Pharmacies in Uruguay started selling marijuana Wednesday under a four-year-old law that has made the small South American country the first in the world to legalize pot from production to sale.

In all, 16 pharmacies have been authorized to sell marijuana under state controls, barely enough to cover a country of 3.5 million people. No major pharmacy chain has agreed to sell the drug.

Many pharmacies have been unwilling to participate in the scheme because of concerns about security and doubts that the small market of registered users is worth the trouble.

Only about 5,000 people, most of them age 30 to 44, have signed up as prospective buyers since Uruguay's state registry opened in early May.

Walk-in sales are not allowed under the law, and only residents of Uruguay can register to buy pot—thereby preventing marijuana tourism.

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Uruguay pharmacies start selling cannabis

IDPC and the Eurasian Network of People who Use Drugs (ENPUD) are two of the partners in the global Harm Reduction Consortium that received support from the Robert Carr civil society Networks Fund. This year, ENPUD will be providing a number of small grants to peer groups to support their local advocacy and activism – and the recipient organisations were invited to a three-day drug policy training workshop in the picturesque Odiseu Tourist Complex just outside of Chisinau, Moldova. IDPC were delighted to support this meeting, and Jamie Bridge (IDPC Senior Policy and Operations Manager) attended to speak about the international drug control system, the relevant UN agencies and processes, the Support Don’t Punish campaign, and how these all interact at the international, regional and national levels. The training event was held in English and Russian, and was attended by nearly 20 peer representatives from all across the Eurasia region.

Part I: https://www.facebook.com/eurasianharmreduction/videos/1496074607082544/

Part II: https://www.facebook.com/eurasianharmreduction/videos/1496158103740861/

Part III: https://www.facebook.com/eurasianharmreduction/

SDP presentation: https://www.facebook.com/eurasianharmreduction/videos/1496383160385022/

Drug policy and community: new knowledge and general conception of taking action

The Government’s new drugs strategy has been condemned as “business for usual” for failing to embrace radical solutions to soaring drug deaths.

Niamh Eastwood, executive director of drug law experts Release, told HuffPost UK the strategy should have mooted ending criminal punishment for possession, following the lead of other countries.

“If the government really wanted to save lives then this strategy was an opportunity to do so, they could have endorsed heroin prescribing, drug consumption rooms, pill testing, and other harm reduction interventions that protect health and communities".

Eastwood added: “Whilst the Government lacks the courage to support and invest in more innovative and pragmatic initiatives, we should not be surprised to see more people dying, and what is tragic is that these deaths could be prevented.”

UK: Drug strategy condemned as ‘business as usual’ for ignoring radical solutions as deaths soar

Why has this situation occurred? One of the main causes stems from the punitive populism that has been applied, characterized by the establishment of disproportionately high penalties, the excessive use of preventive detention, and sentences requiring jail time. In short, the imposition of punishment based on the amount of drugs seized without considering the role of the person committing the action. These are policies that take the form of sanctions, failing to work towards the prevention of drug crimes, significantly undermine the drug market, or prevent organized crime from continuing to thrive.

In this entry, I will refer to those policies implemented in Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Ecuador, countries that have opted for alternative measures against the traditional punitive response to drug-related crime; measures that seek to reduce the damage caused by prison time on people in vulnerable conditions and who do not hold leadership roles in the drug market. These policies have also taken on the challenge to address inequality and poverty related issues of those who are punished for drug-related crimes, which are predominantly women and young people.

These three experiences show on the one hand that it is possible and useful to apply innovative approaches, but they also highlight the limits of these programs. Because they are predominantly seeking to reduce the damages stemming from the increasing prosecution of individuals linked to drug offenses, they fail to create strong prevention programs that allow for action before criminal behavior takes place and that could reduce the conditions of poverty and lack of opportunities. For example, the predominant profile of women who are involved in drug related crimes is well known: poor women with dependents, with low education levels, unemployed, etc. If so, the aim of these policies should be on counteracting the vulnerability faced by large population sectors that are cannon fodder in the drug market.

Thumbnail: Flickr Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Innovative approaches to the drug problem and imprisonment

Prime Minister Hun Sen has authorized a six-month extension of the government’s anti-drug campaign, an anti-drug authority official said on Thursday.

As of on Thursday, more than 10,000 people had been arrested for drug-related crimes since January 1, surpassing the approximately 9,800 people arrested for those crimes in all of last year.

As in other nations, Cambodia’s war on drugs was “likely to result in countless harms,” said Marie Nougier, senior research and communications officer at the International Drug Policy Consortium, in an email.

“Since January, this has already resulted in a surge in people being incarcerated for drug offences” in Cambodia, leading to overcrowded prisons and health concerns, Ms. Nougier said.

Cambodian government to continue drug crackdown with nearly $1M budget

As New Zealand’s general election draws closer, some of the parliamentary candidates have been discussing drug policy; while they may disagree with each other about what needs to be done, many believe that change is necessary.

The 2017 Parliamentary Drug Policy Symposium was convened in early July by the NZ Drug Foundation to fuel debate on the subject, and to allow the public to gain greater insight into the potential future of the country’s drug policy in the run-up to September’s general election. As Ross Bell, executive director of the NZ Drug Foundation, described in a recent op-ed, “even though we convict thousands of people each year for using drugs, we still have some of the highest use rates in the world”. The failure of New Zealand’s war on drugs seems to be increasingly understood.

A 2016 poll commissioned by the NZ Drug Foundation revealed that almost two thirds of the country’s population supported either the decriminalisation or legalisation of cannabis for personal use. Ross Bell notes that "this poll shows that it doesn't matter what party people back, there is consistent support to move away from the criminal justice approach to drugs.”

New Zealand politicians talk drug law reform as election approaches

At the 25th International Harm Reduction Conference, Mainline organised a packed side event called ‘Future Proofing Harm Reduction’, together with AFEW, AidsFonds, INPUD and others. The rationale behind the side event was the need we see to promote harm reduction as a broad approach- not just as a set of HIV-related interventions.

The event showed that organisations need to start thinking creatively about how to embed harm reduction in other themes besides HIV prevention. A new narrative is needed, and novel approaches are sought in order to ensure harm reduction stays future-proof. Because without a harm reduction approach that safeguards people’s human rights, that enables access to male and female users equally and that ensures a continuum of care for people who use drugs, governments won’t be able to achieve their targets under the sustainable development goals (SDG’s).

Future proofing harm reduction in Montreal

It was peak Jeff Sessions, the moment that showed exactly what the country is getting under President Donald Trump’s attorney general: Ignoring decades of scientific evidence, Sessions praised an anti-drug program — DARE — straight out of the 1980s “tough on crime” playbook.

Speaking at a DARE conference, Sessions said, “DARE is, I think, the best remembered anti-drug program today. In recent years, people have not paid much attention to that message, but they are ready to hear it again. … We know it worked before, and we can make it work again.”

DARE was largely based on one idea: If you tell kids about how bad drugs are, they will be so scared that they will not use them. The program leveraged this to try to teach kids how to say no to drugs.

Jeff Sessions’s praise of DARE shows he just can’t quit the 1980s

The Dáil committee’s report warned that, were the Bill to pass into law, it may also have the effect of decriminalising cannabis use for recreational users. It argues that there is still a shortage of scientific peer-reviewed evidence on the safety and effectiveness of cannabinoid treatments for medical conditions, despite initial encouraging medicinal possibilities.

The report by the Oireachtas committee said the Bill has major legal issues and the proposed framework to allow patients access cannabis for medical reasons is “too loose to effectively guard against leakage of supply to recreational users, [and] overuse by patients”. The health committee report outlines that it is “concerned that the Bill proposes to remove cannabis from the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977”, which the report warns may have the effect of decriminalising cannabis use for all users. The committee’s scrutiny report argues there is still a shortage of scientific peer-reviewed evidence on the safety and effectiveness of cannabinoid treatments for medical conditions, despite initial encouraging medicinal possibilities.

People Before Profit TD Gino Kenny said that families were becoming medical refugees, going to Holland for treatment. “What happened yesterday is a shambles.”

Ireland: Cannabis Bill rejection a ‘shambles’, says People Before Profit TD

Doctors and health authorities warned of the “devastating” impact of the new cuts on the future health and wellbeing of the nation after the King’s Fund revealed a total of £85m is set to be carved out of local authority allocations for public health. Its latest like-for-like analysis showed that councils in England will spend £2.52bn on public health services in 2017-18 compared to £2.6bn the previous year and once inflation is factored in, will be more than 5 per cent lower in 2017-18 than it was in 2013-14.

Thorrun Govind, a pharmacist at a chemists in Bolton, said the planned cuts are “not good for the country” and would result in greater pressure on front-line NHS services as fewer diseases and harmful behaviours are prevented. Ms Govind said that as well as “supporting and promoting healthy lifestyles”, pharmacies provide vital face-to-face care to people who misuse drugs. “They have somewhere they can trust, we can help support them. They’ll come in for needles a couple of times and we’ll say: ‘Have you thought about coming in for treatment?’” she told 

. There are around 87,000 people who regularly inject drugs in the UK, according to the NHS. Pharmacies have run needle exchange services since the late 1980s amid fears of HIV spreading among drug users.

UK Government's public health cuts 'will leave needles in the streets', warn pharmacists

Johns Hopkins scientists report that data collected over five years by volunteers who tested pills free of charge at music festivals and raves across the United States suggest that at least some recreational users of drugs may choose not to take them if tests show the pills are adulterated or fake.

"People would be safest not taking any street drugs at all, but if free, no-fault testing can reduce deaths and other catastrophic consequences, it may be a service worth having," says Matthew W. Johnson, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "Our results suggest that some people will reject taking a pill to get high if it doesn't contain what they thought it did, or has harmful additives."

Johnson says his team's research highlights the potential public health value of reducing the risks of drug use, and says the development of additional ways to assess more dangerous street drugs, such as fentanyl and carfentanil, might offer a means of reducing the growing epidemic of fatalities associated with them.

On-site ecstasy pill-testing services may reduce user risks at concerts and raves

Ann Fordham and Fiona Measham spoke at Through the Maze this week, about reforming global drug laws and why Portugal is a role model.

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