Despite reports of expanding rates of injecting drug use in a new list of countries around the world, no new countries have established needle and syringe programmes in the last three years. This is one of the headline findings of an exhaustive review of the state of harm reduction services around the world conducted by international NGO Harm Reduction International, presented at the 25th International Harm Reduction Conference (HR17) in Montréal last week.

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

Injecting drug use increases worldwide, but no increases in needle and syringe programmes

International child rights are being used by some countries to justify the execution of people for drug offences, despite this practice being illegal under international law.The UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), adopted in 1989, stipulates that “governments must protect children from the illegal use of drugs and from being involved in the production or distribution of drugs”, and has been ratified by every UN member state apart from the United States. Additionally, the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention – internationally adopted in 1999 - states that governments must “take immediate and effective measures to [prohibit and eliminate] … the use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular for the production and trafficking of drugs"

Countries using child rights to justify executions for drug offences

The recent arrest by Region 8 Police of two men for posing as officers of the law and trying to extort money from the families of teenage boys found drinking 

 leaf extract is just the latest reminder of the need for Thailand to reconsider and revise its draconian drug control laws.It might strike some as futile to urge a military government to take such measures, but in reality there has never been a better time for Thailand to move forward in this regard. It is encouraging that the current government is the first in our memory to have floated the possibility of such reforms, but it is equally discouraging that it has yet to effect any real changes.

Opinion: Need to revise drug laws in Thailand

Delegates agreed on the need for intensified efforts to help Member States address the world drug problem. They asked the WHO Secretariat to strengthen its collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the International Narcotics Control Board to implement the health-related recommendations of in the outcome document of the 2016 Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly on the world drug problem (UNGASS).

Seventieth World Health Assembly update, 29 May 2017

France’s newly-appointed interior minister has said that personal cannabis possession may no longer be prosecuted from as soon as September, although this change may be accompanied by unprecedented strict rules on people with convictions for selling drugs.Gérard Collomb, the Minister of the Interior, said that new rules are set to be implemented under which someone found in possession of cannabis will be given a ticket and required to pay a fine, instead of being prosecuted or imprisoned. The plans, which he revealed during an interview with French news channel BFMTV on 24 May, could be in place "within three to four months", he said.

France to decriminalise cannabis possession within months, Interior Minister says

To combat Canada’s increasing number of drug overdoses, the federal government introduced legislation that makes it easier to open supervised drug-injection sites.

Watch this 360° video to discover more about these life-saving facilities, and step into Canada’s first — and the world’s busiest — supervised drug-injection site.

A 360° view into InSite, a safer consumption facility in Vancouver Canada

In case you haven't heard, there is an opioid epidemic in the United States. The phenomenon is not driven by the use of illegal substances, rather it is caused in part by the overprescription of opioid based painkillers, such as Oxycontin. Exploratory studies have suggested that patients with access to medical cannabis reduce their intake of painkillers and hence potentially could help to tame the epidemic. Dose of Science takes a closer look. According to data from the Centre for Disease Control (CDC), every day 91 Americans died due to opioid-related overdose in 2015 [1]. Between 2000 and 2015 over half a million people have lost their lives. Opioids can rarely be blamed on their own, in most cases opioids combined with other drugs, most often anti-anxiety benzodiazepines such as Xanax (alprazolam) and Valium (diazepam), lead to the tragedy. The latest CDC data is from 2015 and at that time the end of the epidemic was not even in sight. The problem has reached a point where it is arguably one of the greatest public health issues in the States. Even late night talk show hosts, like John Oliver, are talking about the phenomenon.


Dose of Science: cannabis as a substitute for opioid painkillers

In December 2016 five year old Francis Mañosca was shot dead by masked gunmen in Manila. His death is a result of the Philippines ‘war on drugs’; a war that was escalated by President Rodrigo Duterte in June 2016 when he came to power and called on citizens and the police to kill those who use drugs and those involved in the drug trade. Since then, it is estimated that nearly 9,000 Filipinos have been massacred. These practices are not limited to the Philippines.

In 2003, Thailand launched its own war on drugs which saw nearly 2,800 people killed. Between 2010 and 2013, Brazilian police killed over 1,200 people in the favelas of Rio De Janeiro. In one favela, Amnesty International estimated that 90 per cent of the deaths should be classed as extrajudicial killings.

Punitive drug policies fuel human rights abuses

IN 2013, Eric Holder, then the attorney-general, issued a memo telling prosecutors to avoid charging certain defendants—such as non-violent offenders who were not members of drug gangs—with offences that would hand them long prison sentences. On May 11th, Jeff Sessions rescinded that policy, suggesting that prosecutors “pursue the most serious, readily provable offence.”

Mr Sessions’s memo constitutes the first big criminal justice effort by the Trump administration to get tough on drugs. It had already made it clear that it would be tougher on drug offenders than Barack Obama's administration. In particular it has set its sights on creeping legalisation to legalise marijuana: nine states have authorised its sale for recreational use. Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman, has suggested the administration will pursue tougher enforcement of federal laws against use of the drug. And on April 5th, Mr Sessions released a memo explaining that his new Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety will “undertake a review of existing policies in the areas of charging, sentencing, and marijuana to ensure consistency with the Department's overall strategy on reducing violent crime and with Administration goals and priorities.” In a recent meeting with reporters, Mr Sessions warned that “experts are telling me there's more violence around marijuana than one would think.”

USA: Jeff Sessions orders tougher drug crime charges

รัฐสภาอิหร่านได้ยกเลิกโทษประหารชีวิตสำหรับผู้จำหน่าย และผู้ค้ายาเสพติด โดยมีการลงโทษด้วยการจำคุกแทน ตัวแทนของคณะกรรมการตุลาการของรัฐสภา (Majlis) ของสาธารณรัฐอิสลามแห่งอิหร่าน ฮัสซัน นูโรซี่ ได้ประกาศเรื่องนี้ในขณะที่พูดคุยกับนักข่าวเมื่อ วันที่ 23 เมษายน ที่ผ่านมา

ภายใต้การเปลี่ยนแปลงนี้ การลงโทษประหารชีวิตสำหรับผู้ค้ายาเสพติดและนักลักลอบค้ายาเสพที่ไม่ติดอาวุธ และไม่เคยต้องโทษประหารชีวิต หรือโทษจำคุกตลอดชีวิตมาก่อน จะถูกปรับเปลี่ยนบทลงโทษเป็นจำคุก 25 ถึง 30 ปี

เพื่อรับข้อมูลเกี่ยวกับประเด็นที่เกี่ยวข้องกับนโยบายยาเสพติด

กรุณาดูด้านล่างสำหรับข้อมูลเพิ่มเติมเป็นภาษาอังกฤษ

Iran's Parliament has abolished the death penalty for dealers, distributors and traffickers of narcotic drugs, replacing this punishment with lifelong imprisonment.

Representative of the Judicial Commission of the Parliament (Majlis) of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hassan Nourozi announced about this while talking to journalists on April 23.

Under the changes, the death penalty for non-band drug traffickers and smugglers who were unarmed and had no previous execution or life imprisonment convictions will be converted to 25 to 30 years of imprisonment.

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อิหร่านยกเลิกโทษประหารชีวิตในข้อหาค้ายาเสพติด

Reading and Leeds Festivals and a number of other live music events are aiming to introduce the scheme with the support of local police forces.

Melvin Benn from Festival Republic revealed the scheme to the Press Association and expects it at "between six and 10 festivals this year".

"We talked about it during the summer of last year and the reality is that I took a decision that unless and until the National Police Chiefs' Council supported the principle of it, it was difficult for us to move forward on it."

Six UK music festivals are to allow drug testing

Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin state, Myanmar's most northern region, doesn't have it easy. For years, this Southeast Asian nation bordering India, China, Laos, and Thailand has been plagued by civil war between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the Burmese Military, as well as poverty and an international trade in opium and heroin. Due to poor employment opportunities and the low price of the drug, many in Kachin have become addicted to heroin, with an estimated one in every household regularly using the drug.

In response to this growing problem, "Pat Jasan"—a coalition of local Baptist, Catholic, and Protestant churches—launched a community-based organization with the goal to "eradicate all drugs from the Kachin population." Through a network of camps, Pat Jasan forces drug users through a faith-based rehabilitation program. Its "clients" spend three to six months partaking in daily exercise, prayer, and educational activities in an attempt to replace their drug addiction with religion. The organization is fully funded by donations from local churches and is manned by volunteers.

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