August 31 is International Overdose Awareness Day

We are encouraging everyone to add their voice to a day calling attention to reducing the global scale of drug fatalities.

The best estimates, from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) indicate that nearly 200,000 people die each year from drug overdoses.

The international community needs to talk more about overdose and how to drive down the number of deaths. International Overdose Awareness Day, an initiative of Penington Institute, is a day for raising a united voice for preventing overdose, for saving lives.

We want as many groups as possible to stage events and let their communities know the campaign is an international day of action. Last year events were held around the world, including in Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, China, India, the Slovak Republic, the United Kingdom and the United States.

We want this to be just the beginning.Grassroots community level action is at the heart of the day because it shows that people lost to drug overdose are individuals and family members, not just statistics. Often the strongest supporters of the day are the families of overdose victims who do not want other families to suffer as they have.

Therefore many groups are marking the day by staging a memorial event in conjunction with an overdose response training session. Momentum is building for making overdose prevention programs available to all who need them, and marking the day by informing as many people as possible can save lives.

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

Harm Reduction International (legal name International Harm Reduction Association) is currently accepting nominations for their Board of Directors. The International Harm Reduction Association is an international, not-for-profit NGO and a company limited by guarantee in accordance with company law in England and Wales.

Harm Reduction International is seeking to fill four (4) seats on the Board, for terms of three years each. These seats will be filled via direct election by paid-up HRI members at their Annual General Meeting on 18 September 2014.

The Board of Directors is the governing body of the organisation. The full Board meets twice annually at HRI’s offices in London. These meetings are for two days each, and attendance is expected of all Board members. Costs for Board travel and accommodation are covered by HRI. 

The next full Board meeting will be held in London on 16/17 October 2014, and if applying for election to the Board you are also confirming your availability and willingness to attend that meeting on those dates.

Communication between meetings is by email, and in English only.

Eligible nominees must be aged 16 or over at the date of appointment. Only current, paid members of the HRI may be appointed to the Board. For information on becoming a paid member please click HERE.

As an international non-governmental organisation, HRI values nominations from passionate harm reduction advocates from around the world.

They strongly encourage nominations from people who use drugs and people living with HIV.

Closing date for nominations is 25 August 2014. You can download the nomination form at the link below, which includes information on process and submission.

Call for nominations – HRI Board of Directors

Globally, an estimated 10 million people who inject drugs are living with hepatitis C – with prevalence as high as 90 per cent in some places with the harshest drug policies.

In many parts of the world, injecting drug use is driving hepatitis C epidemics. Not only is the use of unsterile injecting equipment a highly efficient method of transmission for the virus, but the situation is made much worse by the legal and social environment in which these injections occur.

In almost every country, people who use drugs are criminalised, stigmatised and demonised. They are harassed by the police, ostracised by health workers, detained, bribed, tortured and beaten. They rarely have sufficient access to health services, and even when they do they can be understandably reluctant to access prevention, testing and treatment.

This is just one of the negative impacts of the so-called “war on drugs” – a repressive, punitive approach to drugs implemented in the vain hope of achieving a drug-free world. Despite their focus on “the health and welfare of mankind”, the current international drug control conventions have allowed countries to focus their energy and money on law enforcement rather than public health. In practice, this has led to a war on people who use drugs – resulting in mass incarceration, executions and extrajudicial killings around the world.

Last year, the Global Commission on Drug Policy – an independent group of high-profile public figures including Kofi Annan, Richard Branson, Michel Kazatchkine and the former leaders of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Greece, Mexico, Poland, Portugal and Switzerland – launched a report that documents the links between drug policies and hepatitis, and calls for major reforms in order to undo the damage that has been done.

They recommended that governments act decisively and fast, acknowledging the hepatitis C epidemic among people who inject drugs, redirecting funding into health services rather than criminal justice systems, and ending the criminalisation of drug use and possession for personal use.

Speaking at the time of the report, Ruth Dreifuss (Global Commissioner, and former President of Switzerland) said “The war on drugs is a war on common sense. The hepatitis C epidemic, totally preventable and curable, is yet another proof that the drug policy status quo has failed us all miserably”.

The theme for this year’s World Hepatitis Day is ‘Think Again’. Amidst the global calls for more testing and more affordable treatment, spare a thought for those who cannot safely access health services, who are systematically denied treatment and simple ‘harm reduction’ services that can halt the spread of the virus.

Take some time to think also about the US$100 billion that is estimated to be spent on global drug law enforcement every year – how much hepatitis prevention, treatment and care could be funded if just a small amount of this money was redirected.

The “war on drugs” does not work: drug markets are as strong now as they ever have been. So why is more scrutiny not being given to the public spending on an ineffective, outdated and harmful policy?

According to the UN’s own figures, more than half of all people who inject drugs are living with hepatitis C. Until we stop criminalising these individuals, we cannot prevent this “viral time bomb” from exploding.

Jamie Bridge is Senior Policy and Operations Manager at the International Drug Policy Consortium and is currently Chair of the National Needle Exchange Forum in England.

Hepatitis C and the war on drugs

Drugreporter's new movie, filmed at the AIDS 2014 conference in Melbourne, explores the most effective tools for ending the HIV epidemic

The international AIDS conference was overshadowed by the tragedy of flight MH17. Six well-known HIV researchers and activists were on board, on their way to Melbourne, when separatist forces shot down the plane.

According to some speculation, widely publicised in the media, “The cure for AIDS might have been on the plane”. But are we really that close to ending the HIV epidemic? Does it depend on one “secret formula” that might have been travelling in the suitcase of Dr. Joep Lange, former head of the International AIDS Society? Not really.

The reality is, as usual, far more complicated. But in a sense, all these six professionals knew the antidotes for HIV, and worked hard to raise awareness of them. The Drugreporter film crew attended the conference to find out what works to end AIDS for good and all.

Was the Cure for AIDS on the Malaysian Flight?

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) call for the decriminalisation of drugs will be taken up by Danish politicians in the autumn. In the WHO report, which focused on international HIV prevention, the UN agency encourages countries to stop criminalising the use of drugs.

“Countries should work toward developing policies and laws that decriminalise injection and other use of drugs and, thereby, reduce incarceration,” the report read.

The report’s recommendation, and Denmark’s overall approach to its national drug policy, will be on the political agenda when politicians return to Christiansborg following summer holiday.

“I can go as far today as to say that I think WHO’s message is in line with what has been a Social Democratic position,” Flemming Møller Mortensen, the health spokesman for the governing Social Democrats, told Information.

“I will take up a discussion with Parliament’s Health Committee [Sundhedsudvalget] after summer holiday and will recommend that the committee carry out a hearing,” he added.

The Social Democrats have had a very public split over drug policy. Copenhagen’s mayor Frank Jensen, the party’s vice chair, has vocally advocated for the legalisation of cannabis, while his party’s national leaders, including PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt, have repeatedly rejected his proposal.

Denmark to look at decriminalising drugs

Richard Branson has recently launched his new blog and aims at giving his opinion while sensibilizing people about the changes and new perspectives needed in drug-related issues.

"Making smart changes to global drug policies could have a massive impact upon transmission rates of HIV and other infectious diseases. I was honoured to take part in a fascinating discussion on this topic at the International AIDS Conference in Melbourne.

The way we treat drug use has a massive impact on our capacity to tackle some of the most serious public health issues of our day.

But rather than protecting public health, the so-called War on Drugs exacerbates the risks related to drug use, such as injecting in unsupervised and unhygienic environments."

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

How changing drug policy could save lives

The United States has an enormous prison problem. A more-than-2.4-million-prisoner-sized problem, to be precise, locked up in the archipelago of federal penitentiaries, state corrections facilities, and local jailhouses that form the nation's thriving prison-industrial complex. Since 1980, the number of incarcerated citizens in the US has more than quadrupled, an unprecedented rise that can attributed to four decades of tough-on-crime oneupmanship, and a draconian war on drugs.

A recent analysis by the Prison Policy Initiative shows that while states like Louisiana have undoubtedly led America's march toward mass incarceration, no state or region has been immune to the prison boom. And each state is a global aberration, with incarceration rates that compare to those found in isolated dictatorships and countries recovering from civil war.

As the chart shows, 36 states have higher incarceration rates than Cuba, the country with the world's second highest prison rate. New York comes in just above Rwanda, which is still trying thousands of people in connection to the 1994 genocide. Even Vermont, birthplace of Phish, Ben & Jerry's, and the country's only socialist senator, imprisons a higher percentage of its population than countries like Israel, Mexico, or Saudi Arabia.

Looked at in terms of actual inmate numbers, this means that the number of people behind bars in most US states is on par with the prison populations of entire nations. And not Luxembourg or Burundi. Big, messy countries, like Venezuela and Egypt.

The numbers, Wagner explained, underscore the central role that states have played in America’s unprecedented prison buildup. While much of the recent prison debate has centered on federal sentencing laws and drug policy reform, the real mass incarceration action has taken place at the state level. According to PPI data, more than half of US inmates—57 percent—are in state prisons, and another 30 percent are incarcerated in local jails, generally for violating state laws. Though prison rates have varied widely across the US, all 50 states have implemented some set of policies—like mandatory minimums, “truth in sentencing” policies, or “three strikes” rules—aimed at putting more people in prison for longer periods of time.

Unsurprisingly, the economic and social impacts of this trend have been massive. According to a 464-page report published by the National Research Council earlier this year, state spending on corrections increased 400 percent between 1980 and 2009. The result, the NRC points out, is that prisons are now some of the primary providers of health care, counseling, and job training to the country's most disadvantaged groups. Meanwhile, the social and cultural costs of mass incarceration are disproportionately borne by poor communities, minorities, and people with mental illnesses.

And the actual benefits of mass incarceration are minimal, at best. Sure, crime rates have gone down since 1980, but studies have found the connection between increased prison rates and lower crime is tenuous and small. In fact a report released by The Sentencing Project this week found that in states that have substantially reduced their prison population in recent years, like California, New York, and New Jersey, the crime rate has actually fallen faster than the national average.

Mass incarceration in the United States

Dr. Eliot Ross Albers, Executive Director of the International Network of People who Use Drugs discusses the importance of overcoming stigma, discrimination and criminalization for drug users and key populations in general.

Stigma, discrimination and criminalisation fueling the epidemic among drug users

“I am here because this is where I grew up, in a place like a favelas. So I am trying to draw attention to the world about the problem that people face in the favelas”

The neuroscientist, Karl Hart, professor at Columbia University, got international attention after conducting studies with crack cocaine users in his laboratory.

The result of his research- as his own life experiences- deeply question the common sense about the use, abuse and addiction on crack cocaine.

“I would be irresponsible if I had some knowledge that could help poor people and then I did not share it and if I didn’t do so with all of my heart, then my life would be worst living and so that’s why I do what I do. It is not even a choice, it’s so easy to make because I have children and I don’t want to see my children looking back at me and say “what the hell are you doing, all of this is going and you did not do anything ” and I want them to do the same thing."

The professor visited universities and favelas; he met scholars, activists and crack cocaine users and saw how the contradictions between what society thinks and what science tells us about the “crack problem” manifest in Brazil.

Carl Hart - Crack - You can understand (É possível entender)

Under new legislation to be introduced to Federal Parliament, all psychoactive substances such as synthetic drugs will be prohibited unless importers can prove they have a legitimate use.

The radical overhaul closes a loophole that currently allows people to deliberately avoid prosecution by slightly changing the chemical structure of a banned substance so it can be legally imported into our country.

Radical overhaul to ban synthetic drugs in Australia

A recent study by the New Zealand Needle Exchange has revealed the HIV prevalence rate amongst injecting drug users in New Zealand to have fallen to just 0.2 percent; the lowest ever recorded in New Zealand and likely the lowest anywhere in the world.

“This is good news, not just for injecting drug users, but for the whole of society,” says NZ Needle Exchange Director Charles Henderson, speaking from the AIDS 2014 Conference, which kicked off this week in Melbourne.

“There may be six degrees of separation between any two people on the planet, but there’s only one degree of separation between you and the injecting drug user in your community. They may be a marginalised population but the fact that HIV has largely been prevented from spreading amongst injecting drug users has significant heath, economic and social benefits for all New Zealanders.”

Mr Henderson said the results show there needs to be more recognition, including from Government, about the vital role of the Needle Exchange Programme and its importance in reducing the overall harms of blood borne diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C among New Zealand communities.

“The progressive and early introduction of the needle exchange programme in New Zealand has meant the virus has been prevented from entering the injecting population, which has reduced its potential to spread more widely.

In New Zealand, study shows lowest HIV rates ever among injecting drug users

“I have a cato as allowed by law,” explains Juan Mamani, a coca farmer in the semi-tropical Yungas east of La Paz. “We have an understanding with our president, Evo, so we control our coca better than anyone else in Bolivia. We work closely together as neighbors and union members to make sure no one grows any extra.”

Mamani is referring to a unique coca control model that has turned many of the basic precepts of the failed decades-old U.S.-financed drug war on their head. His words, and those of the other coca farmers in this article, come from research funded by the Open Society Foundation from 2013-2014. In late 2004 President Carlos Mesa, weary of constant protest and violent police repression, acquiesced to a long-standing grower demand, and permitted growers to cultivate a subsistence amount of coca leaf—a plot known as a cato, ranging in size from 1,600 to 2,500 square meters. Conflict abated almost immediately. “It’s very simple,” says grower Celestina Ticona. “The cato lets us feed our families.” “We bought our lot and built our little house thanks to the cato,” adds Alieta Ortiz, who has worked in community radio in the Chapare, east of Cochabamba.

When coca grower Evo Morales became Bolivia’s president in early 2006, he vowed to reassert national sovereignty, formalizing the cato program by strengthening its emphasis on negotiation, and enabling grower subsistence. Once considered the South American nation most dependent on the United States, under Morales, Bolivia has rejected U.S.-imposed forced eradication in favor of a more humane and ultimately, more effective strategy.

The novel policy approach, called “coca yes, cocaine no,” recognizes that Bolivia, which ranks third behind Peru and Colombia in leaf production, may be able to contain drug production, but will never entirely eradicate it. With its emphasis on community participation and respect for human rights, the approach stands out as the world’s first supply-side harm reduction initiative. Vice Minister of Social Defense Felipe Cáceres explains the logic behind the choice: “We decided to leave the machine guns, the bullets, and the bombs behind. We opted to include coca growing communities in the debate and analysis that created our policies.”

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