Last week, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, a candidate in the upcoming presidential election, pledged to declare drug-related problems as a national security threat and to allocate two divisions of the Philippine Army and 3,000 policemen to fight it. It is highly questionable whether this is an effective response. Despite already significant investment of state resources in law enforcement for police to conduct raids, arrests and seizures to tackle drugs, a violent criminal market continues to grow in the Philippines.

It seems that harsh penalties are not a deterrent, as despite having some of the harshest penalties for drug offenses in Asia, more and more people are arrested for drug use and possession every year in the Philippines. These tough sanctions are also unjustly disproportionate. Possession of drugs alone can lead to a sentence of life imprisonment, while the maximum sentence for homicide is 17 years imprisonment. These measures have led to the highest prison overcrowding rates (over 700 percent in some regions) in Southeast Asia. Over half of those in prison are held for drug-related crimes, mostly low-level offenses. It is often those who are already poor and vulnerable that suffer most from these punitive policies. For example, while women are a minority in the prison population, one out of every two women is incarcerated because of a drug-related crime.

The unbalanced investment in heavily punitive measures has diverted attention and resources away from ensuring access to evidence-based drug treatment and harm reduction services, such as the provision of needle and syringe programs to prevent the spread of HIV among people who inject drugs. This lack of investment in health services means that those who are looking for help with problems relating to their drug use cannot get it. The Philippines now has a health crisis on its hands, with the world’s second highest rate of HIV prevalence among people who inject drugs.

In other parts of the world, governments are turning away from the use of harsh punishment to manage drug-related problems. After a century of prohibitionist drug policies, with vast resources poured into law and military enforcement and increasingly severe punishments imposed for drug use and supply, the world is very far from achieving the “drug-free world” envisaged by the last UN General Assembly Special Session (Ungass) on the world drug problem in 1998. The reality is that even in countries that have meted out the most excessive brutality in an attempt to eliminate drugs—from Thailand’s 2003 “war on drugs” (which resulted in 2,800 people dead from extrajudicial killings in the first three months) to Mexico’s militarization of its drug war in 2006 (which provoked outbreaks of violence with drug cartels leading to over 164,000 homicide victims between 2007 and 2014)—no claim of success in even suppressing drug markets, least of all eliminating them, can be made. Year after year, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime reports expanding and diversifying drug markets, especially for methamphetamine in Southeast and East Asia.

It is the devastating consequences of prohibitionist and punitive drug policies that motivated the heads of state of Mexico, Guatemala and Colombia to call for the first Ungass on the world drug problem in almost two decades, which started in New York April 19 and will end today. The Ungass was envisaged as a critical juncture to evaluate the effectiveness of existing drug policies and to debate alternative strategies that could achieve better outcomes for the health and welfare of humankind—the objective of the international drug treaties. In the lead-up to the Ungass, many governments including the United States, Uruguay and Colombia, called for a shift in drug policies from a focus on law enforcement toward public health. Notably last year, Thailand’s minister of justice, Gen. Paiboon Khumchaya, publicly acknowledged the goal of eradicating drugs as counterproductive, leading only to systemic police corruption, and prisons overcrowded with low-level drug offenders from impoverished backgrounds.

With the Ungass, the Philippines was similarly presented with an opportunity to revisit and revise its drug policy and move away from punitive drug laws that are ineffective in addressing drug problems and are detrimental to public health. It should review its laws criminalizing people who use drugs and disproportionately punishing low-level offenders, and create new policies that allow evidence-based harm reduction services such as needle-and-syringe exchange programs.

In this context, it is disconcerting that Duterte is proposing to divert resources toward militarizing the drug enforcement response. Such action risks escalating violence, at great cost to human life and the security of communities, with virtually no chance of success in even suppressing drug markets. This is the lesson learned by governments around the world that have attempted to fight drug problems with violence and punishment. Many of them are now calling for drug policies based on health and human rights. For the Philippines to go against this trend is to perpetuate the devastating consequences of unjust and ineffective drug policies, and the waste of already scarce resources, without improving outcomes for the health and security of communities.

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Harsh solutions to drug problem a total failure

This week, at the biggest UN drug policy summit for a generation, a mother who lost her child to drugs and is now campaigning to end the global drug war, inspired the Canadian Health Minister to call for a humane drug policies that better protect citizens.

Donna May, from Canada, is part of Families for Safer Drug Policies, a group that includes mothers, fathers, siblings and friends from all over the world who have lost loved ones as a result of drug policies that punish, rather than protect, those most in need. She told her story to the Canadian Health Minister – and it had a lasting impact.

Addressing the UN General Assembly Special Session(UNGASS), the Honourable Jane Philpott, Minister of Health, said:

“In preparation for this event, I met with a group of NGOs... But the most powerful voice of all belonged to a mother. She was there to tell the story of her young daughter, who lost her life due to complications of substance use. She described watching her daughter slip away, as she struggled to access the treatment and services that may have saved a beautiful, fragile life. Stories like this are far too commonplace. Today, I stand before you as Canada’s Minister of Health, to acknowledge that we must do better for our citizens.”

Donna May and other family members impacted by the war on drugs have been brought to New York to meet with officials from the UN and national governments, as part of a joint campaign by UK-based group Anyone’s Child: Families for Safer Drug Control and the US-based Moms United to End the War on Drugs.

Donna May said: “Today was the fulfilment of my promise to my daughter that in death her life would have meaning. Today I am proud to be Canadian. I hope other member states watch closely as Canada leads by example and provides the model that will go far toward saving the lives of our children.”

For the first time at a UN drug summit, countries have voiced their opposition to punitive, drug-war policies and called for fundamental reform. Alongside the Canadians, who announced that they will legally regulate cannabis in spring 2017, Mexico, Colombia, Jamaica, Uruguay and New Zealand all supported legal regulation of drugs, and called for reform of the outdated UN drug treaties at or in the run up to the UNGASS.

Similarly, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights criticised the summit’s outcome document for its failure to prioritise human rights. They and every other relevant UN body also called for people who use drugs to no longer be treated as criminals.

Anyone’s Child Coordinator Jane Slater said: “We are delighted that the Canadian government has listened to its citizens, including Donna May, and responded in such a principled and pragmatic way. The old drug-war consensus has gone. Countries from across the world are decriminalising and legally regulating drugs. The countries that have stood up and called for reform deserve our heartfelt thanks for leading the world out of a sixty-year long war, and toward peaceful solutions that will promote health, reduce crime, protect young people and save money.”

Cara Lavan, from the UK, who lost her partner to a heroin overdose, and is part of Anyone’s Child, said: “Whilst the Canadians can be rightly proud of their government’s position, the UK government still supports the failed global drug war. Neither the Conservatives nor the Labour party have engaged with the fact that it is a criminal justice approach to drugs that led to the deaths of our loved ones. We families call on the major UK parties to follow Canada’s lead and advocate for evidence-based policies that promote peace and protect ordinary families.”

Bereaved mothers inspire health minister

WITHOUT NEW POLICY SOLUTIONS WE CANNOT END AIDS

From 19 till 21 April hundreds of government officials, representatives of non-governmental organizations and individuals from civil society are attending a three-day special session at U.N. to review drugs policies. Due to criminalization of injecting drug use, discrimination and lack of funds, many countries face an enormous and unnecessary exacerbation of the HIV epidemic among people who use drugs. UNGASS on drugs constitutes an unprecedented opportunity for civil society to inject new thinking into the debate. Jamie Bridge (representative of The Harm Reduction Consortium) explains: “

For us, it is clear – we cannot end AIDS until we end the criminalisation of people who use drugs. We also cannot end AIDS until we fully support and implement harm reduction.”

TOGETHER WE CAN ENSURE EFFORTS ARE COMPLEMENTARY, STRATEGIC AND IMPACTFUL

Towards the special session on drugs the RCNF grantees The Harm Reduction Consortium and The Consortium of Networks of People who Use Drugs engaged civil society, influenced policy makers and worked out a joint position. Nearly 200 civil society organizations, representing drug policy experts and involved communities aligned to express serious concerns over the failure of governments in recognizing the damaging consequences of the current prohibitionist drug control system. 

“The key has been coordination, both within the Consortium but also with the broader group of drug policy partners, to ensure that our efforts are complimentary, strategic and impactful.” 

UNGASS 2016: Civil society urge the UN to get serious about global drugs policy

As international leaders debated global drug law at the United Nations, a bizarre panel on heroin treatment showed just how divided countries are over how to treat addicts.

The panel, sponsored by the Russian Federation, began with an international group of scientists and diplomats explaining the importance of evidence-based drug treatment, before a Russian doctor veered into addiction science denialism.

“We prefer to treat people in a drug-free setting,” Dr Oxana Guseva, a medical representative of the Russian Federation, told the Guardian afterward, “because methadone is the same narcotic drug as heroin.”

In Russia, heroin addicts are given “cold turkey” detoxification treatment using the medication Naltrexone, which blocks opioid receptors in the brain. Typically, this medication is used to stop overdoses.

Then, Guseva said, Russian addicts are given social therapy and education as a substitute for conventional opioid replacement therapies, such as methadone clinics, which are common in the United States.

Russia's 'cold turkey' approach highlights global divide over drug treatment at UN

President Enrique Pena Nieto said Mexico will move to legalize marijuana for medicinal use in a stark shift for a leader who has made clamping down on all forms of drug trafficking a hallmark of his tenure.

Speaking to the United Nations, Pena Nieto said he would also raise the amount of marijuana that would be de-criminalized for personal consumption, calling its use a public health problem and urging policies that avoid punishing users.

His participation in a special UN General Assembly session on drugs came after months of growing public pressure for legalization following the Supreme Court’s November decision to give four people permission to grow cannabis at home. Since then, the issue has been the focus of debate in nationwide public forums.

"I give voice to those who have expressed the need to update the regulatory framework to authorize the use of marijuana for medical and scientific ends," Pena Nieto said Tuesday at the special session in New York focused on the global drug problem. Participants in forums in Mexico "showed the need to lift, in accordance with international standards, the amount of marijuana that can be considered for personal use, with the purpose of not criminalizing users.”

Marijuana is a significant illicit revenue source for the nation’s cartels. While estimates vary widely, analysts agree that marijuana, heroin and cocaine generate billions of dollars a year in revenue for cartels. In November, Pena Nieto said that while he was open to changing his position, he believed legalizing marijuana would open the door to use of more harmful drugs.

Mexico moves to legalize medical pot amid failed drug war

The first U.N. special session to address global drug policy in nearly 20 years bristled with tension Tuesday over the use of the death penalty for drug-related offenses, as countries wrestled over whether to emphasize criminalization and punishment or health and human rights.

The outcome document adopted by member states included no criticism of the death penalty, saying only that countries should ensure that punishments are "proportionate" with the crimes.

"Disproportional penalties ... create vicious cycles of marginalization and further crime," Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto told the gathering. He also called for the decriminalization of marijuana for medical and scientific purposes and said the international community's responses to drug issues is "frankly, insufficient."

He said Mexico in the coming days would announce specific drug policies with an emphasis on health and human rights.

At least 685 people around the world were executed on drug-related offenses in 2015, said Chiara Sangiorgio, a death penalty expert with Amnesty International. The rights group says 30 countries have laws that punish drug-related offenses with the death penalty.

Indonesia, which last year executed 14 people, mostly foreigners, convicted of drug-related crimes amid an international outcry, defended its stance Tuesday, saying the death penalty is not prohibited under international law.

China, which along with countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran carries out executions for drug offenses, signaled little flexibility on its approach.

Countries clash over death penalty at UN drug policy session

Drug overdose deaths in the United States have tripled since 2010. And so it makes sense that President Obama has announced, as he did late last month, new initiatives to fight the epidemic of prescription drug and heroin abuse in the United States.

As the former head of state of Switzerland, where innovations in drug policy have been front and center for years, I have learned much about how to prevent heroin overdoses, improve the lives of people who use drugs and create a safer environment for their communities. It is a complex puzzle, but there are key pieces that, when used together, create a public health approach with long-lasting positive effects.The United States could take some important lessons from Switzerland's success. In the past 20 years, Switzerland and other countries, such as Portugal and Uruguay, have implemented policies that are people-centered, focused on health and most importantly, keeping people alive -- all while respecting human rights. Switzerland's federal government focused on reducing the harms of drug use among people who inject drugs, creating supervised injection sites and offering substance analysis services and access to opiate substitution therapy, mainly through methadone and even medical heroin. The country also complemented these harm-reduction interventions with prevention programs. To ensure these policies had citizen acceptance, the Swiss government created forums aimed at overcoming the stigma and marginalization of people who use drugs. Our success with these policies is not only reflected in the stories that we hear from people who use drugs, but also from the rigorous evaluation we have undertaken. According to government officials, in the first decade alone, drug-related deaths have been reduced by 50%, and approximately 1,300 dependent users are now given maintenance doses of heroin via 23 specialized clinics, which has resulted in an 82% drop in patients selling heroin on the streets. 

The secret to fighting U.S. heroin epidemic

Uganda Harm Reduction Network (UHRN) is a youth led drug user initiative established in 2008 and registered under Reg. No. 181733 to respond to the drug use crisis in Uganda. The network works to advocate for practical interventions aimed at supporting and addressing issues of people who use drugs. The network also seeks to provide a national platform for health and policy programs that promote good practices and advocate for a supportive environment for the adoption, implementation and expansion of harm reduction programs for people who use drugs (PWUDS) in Uganda.

In response to an article in Hello tabloid titled “Jackie Health in Red” dated 13th April 2016, the writer narrates how Jackie Chandiru’s (Prominent musician in Uganda) health is too complex for medical doctors in Uganda as family seeks help from Ex-lover for quick intervention. The writer further indicates that Jackie is being treated at a rehabilitation center at CORSU hospital in Kisubi. However as Jackie is seeking for medication on the other hand Moses Kyomukama the commissioner of Police and director in charge antinarcotic unit insists that after her recovery, she will be charged for being in possession and consumption of illicit drugs under the new Antinarcotic Law as soon as she’s discharged she will be apprehended by police. The addiction to drugs is a health concern, not a genuine instance of injustice. The criminalization of a public health issue has created huge and complex obstacles for people motivated to eliminate their drug dependence to seek or obtain necessary health care and support. When public health options are made available, studies have reported dramatic declines in drug dependence, mortality and overdose. If we want to encourage people to seek treatment, we need to assure them that they will not face prison for doing so.

UHRN firmly believes that there must be a stronger focus on the health needs and human rights of all people who use drugs, especially those who inject. There is a serious gap in service provision in Uganda for PWUD where no attention is given to those who need drug dependence treatment services. We as UHRN we are well aware in Uganda there is no treatment centers for people who use drugs, like cocaine, heroin and other opioids. Growing evidence indicates that drug treatment and counseling programs are far more effective in reducing drug addiction and abuse than is incarceration. Treatment like methadone, nalexone that can save her life is still illegal in Uganda and anyone being in possession of those drugs in the later is criminalized if not authorized by the government. Such Medically Assisted Therapy (MAT) is a treatment for persons who are addicted to heroin using prescribed medication. Such kind of treatment is prohibited in Uganda.

The current Antinarcotic law is a blow to public health; the Narcotics Law penalizes possession of illicit drugs with 10 to 25 years in prison. Trafficking—which encompasses everything from small sales to international export—is punishable with a life sentence. Even those who never come across an illicit substance can find themselves ensnared. The law goes so far as to levy a five-year prison sentence for failure to disclose prior prescriptions for narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances (including those held for pets and farm animals) when receiving a new prescription. Punitive laws like this push people who use drugs especially those who inject to higher risks of HIV, Hepatitis and other blood pathogen transmission away from accessing prevention information, health and social services that are vital to managing drug dependence, preventing transmission of HIV, and supporting people to live full and productive lives. By further criminalizing drug use, this law pushes PWUD into the shadows. PWUD are afraid to talk and afraid to seek much-needed medical help because the government has now definitively positioned drug use as a justice issue, rather than a health issue.” The Police action will frighten people who use drugs from accessing the available health services in case they want to withdraw from drug use.

As drug use in Uganda is on the rise, we as Uganda Harm Reduction Network we advocate for a responsive treatment which encompasses the 9 harm reduction interventions which Uganda as a country has not embraced. UHRN has been advocating for inclusion of harm reduction interventions in polices and guidelines as per World Health Organization guidelines. We therefore call upon the government of Uganda not to criminalize drug users seeking health services but rather offer treatment support and non-coercive rehabilitation.

For further information contact; Email: admin@ugandaharmreduction.org / uhrnetwork@gmail.com Tel: (+256) 414 664 730, 704 393 161

UHRN Press statement on the drug use situation for people inject drugs in Uganda

Reform of international drug control is urgently needed. The war on drugs has left a trail of suffering and criminality in its wake and has manifestly failed to achieve its objectives. The UN special session of the general assembly (Ungass) this week presents an opportunity. Many reformers put drug users at the centre of changes to international drug policies, but the people growing the plants producing the substances they consume are often overlooked.

Farmers’ livelihoods and their communities’ sustainable development are inherently linked to reform of international drug policies. For hundreds of thousands of farmers’ families, existing crop control laws and practices cause conflict and poverty (pdf), and crush hopes for economic improvement.

In January, representatives of cannabis, opium poppy and coca cultivating communities, from 14 countries, gathered in the Netherlands to discuss global drug control policies and the urgent need for reform (pdf). They soon discovered they had more than livelihoods in common.

To win the war on drugs, stop brutalising farmers who grow them

The war on drugs is dead. The only remnants of the once dominant paradigm exist in the form of three United Nations treaties controlling drugs. As the UN begins the Special Session on the World Drug Problem (UNGASS) on Tuesday, it is time for Canada to exercise the often ignored flexibility contained within these treaties, and move forward with the legalization and regulation of cannabis.

Though international drug control treaties have been around since 1907, it was not until the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs that the world coalesced around one set of rules to prevent distribution and use of narcotic drugs except for medical and scientific purposes. While the “drug war” as we knew it claimed its legitimacy from this treaty (and its companions passed in 1971 and 1988), such heavy-handed responses were not necessarily the intention. Countries were only required to make possession of cannabis illegal in the 1988 Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs. But even then, at the height of the crack epidemics, no one could have imagined the self-inflicted brutality that would emerge to combat drugs in the final decades of the 20th century.

It is now time for the international community to acknowledge the beginning of a new era, and provide support for countries trying new ways to regulate drugs in a safe and responsible manner.

The war on drugs is dead: Canada can help lead the peace

By Magdy Martínez-Solimán - The Guardian

When the world’s nations committed to the sustainable development goals (SDGs) last year, they probably weren’t thinking about drugs. But they should have been. Without effective drug control strategies, marginalisation, poverty and inequality will persist in societies. Evidence shows that prohibitionist approaches have not worked – from 1998 to 2008 the number of people using illicit drugs did not change significantly and neither did the area used for opium poppy cultivation. Conventional policies have failed in reducing addiction and production.

Drug policy is connected to core areas of sustainable development: health and wellbeing, gender equality, justice and strong institutions. The population ofwomen imprisoned for drug-related offences is on the rise (pdf). Prison sentences for women may result in the incarceration of their infants and young children, who stay with them for all or part of their sentence.

Thumbnail: Flickr US Embassy Kabul Afghanistan's

The war on drugs has failed: Time to stop fighting and start thinking

The United Nations General Assembly Special Session on The World Drug Problem (UNGASS) will be held in New York next week. Diplomats in Vienna have negotiated the text of the Outcome Document to be recommended for adoption at this meeting.

Although it is good to see the inclusion of a stand alone section on access to controlled medications, the draft reveals a limited understanding of the negative impact of the international drug control conventions on public health.

The document’s subtitle: ‘Our joint commitment in effectively addressing and countering the world drug problem’ contains language that is biased towards a law-enforcement approach to controlled substances.

Systemic human rights violations in the War on Drugs

In this article, I will focus on access to medicines controlled under the three UN Drug Control Conventions, but first, I will refer to a guest editorial by Damon Barret, Director of the International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy.

He describes the evolution of his thinking on the relation between human rights violations and the War on Drugs.

Initially, he saw these violations as collateral damage, but now he considers them to be a systemic problem.

What states are legally required to do under the UN drug control treaties can be exceptionally risky from a human rights perspective.

For example, he points out that the application of the death penalty for drugs increased after the 1988 drug trafficking convention was adopted.

Today, Barret considers human rights violations in the War on Drugs as institutional violations caused by the conventions.

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