких заболеваний нет, либо из статистики других стран — в Канаде, к примеру, как минимум 20% ЛИПР имеют проблемы с употреблением психоактивных веществ. При этом, ВОЗ, Всемирная психиатрическая ассоциация и Европейский мониторинговый центр по наркотикам и наркозависимости, подчеркивают отсутствие научной статистики, доказывающей, что двойной диагноз — зависимость от психоактивных веществ, сопряженная с психическим расстройством — является следствием проблемного употребления наркотиков.

Комитет ООН по правам инвалидов рекомендовал России изменить подход к наркополитике

BANGKOK (16 March 2018) – The UN Human Rights Office for South-East Asia condemns the execution of Singaporean national Hishamrudin bin Mohd for a drug-related offence this morning, expressing concerns that he had not been able to file a clemency petition. “Under international law, the death penalty may only be used for ‘the most serious crimes’ which has been interpreted to mean only crimes involving intentional killing,” said the Office’s Regional Representative, Cynthia Veliko. “Drug-related offences do not fall under this threshold. We deeply regret that in 2017, eight individuals were executed for drug-related offences in Singapore, which is a sharp increase from previous years. We have also received information that there was another execution for drug-related offences last Friday, bringing the total known figure to two executions so far in 2018,” she said.

On Monday, Mr. Hishamrudin’s family was informed that he would be executed on 16 March 2018. They were also informed that the petition for clemency had been rejected, although they had not yet filed a proper clemency petition on his case. Mr. Hishamrudin, 57, was arrested and charged with two offences for possessing a total of 38.50 grams of a pure form of heroin on 7 October 2010. He has consistently maintained his innocence, and claimed to have no knowledge of the nature of the drugs, nor that he possessed them for the purposes of trafficking. On 6 April 2016, Mr. Hishamrudin was convicted and sentenced to death under section 33B of the Misuse of Drugs Act. On 3 July 2017, his appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal.

UN Human Rights Office condemns execution for drug-related offences in Singapore

Indonesia's new anti-narcotics chief has vowed to emulate his predecessor by endorsing the summary killing of alleged drug traffickers. Heru Winarko officially took over running the National Narcotics Agency on March 5. The man he replaced, Budi Waseso, claimed to have been inspired by the mass killing of drug suspects in the Philippines under President Rodrigo Duterte. Waseso was reported to have stated that 79 people allegedly involved in drugs were shot dead last year. Incoming anti-drugs chief Winarko immediately publicly supported this shoot-to-kill policy, maintaining that police had a right to use lethal force if drug dealers resisted arrest. "We will shoot them," he said. Critics countered that his comments were tantamount to endorsing summary extra-judicial killings. Winarko, a former investigator at Indonesia's Corruption Eradication Commission, also said he supports the death penalty for convicted drug dealers. Catholic human rights activist Azas Tigor Nainggolan cited corruption within the government's "legal apparatus" in relation to trafficking. Nainggolan noted that when Budi Waseso was still heading the National Narcotics Agency he had estimated that about half of the trade was controlled by convicts in the nation's prisons. The fact that this was done in cooperation with some criminal members of the "security forces" made the agency's task more difficult, Waseso added.

Last year 58,365 drug suspects were arrested by the agency and tonnes of illegal drugs were seized. Daniel Awigra, a program manager at the ASEAN Human Rights Advocacy of the Human Rights Working Group, said Winarko should confront corruption rather than backing "uncivilized" policies. Ajeng Larasati, from the Society Legal Aid Institute, said on-the-ground killings would make it more difficult to dismantle large drug networks. Shooting people dead cut off potential sources of information that could be obtained from dealers when they were arrested, she said. Police mostly killed people at lower levels of the narcotics business rather than the masterminds, Larasati added. Meanwhile, Bramantya Basuki, a researcher for Amnesty International in Indonesia, said while officers could also be victims of violence, human rights still needed to be protected. When suspects were killed, there needed to be independent investigations with the results made public, Basuki said.

Indonesia to continue shooting drug traffickers

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Annual General Assembly and Board elections. As the incoming Chair, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce the new Board members for 2018:

: Myself, Jamie Bridge from the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC)

: Lucia Goberna from Dianova International

: Orsi Feher from Students for Sensible Drug Policy

 Tania Ramirez from Mexico Unido Contra la Delincuencia (MUCD)

 Shaun Shelly from the TB/HIV Care Association in South Africa

On behalf of us all, I want to assure you of our absolute commitment to representing the full scope of civil society that makes the VNGOC what it is. As individuals, we come from a range of backgrounds – spanning youth representation, HIV prevention, advocacy, treatment and recovery and crime prevention – and we all applied for the respective positions on the Board fully aware of the need to put aside personal views and ensure that all civil society perspectives and voices can be heard here in Vienna. This is our mission.

I ask now for your solidarity, and to allow us – as the new Board – to demonstrate this commitment over the coming year. We plan to lead by example on this front and will, for example, be developing a robust Code of Conduct for Board Members (which will, of course, be circulated to all members for your review and feedback).

New VNGOC board

The Zimbabwe Civil Liberties and Drug Network (ZCLDN) joins the people of Zimbabwe and the international community in commemorating the World TB Day.

In Zimbabwe, the Day, which is being commemorated on Saturday, 24 March, is being held when the country undergoing a national health crisis due to the three week strike by the government junior doctors.

The doctors’ strike has seriously affected patients across the country with TB patients being the most affected. TB patients are in need of regular medical attention. But the strike by the doctors has seriously affected TB patients the worst as they are failing to get access to treatment and counselling. Some cases of TB patients who are in need of urgent medical treatment being turned away from government hospitals have been reported at some medical centres.

As the ZCLDN we urge the government to urgently look into the concerns of the junior medical doctors and meet their demands so that the doctors are able to resume their duties.

The current strike by the doctors if not resolved urgently, will seriously affected Zimbabwe’s goals of ending TB within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework by 2030, which the country had fully adopted.

The ZCLDN also urges members of the public not to discriminate, stigmatise, marginalise TB patients in their communities.

New national guidelines have shown that TB most prevalent in urban settings like Hopley, Epworth, Whitecliff and other informal settlements, which has seen an increase in TB incidences due to poor ventilation and over crowdedness. These are areas where the ZCLDN has noticed a high prevalence of drug use misuse and has seriously affected TB patients who also use drugs.

We, therefore, call upon the government and the people of Zimbabwe not to leave out TB patients who use drugs in the fight against ending TB.

The goal to ending TB by 2030 can only be achieved if there is more investment towards TB response by the patients their relatives, government, churches and the private sector.

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