We, members and representatives of the viral hepatitis community—a community that includes people living with viral hepatitis, doctors, nurses, social workers, researchers, public health experts, and people who use drugs—are concerned over the growing gap between the enormous impact of hepatitis B and hepatitis C over people who use drugs and their almost non-existent access to prevention, diagnosis and treatment services around the world.

Sharing unsterile drug injecting equipment puts people at high risk of hepatitis B and hepatitis C infections. Globally it is estimated that among the 15.6 million people who currently inject drugs 52% are hepatitis C antibody positive, and 9% are living with chronic hepatitis B infection; From a public health and human rights perspective, improving access to prevention and treatment for people who use drugs is crucial to reducing hepatitis C incidence and eliminating the epidemic, as sharing of needles, syringes and other injecting equipment is estimated to account for 23% of new infections.

Ensuring access to interventions such as low-threshold needle and syringe programmes, opioid substitution therapy, hepatitis C treatment and other harm reduction interventions are essential to reduce hepatitis C incidence and prevalence among people who inject drugs, and these interventions are cost-effective. In 2016, the Member States of the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted the first ever Global Health Sector Strategy (GHSS) on viral hepatitis. It identified harm reduction as one of five core interventions needed to reach the goal of viral hepatitis elimination by 2030.

Please click here to add your organisation's endorsement to the Declaration.

No elimination without decriminalisation! - Declaration at the 2017 World Hepatitis Summit

Health Canada has approved the four locations proposed for supervised drug consumption sites in Edmonton.

Alberta’s first supervised drug injection sites will open within months at four locations in Edmonton’s inner city after receiving approval from Health Canada, the provincial government announced Wednesday.

Proponents hailed the news as a “long overdue” step that will save lives and direct more addicts into treatment.

The goal is to get three community sites open by late December or early January, while a fourth facility at the Royal Alexandra Hospital is anticipated to open sometime in the spring of 2018.

Health Canada approves four Edmonton safe drug injection sites

More heroin and crack users are dying of overdoses in the areas of England where cuts to drug treatment budgets have been among the greatest, analysis by the 

The findings have prompted concern that addicts are at greater risk of dying due to funding cuts to the public health grant received by local councils. Over the past four years councils in 85% of areas that have an above average drug mortality rate have reduced the amount they spend on drug treatment, a comparison of drug fatalities and spending on addiction services shows.

Ten of the 30 councils that have cut spending the most since 2013 have some of the highest numbers of drug deaths, while a further 10 had higher than average drug mortality rates. The treatment budget in Blackpool, which has consistently been the worst area in England for drug deaths, will have more than halved by 2018, a cut of £2.5m.

Drug fatalities highest where treatment cutbacks deepest in the United Kingdom

The director of the NZ Drug Foundation is welcoming a referendum on cannabis law reform, saying we need a change after 42 years of drug legislation that's "done nothing".

In an email sent out to Green Party delegates on Thursday night, the party outlined 10 big policy wins - including a referendum on legalising the personal use of cannabis by 2020, and more financial backing for drug and alcohol services.

Drug Foundation director Ross Bell says that as a country with one of the highest proportion of users in the world, it's about time we got onto it.

"Fundamentally for us, it's long overdue that New Zealand had a crack at its obsolete drug law. The law that's in place today, in 2017, was passed in 1975," he said.

Referendum on 'obsolete' cannabis law 'long overdue' in New Zealand - Drug Foundation

Peru has approved measures to legalise cannabis for medicinal use with overwhelming support of congress.

The law makes production, import and commercial sale of cannabis oil legal.

President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski had proposed the measure earlier this year, raising objections that drug gangs would branch into cannabis.

Peru is the second-largest producer of coca and has a thriving illegal drug trade. It is now the sixth country in Latin America to legalise cannabis.

Uruguay was first in 2013, allowing sales with a limit of 40 grams per month. Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Chile followed suit.

President Kuczynski proposed the relaxation in February after police arrested a group of parents who were distilling cannabis oil at home, for children with cancer and severe epilepsy. The drug will only be sold to those who are fully registered with a licensed pharmacy.

Peru approves medical cannabis

For the first time in nearly 50 years of Gallup polling on the question, a majority of American Republicans say they support marijuana legalization.

Fifty-one percent of Republicans surveyed by Gallup this month said they support legalization, up sharply from 42 percent a year ago. Even larger majorities of independents (67 percent) and Democrats (72 percent) are in favor of legal marijuana.

Overall, 64 percent of Americans now support legalization, the highest percentage ever in Gallup polling.

For the first time, a majority of Republicans support marijuana legalisation in the United States

The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has recommended that Russia change its punitive policy approach within 18 months and consider decriminalizing drugs for personal consumption.

Since 2010, the Andrey Rylkov Foundation for Health and Social Justice (a foreign agent according to the Russian Ministry of Justice) has attempted to make Russian drug policy more humane by addressing the UN Committee. At that time, the Foundation submitted its 

first Shadow Report on behalf of the Public Mechanism for Monitoring Drug Policy Reform in Russia

. The report specified that Russia was not implementing Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (which Russia had ratified) in terms of ensuring access to drug treatment and HIV prevention, treatment and care for people who inject drugs. Paragraph 1 of this Article says: “The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. “

Having reviewed the Report, the Committee 

 addressing the Russian Government. In those conclusions, it requested that Russia support internationally acknowledged measures to prevent HIV among injecting drug users for example by legalizing opioid substitution therapy and supporting needle exchange and overdose prevention programs. Russia ignored these recommendations, even as the number of people living with HIV in Russia almost doubled.

Having realized that the government‘s position would not change, the Foundation prepared 

. Its authors pointed at the fact that Russian authorities violated Articles 3 and 2 of the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which they had ratified; these articles prohibit discrimination and proclaim equal opportunities for all citizens of the Parties to the Covenant. Specifically, the report said that as a result of measures taken by the authorities against civil society organizations, the HIV epidemic continued to grow in Russia while injecting drug users remained at risk. In response, the Committee provided a set of recommendations, dividing them into two points.

UN Committee gives Russian authorities 18 months to change punitive drug policy approaches

The bodies turn up in public restrooms, in parks and under bridges, skin tone ashen or shades of blue. The deceased can go undiscovered, sometimes for hours, or days if they were alone when they injected heroin and overdosed.

Terrell Jones, a longtime resident of the Bronx, was pointing to the locations where overdoses occurred as he drove through the East Tremont neighborhood, the car passing small convenience stores, rowhouses and schools.

“This is sometimes where people are being found, in their houses, dead,” said Mr. Jones, 61, looking toward a housing project along 180th Street. “Especially in the South Bronx, you have so many people in housing who overdose. To actually sit there and witness this whole thing? You’re watching this person turn all different colors. You know what I’m saying?”

The Bronx’s quiet, brutal war with opioids

When it comes to end-of-life care and pain treatment, Francophone Africa has a long way to go. But, Senegal is one country working to change this.

A 2012 study found 16 of 22 countries in Francophone Africa have no healthcare providers specializing in palliative care, which focuses on pain treatment and quality of life. Yet, each year about 912,000 people there, including 214,000 children, require palliative care. That number is likely to grow.

In countries with limited resources, where death from malaria or respiratory infections is common, palliative care is often viewed as a luxury. However, our work in Senegal with local partners and the health ministry shows progress can be made.

Senegal makes strides on palliative care

An amended resolution on drug reform has been passed at the Scottish National Party’s (SNP) annual conference.

Conference agrees that current drug policy requires a comprehensive review and believes approaching substance misuse as a public health issue rather than a criminal matter would greatly support families and communities; lift the stigma associated with addiction; remove barriers between police and communities and allow policy to reflect the values of our progressive society.

There was also a later amendment to the resolution which included:

Conference further calls for all powers relating to drugs policy to be transferred to the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government, so that the review can consider all options for harm reduction, including drug classification, decriminalisation, legalisation and regulation.

SNP agrees that drug use should be seen as ‘health issue rather than criminal matter’

The United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in Vienna is holding a series of intersessional meetings this autumn to discuss how governments are implementing the many policy tasks they set themselves in the Outcome Document (OD) of the 2016 United Nations General Special Session (UNGASS) on the World Drug Problem.

Each intersessional focuses on one of the OD’s seven chapters. The Vienna Non-governmental Organisations Committee on Drugs invited David to serve as an expert panellist for Chapter 2, “Ensuring the availability and access to controlled substances exclusively for medical and scientific purposes, while preventing diversion.” UN member states and organisations (such as the World Health Organization, the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), as well as other civil society organisations) reported on progress and challenges in implementation of the recommendations contained in that chapter.

David spoke in his capacity as an EAPC Board Member and representative on the European Union Civil Society Forum on Drugs. Katherine contributed in her capacity as IAHPC Advocacy Officer while other civil society interventions, in the form of video presentations, came from Dr Sunita Panta, from the Nepal Military Hospital in Kathmandu, Dr Sami Alsirafy from the Palliative Medicine Unit at Cairo University, Egypt, and Busi Nkosi from the International Children’s Palliative Care Network.

Improving access to controlled essential medicines – report from the commission on narcotic drugs meeting

For over half a century, various activist groups in the UK have launched campaigns to legalise cannabis, but with little success. One of the most effective arguments used by those opposed to reform is the absence of any existing regulated legal markets for selling cannabis. This is no longer the case. Over the past five years, eight US states (including California) have voted to legalise cannabis. Next July, Canada will become the first country to legislate with a general election mandate to do so.

So this issue will inevitably become more salient in the years to come. What is already clear is that reform takes place within particular social and cultural contexts. Local conditions dictate its priorities.

Here in the UK, the debate around cannabis cannot ignore the issue of mental health. For years, there has been conjecture in this area as the potency of cannabis, its addictiveness, the impact it has on young people, its links with psychosis, and the best way in which to address its illicit market have all been debated at length.

This report provides a concise and compelling new account of the deleterious consequences of leaving cannabis in the hands of the black market. Drawing on insights from world class academics and original research, it was commissioned to stimulate a better informed and more nuanced public debate.

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