On Friday 14th July, the Government published its new Drug Strategy: ‘2017 Drug Strategy’. The previous drug strategy, published in 2010, was heavily criticised for its almost exclusive focus on abstinence, and total de-prioritisation of harm reduction initiatives.

This briefing, endorsed by eight of the UK’s leading harm reduction and drug treatment organisations, looks at whether the focus on harm reduction has improved under the new strategy, and discusses challenges in the funding environment which will have a disproportionate impact on harm reduction services.

Keep up-to-date with drug policy developments by subscribing to the IDPC Monthly Alert.

Still no harm reduction? A critical review of the UK government’s new drug strategy

One of the main targets in the war on drugs could well become a drug to treat the scars of war. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has designated 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), better known as the illegal drug ecstasy, a "breakthrough therapy" for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a status that may lead to faster approval.

The agency has also approved the design for two phase III studies of MDMA for PTSD that would be funded by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), a nonprofit in Santa Cruz, California. MAPS announced the "breakthrough therapy" designation, made by FDA on 16 August, on its website today; if the group can find the money for the trials, which together could cost an estimated $25 million, they may start next spring and finish by 2021.

That an illegal dancefloor drug could become a promising pharmaceutical is another indication that the efforts of a dedicated group of researchers interested in the medicinal properties of mind-altering drugs is paying dividends. Stringent drug laws have stymied research on these compounds for decades. "This is not a big scientific step," says David Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacologist at Imperial College London. "It’s been obvious for 40 years that these drugs are medicines. But it’s a huge step in acceptance."

All clear for the decisive trial of ecstasy in PTSD patients

This was the stark message written across dozens of protest signs held aloft by drug users and their allies at the opening ceremony of Harm Reduction International’s 25th Conference in Montreal in May. The target for the message was Canadian Minister of Heath, Dr Jane Philpott, who was a keynote speaker at our event. With almost 2,500 recorded deaths in Canada in 2016 linked to overdose - afigure thought to be conservative given existing gaps in data - the protesters called on the Minister to declare a national public health emergency that would enable swift action to save lives. Indeed the Canadian overdose crisis is escalating in intensity, with estimates that the province of British Columbia alone might see 1,400 overdose deaths in 2017. Nationwide, overdose deaths have jumped 327% since 2008. With the memories and pain of lost friends and loved ones so close to the surface, the outpouring of grief, anger and demand for action at our conference opening was understandable, and set the tone for the following three days.

The overdose crisis is not solely a Canadian phenomenon. In the United States, the rate of fatal drug overdose has increased by 137% since 2000, with more people now dying from drug overdoses than from road traffic accidents or - shockingly - firearms incidents. Here in the UK the alarm bells are also sounding. Deaths involving heroin and morphine increased by 109% in the England and Wales between 2012 and 2016. Last year, there were 3,744 drug-related deaths in the UK, the highest since records began in 1993.

International Overdose Awareness Day reminds us that silence still equals death

The following video provides a quick overview of the 2017 S

A Drug Policy Week: Human Rights, Health & Reducing Harm

, an international drug policy forum held on 31 July - 4 August in Cape Town.

Jamie Bridge (IDPC) gave a presentation on "International Drug Policy: The Next Steps and Why Africa Needs to Engage".

To access all videoed presentations, please click here.

Keep up-to-date with drug policy developments by subscribing to the IDPC Monthly Alert.

SA Drug Policy Week 2017

Amnesty International has condemned what it described as an alarming number of police killings of suspected drug dealers in Indonesia.

The rights group said on Wednesday that police had killed at least 60 suspects this year, compared to 18 in all of 2016.

The group warned that Indonesian authorities could be looking to emulate the "war on drugs" in the Philippines, in which thousands have been killed.

"This shocking escalation in unlawful killings by the police sounds serious alarms bells," said Usman Hamid, Amnesty's Indonesia director.

Amnesty sounds alarm as Indonesia slays drug suspects

The crisis over the US addiction to painkillers - opioids - is a national emergency, says President Donald Trump.

"It's an emergency, it's a national emergency. We are going to spend a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money on the opioid crisis," he said.

The number of deaths from the drugs - prescribed to a third of Americans in 2015 - has quadrupled in 20 years.

Declaring a national emergency means the issue can get prioritised funding and resources from Washington.

Trump declares US opioid pain drugs national emergency

In the framework of the COPOLAD Programme, the Costa Rican authorities from the Instituto Costarricense sobre Drogas (ICD) and the Judiciary, together with the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies (FIIAPP) and the Executive Secretary of Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD/OAS), hold the 1st Bi-regional Meeting for the exchange of best practices. “Drugs Policy and Criminal Justice Reforms: Alternatives to prison for drug-related offences” in San Jose, Costa Rica, from June 27th to 29th.

The second phase of the Cooperation Programme between Latin America, the Caribbean and the European Union on Drugs Policies (COPOLAD II), financed by the European Commission, has among its priority objectives to carry out bi-regional exchanges of best practices that enrich the institutional relations between the participating countries and contribute to a greater dialogue and harmonization of drugs policies between the countries of the European Union (EU), Latin America and the Caribbean (CELAC).

Under this general objective, the 1st Bi-regional Meeting for the exchange of best practices aims to:

Review the available evidence in the area of criminal reforms related to drug offences,

Identify encouraging experiences and to share lessons learned in both regions (EU and CELAC).

120 representatives from 40 countries (9 from the European Union, 17 from Latin-America and 14 from the Caribbean), one European Agency (EMCDDA), two multilateral agencies (CICAD-OAS and UNDCP) and three bi-regional networks (AIAMP, IDPC and RIOD) will contribute to defining the main progress achieved and the challenges that remain to be faced in the short and medium term.

Thumbnail Flickr CC José Eugenio Gómez Rodríguez

Costa Rica hosts meeting about best practices on alternatives to prison for drug-related offences

One-fifth of Hong Kong’s prison population is female, the highest proportion of any major country in the world. Activists say local laws are stacked against women, in particular foreign women.

The gleaming skyscrapers of Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour hide a troubling statistic. A little over 20 percent of the Hong Kong’s prison population are women – a higher proportion than any major nation in the world, according to the latest data compiled by the Institute Centre for Prison Studies (ICPR).

“The numbers are staggering,” said Sharron Fast, a lecturer at Hong Kong University’s Faculty of Law.

“As special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau enjoy relatively greater freedom than mainland China – including a supposedly better justice system. But here lies one of the least-known public secrets.”

The high proportion of female prisoners in Hong Kong is emblematic of the situation in Asia. Four jurisdictions in Asia – Hong Kong, Laos, Myanmar and Macau – are ranked in the top five in terms of percentage of women in the prison system. The median of female prisoners in Asia sits at 6% of the continent’s total prison population, well above the global median of 4.4%.

Hong Kong imprisons more women per capita than any other country

The Senate scheduled an investigation on the killing of 17-year-old student Kian Loyd Delos Santos for August 24.

Senate President Koko Pimentel and Senator Panfilo Lacson, chairman of the Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs, confirmed that the hearing will take place on Thursday, at 2 p.m.

Lacson said they will invite Philippine National Police Chief Ronald dela Rosa, the Director of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, key witnesses under the custody of Sen. Risa Hontiveros, Caloocan police involved in the killing, and the father of Delos Santos.

After a caucus on Sunday, 14 senators from the Senate majority bloc signed a resolution directing a Senate committee to investigate policemen in operations that killed at least 82 people in the intensified campaign against drugs, including Delos Santos.

Senate to investigate killing of 17-year-old boy

Public support for cannabis law reform in New Zealand is as strong as ever, the NZ Drug Foundation says, citing poll results.

Of those questioned, 65 per cent believed possessing cannabis for personal use should be legalised (28 per cent) or decriminalised (37 per cent).

Foundation executive director Ross Bell says the split matches a survey a year ago when 64 per cent were in favour of change.

"Getting a criminal conviction for possessing cannabis ruins peoples' lives and creates huge downstream costs for society."

'Strong support' for cannabis law reform: NZ Drug Foundation

Some of Australia's foremost experts on addiction have pleaded for the federal government to scrap its controversial plan to drug test welfare recipients, saying the program's negative impacts far outweigh its benefits and that it will further swamp an already struggling treatment sector.

The government announced the plan, to put 5,000 recipients of Newstart and Youth Allowance onto a trial program to screen them for drug use, in the May budget. Since then, the idea has been thoroughly rubbished by drug experts, with a swathe of evidence of similar programs overseas having very limited success, as well as proving to be expensive and ineffective.

Despite this, and Labor announcing last week it would not support the plan in parliament, the government is pushing on with the plan.

Dr Adrian Reynolds is the clinical director of alcohol and drug services for the Tasmanian Health Service and president of the chapter of addiction medicine within the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. He and Associate Professor Yvonne Bonomo, director of St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne's department of addiction medicine, visited Parliament House in Canberra to try and convince the government to scrap the plan, with the experts saying the drug testing trial would not improve drug outcomes, but actually cause further harm.

Addiction experts beg Australian government to scrap welfare drug tests

Efforts to combat the opioid addiction crisis in the US have been weakened by the synthetic opioid fentanyl, which a top UN drug official has warned could infiltrate Europe and Australia in a similar way.

“Other countries with opiate problems should be concerned because fentanyl could quickly be pushed into their supply,” Jeremy Douglas, regional representative of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to Southeast Asia and the Pacific, told the Guardian.

Fentanyl, which is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, was recently tied to the deaths of 60 people in the UK and there have been a growing number of deaths from the drug in Australia, Douglas said.

Fentanyl presents a lucrative business opportunity for drug traffickers because it is incredibly powerful in small amounts and is easy to produce. Since fall 2013, fentanyl has contributed to more than 5,000 overdose deaths in the US – including the musician Prince, whose death in 2016 was caused by “self-administered fentanyl”. From 2009 to 2014, it contributed to at least 655 deaths in Canada.