On March 14-22, 2024, the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) held its 67th annual session in Vienna, Austria. The session saw a landmark vote that may have important repercussions for drug policy, in Latin America and elsewhere.

The Commission approved a U.S.-led resolution encouraging countries to implement “harm reduction” measures to respond to drug overdoses and to protect public health.

The vote marks a major breakthrough in civil society’s decades-long advocacy to center harm reduction, especially since the U.S. government has a history of blocking all such resolutions, and since the Commission has a longstanding tradition of enactment by a “Vienna Consensus” without votes.

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A groundbreaking win at the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs

While there have been reductions in the rates of most major causes of death among people with HIV in North America and Europe since 1996, people who inject drugs – particularly women – remain vulnerable to early death.

Before 1996 – when combination antiretroviral therapy (ART) became the mainstay of HIV treatment – death from AIDS was a near inevitability, even in high-income countries. Due to ART’s high effectiveness at suppressing HIV, AIDS-related deaths have declined steeply, particularly in Europe and North America. However, between 1996 and 2012, ART was usually only started when a person’s CD4 count fell below a certain level or based on symptoms. This changed globally based on conclusive findings from the INSIGHT START and TEMPRANO studies – these indicated that immediate ART initiation leads to the best outcomes, regardless of CD4 count and disease stage. Thus, test and treat approaches that aim to minimise the time between diagnosis and starting treatment were implemented globally between 2012 and 2015. People living with HIV on effective treatment are now more likely to die at an older age from age-related illnesses, such as heart disease or cancer than AIDS. Additionally, death from substance use and hepatitis C remains higher among people living with HIV.

Big falls in HIV deaths in high-income countries – except for injecting drug users

Data from drug checking services across Europe provide us with valuable insights into drug market dynamics and can help warn users of dangerous substances in circulation. Analysing such data is part of the EMCDDA's multi-indicator approach to drug monitoring and provides crucial information for local interventions. Today, the EMCDDA has released the latest drug-checking data from the Trans-European Drug Information (TEDI) network, with which it has been collaborating since 2017.

The data are presented in interactive maps, which allow individuals to look at geographical and temporal patterns and to zoom in on results by drug, year, semester and city. At present, the substances covered are: amphetamine, cocaine, heroin, ketamine, MDMA pills and MDMA powder.

These interactive features have been designed to be accessible and user-friendly and to perform better on mobile and desktop devices. In line with the EMCDDA’s commitment to open data, all of the source tables behind the tool can be easily downloaded by researchers, data journalists or anyone interested in using the data in their work.

New drug checking data from the Trans-European Drug Information (TEDI) network

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy signed into law a bill legalising the medical use of cannabis, a parliamentary database showed on Thursday.More than 6 million people, including cancer patients, civilians with post-traumatic stress disorder, and wounded soldiers need medicine containing cannabis, according to a lawmaker.The bill signed by Zelenskiy on Tuesday would only come into force six months after it is officially published, and the ban on selling or supplying cannabis for recreational use would remain in effect.

Ukraine legalises cannabis for medical use

A few years ago, Howell Miller was in prison in New York State, walking laps around the track with a fellow-inmate he’d befriended, who happened to be a former U.S. congressman. Prior to the prison stint, Miller, a cheerful guy in his early fifties, had run a construction company and a serious marijuana operation, simultaneously. “I was a silent baller,” he told me. “Then one of my guys got caught with forty-four hundred pounds on a truck.” As Miller neared the end of a twelve-year sentence, he began hearing stories of people getting rich running weed shops: “I was thinking, Why the hell am I still in jail?” His ex-congressman friend, Anthony Weiner, told him on the track that day that the first dispensary licenses were going to be awarded to people who had marijuana convictions. “I thought, I’m gonna get out and look into that,” Miller said.

What Weiner had described was the Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary program, or CAURD. It’s the flagship program of the Office of Cannabis Management (O.C.M.), the agency created, in 2021, to oversee the legalization of marijuana in New York. The state’s cannabis restrictions had been loosening for almost a decade, but that year the government passed a law that would have seemed unthinkable just a short while before. The governor at the time, Andrew Cuomo, had been pushed left on the issue during a primary challenge from Cynthia Nixon; after his reëlection, he found himself knee-deep in multiple scandals, and unusually pliable. The law not only made pot legal for adults; it also allocated forty per cent of weed-related tax revenue to communities where cops had made disproportionate marijuana arrests, and it set a goal of awarding half of all licenses to “social and economic equity” applicants: women, people of color, service-disabled veterans, distressed farmers, and residents of those overpoliced communities.

CAURD went a step further, mandating that the first licenses for the sale of recreational weed go to people who had, or whose family members had, a marijuana-related conviction. In the previous four decades, according to an analysis by the Legal Aid Society, police in New York had made more than a million marijuana arrests. Although weed is consumed in roughly equal proportions across the racial and economic spectrum, as recently as 2020 people of color were subjected to ninety-four per cent of marijuana arrests and summonses in New York City; arrests in the city were also much heavier in high-poverty areas. The idea for CAURD was plain: legal weed as reparations.

Legal weed in New York was going to be a revolution. What happened?

Decades of harsh laws that punish and stigmatize people who use drugs and others involved in the drug trade have led to 

mass incarceration, disease, suffering and violence.

 Criminalizing drugs does not decrease their use or supply. Instead, it drives the trade underground, increases the harms of using drugs and fuels organized crime, corruption and violence. 

The prohibition of drugs directly impacts our 

 People who use drugs are denied access to medical treatment or are deterred from seeking medical assistance for fear of being reported to the authorities. This increases the risk of overdose and other threats to their life and health. 

Drug policies designed to punish people exacerbate the risks and harms associated with drug use. These policies can lead to increased 

 They also obstruct access to drugs for medical purposes, including for pain relief and palliative care, resulting in further harm and 

The term “war on drugs” was first used in 1971 by US President Richard Nixon with his aggressive and discriminatory campaign to enforce drug prohibition. Since then, it has been used by many governments around the world to launch crackdowns on people who use drugs and reduce the trafficking of drugs. These campaigns rely on harsh punishments to deter people from using or selling drugs.

From mass killings in the Philippines and the application of the death penalty for drug offences in Malaysia, to mass incarceration in the USA and torture in Mexico, the “war on drugs” has been a driver of widespread human rights abuses.

There is growing evidence from every region in the world that the “war on drugs” fails to decrease the use and availability of drugs. Instead, it undermines the rights of millions of people, exacerbates the harms of using drugs, and intensifies the violence associated with illicit markets.

It disproportionately affects the poorest and most marginalized communities, who carry the burden of this failed strategy. It traps entire communities in cycles of incarceration, violence and poverty.

Amnesty International's portal on drug policy reform

The Government of Saint Lucia, through the Ministry of Commerce, Manufacturing, Business Development, Cooperatives and Consumer Affairs, has been engaged in the revision and development of policy, legislation and a regulatory framework for cannabis in Saint Lucia.

In keeping with these advancements, the Government of Saint Lucia will be hosting a two-day Cannabis Symposium from March 19 – March 20, 2024 as an open-ended regional policy discussion on matters relating to cannabis.

This symposium will afford relevant stakeholders and Cannabis Authorities within the region an opportunity to hold candid discussions on some of the issues and challenges experienced throughout the region.

Subsequently, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) will be signed by the aforementioned parties, guided by a common interest to establish and maintain robust, inclusive and safe regimes surrounding cannabis cultivation, manufacturing, sale and use in the individual states of the region.

This MOU will, in effect, establish the Caribbean Cannabis Forum—a mechanism to encourage and host joint discussions on national, regional or international cannabis matters of relevance to the Caribbean region.

Saint Lucia to host Caribbean Cannabis Symposium

 UNAIDS welcomes the adoption of a key resolution today at the 67th session of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), recognizing harm reduction for the first time as an important part of an effective public health response. The resolution encourages member states to develop and implement harm reduction measures to minimize the adverse public health and social consequences of the non-medical use of illicit drugs. UNAIDS congratulates the CND and the CND Chair for this historic milestone.

The resolution encourages member states to develop and implement harm reduction measures to minimize the adverse public health and social consequences of the non-medical use of illicit drugs. UNAIDS congratulates the CND and the CND Chair for this historic milestone.

 represents a landmark in political commitment to a rebalancing of drug policy towards a public health approach. Such a shift is critical to meeting the targets in the 2021-2026 Global AIDS Strategy.

Harm reduction is a “a comprehensive package of evidence-based interventions, based on public health and human rights, including needle syringe programmes (NSPs), opioid agonist maintenance therapy (OAMT) and naloxone for overdose management. Harm reduction also refers to policies and strategies that aim to prevent major public and individual health harms, including HIV, viral hepatitis and overdose, without necessarily stopping drug use.” (World Health Organization, 2022).

Since 2018 only five countries have reported achieving the target of providing 200 sterile needles and syringes per person who inject drugs. In that same timeframe only three countries reported achieving the target of 50% coverage of opioid agonist maintenance therapy among people who inject drugs.

The criminalization of drug use and possession for personal use in at least 145 countries, along with stigma, discrimination and violence, continues to restrict both the provision of and access to life-saving harm reduction services.

A failure to invest in harm reduction services or remove the structures that inhibit access, including those relating to gender, have led to a situation where HIV prevalence among people who inject drugs is 7 times that of the rest of the population, and people who inject drugs have the highest incidence globally of any key or vulnerable population. In countries with data, median HIV prevalence among women who inject drugs is almost twice that of men who use drugs.

Under the UN Common Position on Drugs, UNAIDS collaborates with other UN agencies and partners with governments, community-led organizations and donors to increase the provision of harm reduction services and remove harmful laws and policies which create barriers to accessing such services, such as the criminalization of possession of drugs for personal use. UNAIDS works to ensure all efforts relating to drug policy are in conformity with international human rights, as outlined in the international guidelines on human rights and drug policy.

UNAIDS welcomes the adoption of a crucial resolution recognizing harm reduction measures at the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs

A coalition of stakeholders led by a number of TDs and Senators have called for part of the Misuse of Drugs Act to be repealed.

Section 3 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977 criminalises people for the possession of drugs for personal use.

Yesterday, the Government announced that it would establish a Joint Oireachtas Committee to consider the Report of the Citizens' Assembly on Drugs Use and respond to its recommendations.

Following months of hearings last year, the assembly voted for a health-led approach to the use of drugs in Ireland.

At a presentation this morning, a group led by Independent Senator Lynn Ruane, Deputy Neasa Hourigan of the Green Party and Labour TD Aodhán Ó Ríordáin said Section 3 of the act should be repealed as a first step.

At this morning's presentation, coordinator of the Citywide Drugs Crisis Campaign Anna Quigley stressed the importance of ending "the current moral judgement of drug use as 'bad' and something for which people need to be punished".

She said repealing the particular section of the act would ensure "effective implementation" of the other recommendations.

It was argued that recommendations regarding health services could not be implemented effectively without repeal.

Ireland: Call for part of Misuse of Drugs Act to be repealed

Hashish dealers in Morocco have said they will stop supplying to Israel in light of the war in Gaza, as reported by Israeli news site Mako on Friday.

According to an Israeli drug dealer interviewed for the report, the Moroccan suppliers are no longer willing to sell directly to Israeli dealers or through middlemen. "They decided because of the war, they are boycotting," the source, who wished to remain anonymous, said. "Since the war, we have lost so much money. Tens of millions of shekels, at least."

Moroccan hashish dealers reportedly boycott Israel, citing Palestinian suffering

Vancouver Police Department (VPD) data indicates that seizures of drugs by officers in quantities at or below 2.5 grams increased by 34 per cent in the six months after British Columbia implemented its “decriminalization” model, when compared with the six months prior.

Amid a worsening drug toxicity crisis that has 

 over 13,000 people since April 2016, the B.C. government implemented a “decriminalization” framework for certain drugs in quantities at or under 2.5 grams on Jan. 31, 2023, in coordination with the federal government. The federal government granted the province an exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA). The model 

 a notable number of exceptions and disclaimers.

The Maple obtained the VPD data on drug seizures made before and after decriminalization through an access to information request.

In an email, B.C.’s Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions (MMHA) sent totals that showed a decrease in small drug seizures by police across the province. But the government only included seizures under 2.5 grams linked to interactions in which police deemed simple possession to be the “most serious offence.”

While B.C.’s decriminalization model empowers police to continue to lay possession charges in limited situations – for instance, all drug possession in playgrounds or schools 

 illegal – the use of such charges became more restricted.

But police seize drugs and criminalize users under many circumstances where possession is not the primary issue.

Minor drug seizures by Vancouver Police increased after 'decriminalization,' data indicates

judicial review of Canada’s decision to deny a peer-led safe supply group an exemption to operate legally will begin on March 7 in the Federal Court of Canada in Vancouver.

In August 2021, Vancouver-based groups the Drug User Liberation Front (DULF) and the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU), 

 (CDSA). This would have allowed DULF to run a not-for-profit “compassion club”—to purchase, test and sell drugs at cost, in order to protect a small group of adults who use drugs from the adulterated street supply.

 anyway, until it was forcibly halted by Vancouver police on October 25, 2023. Co-founders Eris Nyx and Jeremy Kalicum were arrested and released on certain conditions

Days after the arrests, British Columbia’s chief coroner, Lisa Lapointe, 

 that the province establish and expand non-prescription safe supply programs to reduce deaths.

BC’s drug supply has only grown more dangerous over the last five years. Coroners Service data show 

 related to unregulated drugs in 2023, the highest number ever recorded.

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