As Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova trumpeted Russia’s progress in the fight against HIV/AIDS, critics insist that the government policy prohibiting methadone substitution continues to hamper efforts to slow the spread of the disease.

“In Russia today, 463 out of every 100,000 people are infected with HIV. In other countries that boast of their preventative efforts, the prevalence is higher. In the U.S., 600 out of 100,000 people are infected. In Brazil, the infection rate is about 500,” Skortsova said in a speech Monday during a conference on HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The Moscow Times could not independently verify these statistics. Neither the World Health Organization nor UNAID included Russian data in their most recent comparative reports on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic.

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Methadone looms as obstacle in Russia’s fight against HIV/AIDS

Lobbyists urged Jamaica's government Sunday to move within 120 days to decriminalize pot and establish a local medical marijuana industry.

The Cannabis Commercial and Medicinal Research Taskforce organized a three-day meeting on marijuana decriminalization with Jamaica's largest university. The conference, which drew speakers from the U.S. and Israel, ended Saturday.

On Sunday, the lobbyists issued a 12-point roadmap they want the government to follow. Among other things, they assert that Jamaica should immediately expunge criminal records for all Jamaicans convicted for possessing small amounts of marijuana and amend laws so private, personal use by adults is decriminalized.

The group also believes Jamaica will significantly benefit from a regulated medical marijuana industry.

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Lobbyists call for Jamaica to decriminalize cannabis

Tunisia’s prime minister has backed a reform of the country’s harsh penalties for cannabis possession, calling it “out of sync” with current times.

In a press conference late Wednesday, Mehdi Jomaa promised to “amend the law to adapt it to the new reality” in society. The current law gives prison sentences of up to five years for possession of cannabis.

Tunisian Prime Minister says cannabis law too harsh

On April 28-30, UNODC Kenya in collaboration with Ministry of Health and KANCO convened training at Serena hotel coast region in Mombasa. A total of 45 CSOs representatives attended: NOSET, SAPTA, MEWA, RCT, OMARI project, BOMU clinic, Teens watch and MDM. The training was facilitated by facilitators from NASCOP, UNODC, GOK Mathare mental clinic and KANCO.

The aim of this forum was to provide basic orientation on medically assisted therapy (MAT) and develop common understanding on key messages plus expected role and responsibilities for CSO service providers in partnership building and support for opiate users along the pathway to recovery. The training focused on the following objectives: to provide clear guidance on use of medications for, opioid agonist maintenance treatment (OAMT), prevention and management of opioid overdose, management of withdrawal and relapse prevention among persons dependent on opioids and to defines basic concepts of drug dependence and opioids, recommended procedures and minimum standards for good practices in MAT service delivery for different settings.

Training on medically-assisted therapy conducted in Kenya

The recent network development work in February 2014 in Nairobi, Kenya, is an extension of the developing community mobilisation model undertaken by the 2 East Africa country networks alongside INPUD while in Mombasa and along the coastal region of Kenya, during November 2013.

This network development model involves the application of a grassroots hierarchy approach placing the maskani (using sites) members who have no IT access, mobile phones, enduring chronic health issues, and the most stigmatized, as the leading and most significant members of the mobilisation. This had to be complimented and strengthened by a complete decentralization of capacity building activities from INPUD for the purposes of this project.

INPUD-led people who use drugs community capacity building in Kenya is reaching to thousands

Did you know that the majority of police officers don’t get into the force to bust people for ten bags? While it might occasionally seem like that – especially if you had little else to do growing up bar smoking weed in lay-bys and cultivating your collection of stop-and-search forms – plenty of cops are tired of fighting the War on Drugs, a battle they know full well they’re never going to win.

In 2002, a group of American police who were fed up of making menial street arrests for petty drug offences set up LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition), an organisation that aims to bring together law enforcement and criminal justice workers who support a system of regulation and control of drugs that currently remain illegal.

Though it remains relatively small, LEAP’s UK branch has been operating since 2008, headed up by volunteer Jason Reed since 2010. Reed is a 34-year-old medicinal cannabis user from Kent who’s suffered from ME (also known as chronic fatigue syndrome) for 25 years.

Meet the British police trying to decriminalise drugs

Colombia's government and the Farc, the country's largest rebel group, have agreed on a plan to deal with the illegal drug trade.

Both parties agreed to eliminate all illicit drug production in Colombia should a final deal be reached.

The Farc, which controls large patches of rural Colombia, is believed to be partly funded by money generated by the illegal drug trade.

This was the third on a six-point peace agenda being negotiated in Cuba.

The civil war in Colombia has killed an estimated 220,000 people in the last five decades.

Last year, government officials and the left-wing Farc (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) agreed on land reform and political participation.

Colombia's government and the Farc agreed to eliminate all illicit drug production in Colombia should a final deal be reached.

Colombia and FARC rebels agree on drug trade plan

We gather in Melbourne, the traditional meeting place of the Wurundjeri, Boonerwrung, Taungurong, Djajawurrung and the Wathaurung people, the original and enduring custodians of the lands that make up the Kulin Nation, to assess progress on the global HIV response and its future direction, at the 20th International AIDS Conference, AIDS 2014.

We, the signatories and endorsers of this Declaration, affirm that non-discrimination is fundamental to an evidence-based, rights-based and gender transformative response to HIV and effective public health programmes.

To defeat HIV and achieve universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support – nobody should be criminalized or discriminated against because of their gender, age, race, ethnicity, disability, religious or spiritual beliefs, country of origin, national status, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a sex worker, prisoner or detainee, because they use or have used illicit drugs or because they are living with HIV.

The 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne will gather several stakeholders to assess progress on the global HIV response and its future direction.

AIDS 2014 Melbourne Declaration

That Punjab is in the grip of drug epidemic is well known, but how little the state administration cares about the issue becomes evident from the way the drug de-addiction centres are managed here. A survey has revealed that many of these centres have become a place for mental and physical torture in the name of de-addiction.

"A number of private drug de-addiction centres are violating norms and pursuing their own policies. There are no nurses and counsellors. These centres are rarely inspected by the authorities which add to the woes of inmates," he said. Some of the violations found during the study, conducted at three private and seven government centres, were confinement of people dependent on drugs for a period of six months or more, incidents of mental and physical torture, and abuse of human rights.

Relatives of those staying in such facilities have often complained about the 'inhuman treatment' meted out to their kin. The survival and success rate of these centres, sources said, is not beyond 20 per cent.

People dependent on drugs reveal shocking tales of torture in Punjab, India private rehab clinics

Ugandan lawmakers on Tuesday passed a bill criminalizing the “willful and intentional” transmission of HIV.

The bill imposes jail sentences of up to 10 years for those found guilty and also requires pregnant women and their partners to get tested for the virus.

Parliamentarian Peter Aleper told local television last week that people who knowingly transmit HIV are dangerous to others.

Health workers and civil society groups have spoken out against the bill, saying it will do nothing to curb Uganda’s rising infection rate. Many argue the bill will further stigmatize people who are HIV positive.

According to Margaret Happy of the National Forum of People Living With HIV AIDS Networks in Uganda, the risk of criminalization is likely keep people from getting tested.

The legislation follows Uganda's recent enactment of a tough new law that imposes life sentences in prison for committing some homosexual acts.

In recent years, a number of other African countries have passed laws against transmitting HIV, including Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Other countries, and some American states, also have such laws. Other countries, including some European nations, have prosecuted people for transmitting HIV under different laws against harming others.

The Ugandan bill needs President Yoweri Museveni's signature to become law.

Networks of Women Living with HIV issued a press release condemning the passage of the HIV Prevention and AIDS Control Bill 2010 by the Uganda 9th Parliament. The Bill endangers the lives of Ugandans, women living with HIV and further undermines Uganda’s already backsliding response to HIV. Download the press release below.

Uganda criminalises 'willful' HIV transmission

Minnesota lawmakers struck a deal Thursday to legalize medical marijuana, handing a major victory to severely ill children and adults whose emotional appeals for help propelled a major policy change that once appeared dead for the session.

Gov. Mark Dayton said he would sign the legislation, which was closer to the House's more restrictive bill than the Senate's. Some patients lamented that the agreement doesn't allow them to use actual plant material — they instead can use the drug in oil, pill and vapor form — but others were overjoyed.

"This will change my daughter's life and thousands of lives around Minnesota," said Angie Weaver of Hibbing, whose 8-year-old daughter is afflicted by a rare form of epilepsy.

The compromise bill allows for two manufacturing facilities and eight dispensaries statewide, more than the House bill called for. But it covers fewer conditions than the Senate favored. Its prohibition against using plant material disappointed some advocates, who said vaporizing the leaf or smoking the drug were the only ways some patients could get relief from their maladies.

One sign of the difficulty advocates had in winning over lawmakers is that Minnesota is the only state to explicitly ban smoking of medical marijuana, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Other states simply don't include smoking among approved methods for delivering the drug.

Eight medical conditions would qualify for treatment, including cancer, glaucoma and AIDS, with a possible ninth if the health commissioner acts on a House amendment requesting that "intractable pain" be considered as a justification.

Patients would receive an identification number if a doctor, a physician assistant or advanced-practice registered nurse certified a qualifying illness existed. Health-care providers would provide treatment data to the Minnesota Department of Health to enable researchers and policymakers to determine the medical effects of cannabis treatment.

Background checks would be required for those working at the manufacturing sites and dispensaries. Anyone participating in the medical marijuana program caught using cannabis for non-medical purposes would be ousted and subject to criminal penalties.

Minnesota lawmakers agree to limited legalisation of medical marijuana

Much of the writing on HIV prevention is loaded with punitive clichés about gay men that highlight psychological deficits, lack of self control, and prevention fatigue. Perhaps the most repeated one since the onset of the epidemic suggests that the majority of gay men are into drugs and couldn’t care less about becoming infected while enjoying their substances.

While these clichés have persisted throughout the epidemic, a closer look at statistics shows a more nuanced portrait of gay men. The Sex Now survey (Canada’s largest survey of gay and bisexual men) showed that the vast majority of gay men report no risk for HIV in the previous year (70 percent) nor did most report any use of party drugs over the same time period (85 percent), not even once.

One issue of concern emerging from the Sex Now survey, however, is that gay men who do use drugs are nearly twice as likely to report HIV risk. Other researchers have also demonstrated this relationship. But concluding that “drugs = uncontrolled gay men = risky sex ”, and that health professionals should focus their efforts on eradicating drug use among gay men to prevent HIV, ignores the complexity of gay men’s lives and the reasons they engage in both risky sex and substance use.

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