Watch this video featuring Michel Kazatchkine, the Special Envoy of the UN for HIV/AIDS in Eastern-Europe and Central-Asia, who addressed the delegates of the High Level Segment of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in Vienna.

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Michel Kazatchkine: Arresting people who use drugs increases HIV

Lack of co-ordination, leadership and transparency from Home Office, Foreign Office and DFID has played into the hands of hardline states such as Russia.

As a critical high-level UN meeting on the future of international drug policy begins a coalition of UK drugs and HIV groups have called for the UK to reject the summit’s key outcome document – the “joint ministerial statement”.

Harm Reduction International, a leading drugs NGO, and STOPAIDS, a network of HIV organisations, say the text of the ministerial statement represents a capitulation by progressive governments who support human rights and health-focused approaches to drugs under pressure from hardline states seeking ever more stringent tactics.

The High Level meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs begins today in Vienna and will be attended by UK drugs minister Norman Baker. It is intended to review progress on the last five years since the adoption of the UN political declaration on drugs in 2009, and to assess challenges for the future.

Specifically the groups claim the statement:

Fails to acknowledge that Members States will fail to meet the agreed international target of reducing HIV among people who inject drugs by 50% by 2015.

Fails to endorse harm reduction, despite widespread expansion globally and significant success in reducing HIV among people who inject drugs when implemented to scale.

Fails to condemn even the most serious of human rights abuses in relation to drug enforcemug enforcement. In particular, no agreement could be reached on a paragraph calling for an end to the death penalty for drug offences and it was stripped form the text.

Is a backward step at international level at a time of significant debate at national level across the world

Unsafe injecting practices due to the lack of access to sterile injecting equipment and other harm reduction interventions are a major contributor to HIV transmission in many parts of the world. But addressing this problem though the full endorsement of proven harm reduction interventions is a consistently controversial topic at the UN in Vienna, largely due to opposition by hardline states such as Russia.

Rick Lines, Executive Director of Harm Reduction International, said:

“The document is an embarrassment for any government that adopts it. There is no honest reflection of the consistent failures to prevent HIV related to unsafe injecting. It completely ignores the evidence that the war on drugs drugs –which this document rubber stamps – is itself driving HIV and viral hepatitis epidemics, and generating widespread human rights violations.

The UK and the EU as a group have not been forceful enough and backed down on key issues to preserve the ‘consensus’ in Vienna. We are left looking on in frustration as Russian-led efforts to push for regressive language on HIV win through. Endorsing this text will take human rights and the HIV response backwards. The UK should refuse to put its name to it.”

The summit is taking place in advance of a UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs (UNGASS) tabled for 2016 and where Nick Clegg has said the UK must take a lead on discussions of the failures of the war on drugs. The last such event was in 1998.

Negotiations on the ‘joint ministerial statement’ have been fraught, in particular with regard to HIV and huard to HIV and human rights. But HRI and STOPAIDS have questioned the UK’s role in these debates. Ben Simms, Director of STOPAIDS, said:

“In the past the UK has been a leading voice on HIV-related harm reduction on the international stage and it has been a vital part of its leadership on HIV and AIDS more generally. Whilst the policy commitment seemingly remains strong in DFID, we are seeing tension and a lack of transparency across Whitehall. Our repeated attempts to speak to the Home Office and Foreign Office civil servants leading the UK delegation have failed, and this raises concerns about the position the UK will be taking in Vienna. A very worrying moment for those who are relying on strong UK leadership.”

The ‘joint ministerial statement’ is to be endorsed by ministers from around the world this week amidst growing discord over the health, social, and economic impact of the war on drugs.

• Current text of the draft ‘joint ministerial statement

• Leaked paper reveals UN split over war on drugs, Observer, 30 November, 2013

 (Refers to the earliest draft of the ministerial statement and the evident tensions)

Nick Clegg: Britain must join debate on new approach to war on drugs, Observer, 8 February, 2014

Drugs and HIV groups call on UK to reject United Nations drugs declaration

Vienna, Austria – Today, a key working group of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) announced the release of groundbreaking recommendations discouraging criminal sanctions for drug use. The Scientific Consultation Working Group on Drug Policy, Health and Human Rights of the UNODC – which includes Nora Volkow, head of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) – is releasing the recommendations at the High-Level Segment of the 57th UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs. The working group recommendations say “criminal sanctions are not beneficial” in addressing the spectrum of drug use and misuse.

More than 1.5 million drug arrests are made every year in the U.S. – the overwhelming majority for possession only. Roughly two dozen countries, and dozens of U.S. cities and states, have taken steps toward decriminalization.

Drug decriminalisation is rapidly emerging as consensus goal of both drug policy, public safety and health stakeholders.

United Nations: Criminal sanctions for drug use are "not beneficial"

The cultivation of illicit drug crops goes hand in hand with poverty and food insecurity. Weaning poor farmers off illicit crop cultivation requires sustainable alternative livelihoods, without which they will fall back on lucrative cash crops - coca leaf, opium poppy or cannabis - to survive. UNODC alternative development programmes therefore focus on providing economic and employment opportunities to communities subsisting on illicit crops.

The 2009 'Political Declaration and Plan of Action on International Cooperation Towards an Integrated and Balanced Strategy to Counter the World Drug Problem', being reviewed in Vienna this year, highlighted the need to address the supply side of the drug trade. UNODC helps States to implement poverty reduction and rural development strategies, carrying out projects in Afghanistan, the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Colombia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Myanmar and Peru.

At the High Level Review, Member States will consider the impact of alternative development activities and commit to measures to step up alternative livelihood programmes.

Supporting legal livelihoods for illicit crop farmers

Inspired by Sir Richard Branson and the Nekker Island Retreat for the Heads of Government of the 15 independent countries of the Commonwealth Caribbean, Representatives of the Latin American Network of People Who Use Drugs (LANPUD) and the Caribbean Network of People Who Use Drugs (CARIPUD) met in retreat in Castries, Saint Lucia to discuss the state of affairs among people who use drugs in Latin America and the Caribbean. Hosted by the Caribbean Drug and Alcohol Research Institute, the retreat was guided by Chatham House Rules and further the identities of the individuals attending is kept confidential given the oppression some participants live under.

The consensus of the retreat that there is a general lack of concern for the health and social consequences of people who use drugs in the Americas and especially those particularly vulnerable persons using coca based stimulants in an environment of racism, repression and a hyper-criminality encouraged by the perpetuation of the War on Drugs in the Americas.

HIV rates among people who smoke crack cocaine are often 3 to 5 times the national prevalence rates, yet, despite the evidence showing that certain populations of coca based stimulant smokers have elevated rates of HIV, the UN Family continues to ignore the needs of this population.

Where is the Technical Guidance promised by UNODC when experts and community met in San Paulo in 2011. Why aren’t our brothers and sisters of the International Network of People Who Use Drugs championing the HIV prevention needs of people who use crack cocaine, the large majority of them smokers? UN Women: Where are your programmes for women who smoke crack?

LANPUD and CARIPUD join together to call for the UNODC to acknowledge the HIV and other health risks for people who use coca based stimulants and to engage with PAHO and the community of people who use drugs and are affected by HIV to adopt the CDARI Technical Guide to HIV Prevention, Treatment and Care for Stimulant Users to address the issues of HIV among people who use coca based stimulants in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The suppression of the natural herbal substances of cannabis, coca and poppy that resulted from the enforcement of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs has resulted in the proliferation of other substances, many more harmful, to be used as alternatives. Research has confirmed what community has always known, that natural herbal forms of psychotropic substances are benign at worse and often therapeutic with much less side effects then pharmaceuticals.

LANPUD and CARIPUD call for a public health campaign to make available and encourage the use of natural plant and herbal forms of cannabis, coca and poppy for people who wish an alternative to the derivatives they currently use.

LANPUD and CARIPUD further call on the governments of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean to stop arresting people who use drugs and allow for the legal sale and growth of cannabis, coca and poppy for personal use.


LANPUD and CARIPUD joint statement on drug policy reform

The proposals to strengthen the European Union’s ability to respond to new psychoactive substances used as alternatives to illicit drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy (IP/13/837 and MEMO/13/790) made important progress today. They were backed in the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) (51 in favour, 4 against).The new rules proposed by the Commission will equip the EU with a quicker and smarter system to help protect more than 2 million people in Europe who take pills or powders sold to them as ‘legal’.

"Today's vote is good news. Legal highs are not legal: they are lethal", said Vice-President Viviane Reding, the EU’s Justice Commissioner. "Drugs don't stop at national borders. In a borderless internal market, we need common EU rules to tackle legal highs. More and more young people are put at risk through the growing number of these dangerous substances. We have to be quicker and we have to be cleverer in our reaction. I would like to thank the rapporteurs, Jacek Protasiewicz and Teresa Jiménez-Becerril for their speedy work on this important file. I hope we can make further swift progress in the European Parliament and in the Council now."

New psychoactive substances: European Parliament committee backs Commission proposal 

Polish policemen and prosecutors need drug amount reference tables!

The Poland’s drug law is the second most restrictive in Europe, after the drug law in Belarus. The Act on Counteracting Drug Addiction requires immediate change. Based on the current legal provisions every 3 minutes a person is detained being suspected of illegal drug possession. Annually this number exceeds 30,000 people.

Polish prosecutors will apply the Article 62 of the Act on Counteracting Drug Addiction more often.This declaration was heard by representatives of the Polish Drug Policy Network after a meeting in two Polish cities - Rzeszowand Bialystok. “This is a great success of our organization”- Agnieszka Sieniawska, the Polish Drug Policy Network Chairperson, commented.

The Polish Drug Policy Network (PDPN) organized a number of training courses for the Polish police and prosecutors to encourage for the use of the new drug law, as well as to identify the obstacles to their use.

Polish Drug Policy Network trains law enforcement officers to better tackle drug offenders

In country after country a vast array of new psychoactive substances, rapidly spread via online sources, is causing havoc for law and policy makers. Attempts to arrest their harms almost routinely fail, and many are now looking to the example of recent New Zealand legislation. Max Daly asks whether we have got it right, or does regulation just lead to further problems?

The proliferation of new psychoactive substances (NPS) and legal highs has changed the drug world forever and thrown a spanner into the Drug War machinery.

This armoury of chemicals, and the way they are produced and sold, has left policy makers dazed and confused amid a hail of chemical formulae, brands, legal loopholes, underground chemistry labs, virtual currencies and online encryption.

At the start of the Drug War, the enemies were more honest, simply made from plants. Later came LSD, speed and ecstasy, which were made in labs, but everyone knew what they were. Then the NPS revolution happened in the 2000s, and the enemy had changed.

Synthetic solutions: The global response to ‘legal’ highs

The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) is a great innovation of the Treaty of Lisbon, enabling EU citizens to call directly on the European Commission to propose a legal act, if they can obtain the support of one million of their fellow citizens. The "Weed like to talk” campaign, launched by three French university students this year, aims to collect one million signatures from at least seven EU countries to call for a common cannabis policy based on a legally regulated market. One of the students, Pierre Balas, a Parisian graduate student of European Affairs, says there is no commercial or political agenda behind the campaign. They are students who are simply fed up with ineffective policies and wish to explore innovative tools of direct democracy. The success of the campaign will not automatically lead to cannabis legalization but the EU Commission will be legally bound to undertake transparent action on cannabis policy.

Europe, it’s time to regulate cannabis!

Follow the journey of a teenage ex-gang member as he heals the wounds of his past and tries to imagine a better future.

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The effects drug trafficking on young people invovled in gangs in Honduras

Russia faces an alarming situation with its fastest-growing HIV epidemic. Russia is home to the world’s fastest-growing HIV epidemic. Driven by injection drug use, it is now becoming generalized. If you use injection drugs in Russia, you likely have HIV, hepatitis C, and more often than not, tuberculosis.

Although the Russian constitution grants the right to free access to health services in government facilities, it does not provide effective care to those who have these multiple infections. And it bans opioid substitution therapy—the most effective opiate addiction treatment.

In many ways, the story of Max, who you meet in this video, is typical of the hundreds of thousands of Russians who use drugs. As an intravenous drug user, he contracted HIV and hepatitis C.

Fighting an epidemic in Russia from 3,000 miles away

The world’s nations have begun talks ahead of the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Drugs in 2016. This is a time of increasing high-level calls for drug policy reform and a sense that policies long dominated by prohibition and law enforcement in many parts of the world have failed miserably. Countries may be better served with a public health policy approach instead.

Canada has long been a world leader in implementing harm reduction policy when it comes to drug use at home.

So it was almost shocking to see it aligning itself to countries such as Russia and China in vocally opposing the inclusion of “harm reduction” in a new a new set of UN principles that will guide talks at the special session in 2016.Canada is adopting a controversial position towards drug policies by undermining harm reduction interventions.

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