The new top police commander of the Philippines pledged on Friday to keep up President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drug war despite fresh international condemnation over the killings.

Director General Oscar Albayalde, who was sworn in Thursday, will now lead the narcotics crackdown that has killed thousands since Duterte came to power just under two years ago.

“How to sustain the drug war? In order to sustain it, we will not change anything,” Albayalde told reporters at his first press conference as commander.

He took over from Ronaldo Dela Rosa, who retired with hero’s honours this week after helping Duterte launch the crackdown.

“Why would we stop a programme that is very effective?” Albayalde added, citing “very good momentum and gains”.

Police on Friday announced another 13 alleged drug suspects were killed in a sweep that also led to the arrest of 58 people.

Albayalde’s comments came as the Philippines rejected a European Union Parliament resolution voted on Thursday that criticised the crackdown, the latest international condemnation of it.

New Philippine police chief vows to continue drug war

New plans for treatment of drug addicts and abusers are a welcome step on the way to badly needed drug reform. The steps announced last week by the chief of the prime ministers Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) may make it possible to begin rehabilitation instead of criminal treatment. As welcome as the new programme is, it is still only a tentative step towards what is needed. It is time for bold steps and a new outlook on the problem.

Illegal drugs are not just a sore on society. The suffering of addicts and their families is indisputable. But big-time drug smuggling is a threat to national security. Illicit drugs are a direct gateway to graft, even at very high levels. The "big fish" makers and smugglers corrupt virtually everything and everyone they touch.

Because the five-decade "war on drugs" is such an obvious failure, it is vital to find and employ new methods. One of the first attempts to dip Thailand's toe in the river of national drug reform was announced last week by the junta-appointed ONCB secretary-general, Sirinya Sitdhichai. He has put in motion what he is too grandly calling "a comprehensive drug rehabilitation programme". In fact, the new policy brings only some small, if highly important changes.

Drug reform gets a push in Thailand

Indonesia’s new anti-narcotics chief Heru Winarko called for an expansion of rehabilitation centers across the country on Wednesday, flagging a new approach in contrast to the blood-soaked war on drugs underway in its neighbor, the Philippines.

More users, addicts and even minor dealers would be diverted into centers run by medical professionals and counselors rather than heading straight into an over-crowded prison system, Winarko told Reuters in an interview.

“With the rehabilitation approach, we cut the demand,” he said. “If there is no demand, the supply will not come or reduce.”

Winarko took over as head of Indonesia’s anti-narcotics agency in March, replacing Budi Waseso, a former top police officer who advocated surrounding prisons with moats filled with crocodiles and piranhas to stop drug convicts escaping.

Rather than wildlife, Winarko said he planned to set up rehabilitation facilities near prisons.

“It is better if there is a rehabilitation center located close to a prison,” he said, noting that a former mental hospital near a correctional facility in Bali was being converted into a center for offenders to tackle addiction.

“When we do it like this, it will be amazing. The prison becomes a place for guiding people.”

Indonesia’s new anti-drug czar opts for counselling instead of crocodiles

The Scottish Parliament has backed plans to create the UK’s first heroin “shooting gallery” in Glasgow city centre, allowing drug addicts to inject themselves in a safer environment.

MSPs from all of the nation’s political parties except the Conservatives united behind a Scottish Government motion calling for the UK to change the law and allow the facility to be opened.

Glasgow City Council has developed plans for a so-called “fix room”, with the aim of tackling an increase in street injecting and HIV infections in Scotland’s largest city.

The project would allow addicts to bring their drugs into the facility and take them under controlled conditions, providing them with sterile needles as well as separate access to treatment.

But the plans stalled after Scotland’s top legal adviser, the Lord Advocate, said the facility would be illegal unless the UK amends the Misuse of Drugs Act, which applies across the country.

Scottish Parliament backs creation of UK’s first drug consumption room in Glasgow  

The 61st session of the Commission on Narcotics Drugs (CND) was held from March 12-16, 2018 in Vienna, Austria. It was a disappointment like any of the last sixty sessions. It has become an automated session that follows the same algorithm in which member states would come, present usual blah blah blah, praise for their stupid accomplishments on drugs seizures, field eradications and compulsory rehab programs rather than introduction to right-based programmes/policies and lives saved.

In 2009, the WHO, UNODC and UNAIDS technical guide recommended a comprehensive package of interventions for the prevention, treatment and care of HIV among people who inject drugs – widely known as comprehensive harm reduction package. In 2016, Harm Reduction International (HRI) reported that 90 countries implemented needle and syringe programmes (NSPs) to some degree and 80 had at least one opioid substitution programme (OST) in place. Worldwide, at least 20 countries have allowed cannabis for medicinal purposes; some more of them have introduced decriminalization for possession of cannabis for personal use; few have already introduced a regulated cannabis industry; and few have decriminalized all forms of drugs for personal use. The first thing anyone attending the CND would notice is that the CND does not resonate these facts – no mentioning of “harm reduction”, “medicinal cannabis” or “decriminalization”.

The other thing CND avoided mentioning in its formal sessions are the consequences and miseries brought by the horrible interpretations (contentious pluralism is what diplomats prefer to call it) of the 1961, 1971 and 1988 UN drug conventions. It really did not matter if the Philippines government’s nation-wide war on drugs was responsible for 20,000 deaths since June 2016; if the Indonesian government killed 107 people extra-judicially in 2017; if the Chinese government has been publicly sentencing and later executing more people than the rest of the world combined annually; if the Cambodian government arrested 17,000 people suspected of drug use in 2017; if criminal justice systems are over-burdened and prisons are overcrowded; if at least 33 countries and territories prescribe the death penalty for drug offences in law; and if the compulsory drug detention centres in East and Southeast Asia have detained more than 235,000 people who use drugs in an inhumane condition. The CND also avoided seeing, hearing and speaking the failures of the 2009 political declaration and plan of action on International Cooperation towards an Integrated and Balanced Strategy to Counter the World Drug Problem and yet member states would be willing to reaffirm their commitments.

The CND is dying: Time to put people who use drugs, evidences and human rights at the center of the response. 

The International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC - a UK registered not-for-profit company) is seeking to appoint a UK-based member of the Board of Directors to take up position in June 2018 and who will be available to attend the next face-to-face meeting of the Board of Directors in Bangkok, Thailand from the 9th – 12th July 2018. This is an unpaid, volunteer, non-executive position. Please find, below, the person specification for this position.

IDPC is a global network of over 170 civil society organisations from over 60 countries. IDPC members come together to promote objective and open debate on the effectiveness, direction and content of drug policies at the national and international level, and to support evidence-based policies that are effective at reducing drug-related harm. Our advocacy positions are based five core policy principles that prioritise human rights, civil society engagement and reducing the harmful consequences of the drug market, rather than on reducing its scale.

The Board is responsible for the oversight of finances, management and performance of IDPC’s small but dynamic secretariat (based in London and Bangkok). In return for these responsibilities, the new Director would be joining the Board of a highly visible, diverse and growing network with a motivated, effective and committed staff team at the secretariat. IDPC has developed strong financial and administrative systems and processes since it became an independent legal entity in 2011. This new position is expected to strengthen the Board’s capacity through bringing senior level experience of financial management (ideally in relation to not-for-profit sector finance). The relevant skills and experience might be found, for example, in a person who is a qualified accountant or who has undertaken a finance role within a charity or other third sector organisation.

The Board meets quarterly, with three out of four meetings being held by conference call and one annual face-to-face meeting which also serves as the Annual General Meeting. All meetings and documentation are in English only. Meetings of the Directors, and all documentation and communication, are in English. Good telephone and internet access is essential. Directors are also expected to be available to provide advice and comments between meetings.

Interested individuals should send a CV and a short cover letter outlining why they are interested in joining the Board of IDPC, highlighting their relevant skills and experience for the Board position based on the attached person specification. These expressions of interest must be sent to Samantha Singh (ssingh@idpc.net) 

Call for expressions of interest for a UK-based Director to join IDPC's Board of Directors

By Алексей Курманаевский,

Drugreporter’s partner, the DUNews filming crew visited Balti, a city of the Republic of Moldova to learn by experience about the harm reduction services. Watch their video!

Five cities of the EECA region are Almaty, Balti, Odessa, Sofia, and Tbilisi. United by the regional project of the Alliance of Public Health and Partners, with the support of the Global Fund, they undertook to stop AIDS and tuberculosis in their territories. We carefully examined this process and observed what will become the starting point for them: how strong the cities are right now, and how the project will change the services for the risk groups over, say, three years.

We present to you the point of view of DUNews on these five very different cities. They already have something to teach us, and the format we offer – research using video – gives us an excellent opportunity to see the city’s situation in its entirety and in detail.

Please enjoy and do not forget to use the interesting and useful solutions you can see in this film, in your work.

Meet the city of Balti, Republic of Moldova.

(Turn on English subtitles by clicking on the CC button at the right bottom of the video.)

Easy access: Harm reduction in Balti, Republic of Moldova

President Donald Trump has said he supports states deciding whether to legalise marijuana or not.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president supports states’ rights on the matter despite a threat made just three months ago by US Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Republican Senator Cory Gardner from Colorado, one of the states that has already benefited from legalising and regulating the sale and distribution of the drug, said Mr Trump made the pledge to him in a conversation between the two earlier this week.

Mr Gardner has been pushing to reverse a decision made by Mr Sessions in January that allowed federal prosecutors to pursue cases against people who were following marijuana laws in states that have legalised it.

The drug has been fully legalised in eight states, and 24 states allow some form of marijuana use.

Donald Trump says individual states can decide whether to legalise marijuana

Richard Di Natale’s policy would also allow sales in licensed shops and up to six marijuana plants at home for personal use.

The Greens have proposed full legalisation of cannabis – including for recreational use – with a new government agency to act as the single wholesaler of plain-packaged cannabis.

People would also be allowed to grow up to six marijuana plants at home for their personal use under the new policy, which was announced by Richard Di Natale on Monday.

The policy is the first time a party with significant federal representation has backed full legalisation, providing a point of difference with the Coalition and Labor, which both support a scheme initiated in 2016 to legalise cannabis for medicinal use only.

Under the plan cannabis would be taxed and regulated in much the same way as alcohol and tobacco. It would be sold to adults by licensed shops and attract GST as well as federal excise tax.

In a statement, Di Natale characterised the policy as a harm minimisation approach that treats “drug use as a health issue, not a criminal issue” and a rational response to the “failed” policy of prohibition.

 Greens propose full legalisation of cannabis in Australia

Bangladeshi authorities have proposed an overhaul of the country’s drug laws, which includes provisions for people to be executed for selling methamphetamine.

The country's Department of Narcotic Control (DNC) has drafted new overarching drug legislation for the country, the Narcotics Control Act 2018, which would replace the existing Narcotics Control Act 1990. If this new Act is introduced, someone found producing or selling over 200 grams of methamphetamine – colloquially referred to as “yaba” – could face the death penalty. The current maximum penalty for such offences is 15 years imprisonment.

Speaking in early April, the DNC’s head Jamaluddin Ahmed said "we'll raise the punishment for yaba trafficking. In the new law the maximum punishment will be [the] death sentence", according to Agence France-Presse. He justified the draconian measure by referring to “a huge inflow of yaba from Myanmar” that authorities have been unable to contain, and which has resulted – he claims – in increased use.

Currently, the law allows for the death penalty to be imposed for other drug offences, including heroin trafficking, but it is very rare in practice. Bangladesh has not executed someone for a drug offence since 2009. A movement towards implementing capital punishment for certain drug offences began to grow in 2017, following an apparent rise in methamphetamine use and increasingly heated political discussions on the subject.

"Drug addiction ... is turning in to a grave situation … The nation as a whole is in panic with the consequence of [the] increasing trend of using diversified additive [sic] items," a spokesperson for the DNC said in March 2017, "we need to do something drastic without any delay to come out from this evil situation. Otherwise, the whole nation may immediately start suffering so much [that it] will go beyond recovery and repair".

Bangladesh plans death penalty for selling meth

How many years have we known that abstinence-based programs like D.A.R.E. fail to truly educate young people about drugs, and that we need a replacement?

The answer: too many. But happily, now there’s an alternative: DPA’s 

Safety First: Real Drug Education for Teens

 started out as a resource for parents to talk to their teens about drugs and has now evolved into a curriculum designed to be implemented in 9th and 10th grade high school health classes. It is based in the principles of harm reduction and consists of 14 interactive lessons covering how we define a ‘drug,’ how drugs work in the body, their effects, risks and benefits of five major drug classes, and the impact of drug policy on personal and community health.

 is the culmination of almost 20 years of work in youth drug issues by DPA’s Dr. Marsha Rosenbaum, as well as many other DPA staffers. I am proud to have joined that group by guiding 

 in its first real-world pilot and evaluation last month at Bard High School Early College Manhattan. For the first time ever in a U.S. public school, students are receiving a science and harm reduction-based education about drugs.

The opposite of D.A.R.E – DPA launches new high school drug education curriculum in a NYC School

Amnesty International has expressed concern that the death penalty continues to be applied in some Middle Eastern countries, as it reported a worldwide decline in executions and death sentences in 2017. In its annual report published on Thursday, the international rights group documented at least 993 executions in 23 countries last year - a four percent decline from 2016, when 1,032 executions were recorded. From a record high of 3,117 in 2016, since Amnesty began documentation, 2,591 death sentences were imposed worldwide - a 17 percent decline. But for the second year in a row, the Middle Eastern countries of Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq were the top three for the number of executions in the world - along with Pakistan, they account for 84 percent of executions recorded worldwide.

At 264, the Middle East and North Africa region also recorded the highest number of drug-related executions last year, the report said. In Saudi Arabia, beheadings of drug offenders accounted for 40 percent of total executions - an increase from 16 percent in 2016.

Since 1977, Amnesty has been advocating the abolition of the death penalty, which Popoola said is "the ultimate denial of human rights" and "serves the society no good". "Despite strides towards abolishing this abhorrent punishment, there are still a few leaders who would resort to the death penalty as a 'quick-fix' rather than tackling problems at their roots with humane, effective and evidence-based policies," said Salil Shetty, Amnesty International's secretary-general, in a statement.