Sub-Saharan Africa has emerged as a new front in the global struggle for control of illicit drugs. Significant trafficking routes of drugs from Asia and Latin America criss-cross the continent, benefiting in some cases from weakly supervised borders and ports.

Africa also has some of the most repressive national drug laws in the world, many of them dating from the 1960s, and hundreds of thousands of people are in pre-trial detention or other state custody for minor drug offenses. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the government of the United States -- two heavyweight players on the global drug control scene -- both see opportunities for replicating in Africa the human rights-unfriendly drug-control approaches used in Latin America. Both also invoke links between drugs and terrorism as a justification for a militarised response to drugs. This talk will consider the lessons, including human rights-related factors, that should inform drug control strategies in Africa.

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Another front in a losing war: Human rights and drug policy in Africa

The Syrian civil war has led to a surge in cannabis production in Lebanon as the country’s army is forced to focus on security rather than drug eradication.

In the Bekaa Valley, Ali Nasri Shamas carries a revolver by his side and an automatic rifle in the back of his car, weapons he says he’s ready to use if the army moves in to try to destroy his lucrative cannabis crop.

But he may not need them this year. With Syria’s civil war 30 miles away, Lebanese security forces have other priorities than their annual showdown with the Bekaa hashish growers.

“If they want a confrontation that’s no problem for us, it will be harvest season soon,” Mr Shamas says, standing in a field of the green, spiky-leafed plants from which hashish resin is extracted.

Syria conflict: Lebanon sees surge in cannabis crop as army is forced to focus on border security

Treatment and rehabilitation services to reduce the impact of drugs on Iraqi society are being launched by the United Nations.

Two UN agencies have joined efforts on the project—the Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Both are supporting the development of drug dependence treatment services in Iraq, which has reportedly for many years been a transit and destination country for illicit drugs.

Yury Fedotov, the Executive Director of UNODC, said on Wednesday that until recently, a gap existed between the needs of drug users and what could reasonably be delivered by Iraqi health services.

To close this divide, Mr Fedotov said UNODC and WHO have helped build modern, effective services, which are also fully in line with international drug conventions.

Launch of drug dependence, treatment and care programme in Iraq

On May 22, 2014, four years after introducing its first vral hepatitis resolution, the World Health Assembly (WHA) - the decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO) - passed the Hepatitis Resolution, which commits the WHO and United Nations (UN) member states to urgent action to address the global hepatitis pandemic, including that of hepatitis C virus (HCV).

Globally, an estimated 185 millions people have been infected with HCV. Since 2010, more than a million of them have died from HCV - related liver disease, although hepatitis C is treatable and curable.

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

New hepatitis resolution is passed at world health assembly; challenges World Health Organization and member states to act

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.

Please click here to read the full article.

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.

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.

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