The Lawyers Collective welcomes the passage of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Amendment) Bill, 2014 (“NDPS”) by Parliament late last week. The amendments make important, path breaking changes for medical access to narcotic drugs by removing barriers that date back to 1985, when the Act was first introduced. The amendments also include provisions to improve treatment and care for people dependent on drugs, moving away from abstinence oriented services to treating drug dependence as a chronic, yet manageable condition.

India is one of the leading producers of morphine, yet patients in the country could not access it owing to the stringent licensing requirements under the NDPS Act and Rules framed by State Governments. Statistics reveal that the medical use of morphine declined by 97% after the NDPS Act came into force.

This will now change as Parliament has adopted a new category of “

” in section 2(viiia) of the Act - a list, which the Central Government can notify on the basis of expediency in medical practice. Drugs identified as essential will be subject to Central Rules under section 9(1)(a), which will apply uniformly throughout the country, bringing to an end the unwieldy and inept practice of obtaining multiple State licenses for possession, transport, purchase, sale, distribution, use and consumption.

The amendments broaden the object of the NDPS Act from containing illicit use to also promoting the medical and scientific use of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances. The language incorporated in section 4, which is an overarching provision, reflects the principle of ‘balance’ between control and availability of narcotic drugs, which is at the heart of international drug control but has eluded the NDPS Act so far. This widening of scope, it is hoped, will pave the way for more research on the beneficial use of narcotics, which up till now, remained out of bounds for the medical and scientific community due to the overtly prohibitive nature of the law.

Importantly, medical use has not been specified and could include a variety of medical conditions, besides drug dependence and pain relief.

Health and rights of people who use drugs

Other salutary changes have been introduced in section 71, which significantly impact the health and rights of people who use drugs. The NDPS Act now allows for “

” of drug dependence, thereby legitimizing opioid substitution, maintenance and other harm reduction services. Secondly, it authorizes the Government to “

” treatment centres, which currently operate without license or accreditation, and inflict violence and torture on drug users. The amendments will allow for instituting evidence based and human rights compliant standards for drug treatment facilities, whether public or private.

The latest amendments introduce some changes in penal sentencing for drug offences.

Sentencing under the NDPS Act is dependent on the quantity of the drug found, with the scale of punishment varying from a maximum of 6 months for ‘small quantity’ to 20 years imprisonment for a first offence involving ‘commercial quantity’. The NDPS (Amendment) Bill, 2011 had proposed language that defined ‘small’ and ‘commercial’ quantity on the basis of the total weight of the contraband as opposed to the actual content of the narcotic or psychotropic drug in the seized substance. This would have led more people including persons who use drugs to be sentenced for ‘commercial quantity’, especially since street drugs are heavily ‘cut’ and rarely ever seized in pure forms. These provisions do not form part of the Bill cleared by the Parliament.

Another important change is the Parliament’s decision to recast the death penalty, which, until now, was mandatory for a subsequent offence involving a certain quantity of drugs under section 31A, as an alternative to imprisonment for 30 years under section 31. This is a welcome step but falls short of international human rights standards and constitutional principles that restrict the imposition of the death sentence to the ‘most serious’ and ‘rarest of rare’ crimes. Drug offences do not meet this threshold and should not attract capital punishment at all.

On the flip side, the amendment has increased the punishment for small quantity offences from a maximum of 6 months to 1 year imprisonment. Consumption of drugs continues to be punishable. This is regrettable as Parliament had the opportunity to review and reform punitive provisions against people who use drugs. In the last decade or so, a growing number of countries have moved towards the full decriminalization of use and possession of drugs, with no reported negative consequences on individuals and society. Some are boldly creating legalized markets for the distribution, sale, possession and use of certain drugs. The NDPS amendments seem regressive and out of step, against the grain of international drug policy reform.

The amendment opens the way for private sector involvement in the processing of opium and concentrated poppy straw.

It also offers some protection to persons engaged in licensed drug activities by raising the rank of officers who are authorized under section 42, to search and arrest license holders for alleged NDPS violations.

Parliament has also adopted changes to strengthen the forfeiture of property of persons arraigned on charges of drug trafficking.

The NDPS (Amendment) Bill 2014 was strongly influenced by recommendations of the Standing Committee on Finance, which reviewed the NDPS (Amendment) Bill, 2011 in its 50th report of March 2012. Civil society and sections of the pharmaceutical industry also advocated for change.

The Lawyers Collective made extensive written and oral submissions on the NDPS (Amendment) Bill 2011 to the Standing Committee on Finance and subsequently worked with palliative care activists and the Department of Revenue, especially on medical access to narcotics.

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

Indian Parliament passes the amendments to the bill on narcotic drugs, 2014: Many gains, some losses

Polish lawmakers are looking at replacing a failed strategy for policing drug offenses with a groundbreaking model pioneered in Seattle.

Legislators in Poland recently hosted James Pugel, former chief of the Seattle Police Department, in order to study the city’s Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program. The program, which was introduced in 2011, involves steering low-level drug and prostitution arrestees into community-based treatment and support services, instead of processing them through traditional criminal justice system avenues.

Unlike drug courts, which require appearances before a judge, the LEAD program directs people to services at the point of arrest without entanglement in the criminal justice system.

Pugel presented to the Polish parliament, met senior law enforcement officials, and addressed national public health advocates to consider what aspects of the LEAD program are applicable to Poland.

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

Poland eyes alternative strategy for policing drugs

Torture can happen to anyone. Just ask Juan Méndez. In 1975, while representing political prisoners as a human rights lawyer in Argentina, Méndez was arrested, tortured, and eventually expelled from the country. Today, he is the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, investigating human rights violations.

Torture: It can happen anywhere

In this episode of On Point, School of Public Policy Professor, Julia Buxton, discusses how the international drug control system is facing fractured consensus.

CEU on point with Julia Buxton: Consensus fractured in the international drug control system 

The proposition of a law project to legalize and regulate the recreational, medicinal and industrial use of Cannabis was presented at the Brazilian Senate this last Monday (17/02/2014) and will be coordinated by Senator Cristovam Buarque.

Senator Buarque affirmed in his speech at the Senate that this is a very important discussion and should be made with full participation of the society. He wants to analyse the risks involved, potential medicinal advantages and the impact of legalization in reducing the violence.

The Senator, who is seen in Brazil as a moderate, has a long career in politics and was exiled to France during the military dictatorship in Brazil, when he obtained a doctorate in economics by the University of Sorbonne. He was the Minister of Education for President Lula and candidate to the presidency of Brazil in 2006.

Brazilian Senate will discuss the legalisation of cannabis

In this forum, experts, practitioners and policy-makers from around the world discuss how to address the ongoing and emerging challenges for meeting the MDGs in 2015 and for sustaining development gains in the future. The results of this-e-discussion will provide ECOSOC with constructive inputs and policy recommendations for strengthening efforts towards achieving the internationally agreed development goals, particularly the MDGs by 2015, and for sustaining and continuing development gains in the context of the post-2015 development agenda.

Participants might comment, in English, French and Spanish, on any of the discussion threads posted. The facilitators will summarize key points from the e-discussion and keep a log of policy ideas put forth by the participants. Click here for Moderators’ bios

 When adding a comment, please introduce yourself, including affiliation and location.Thank you! See Tips for Participation.

For questions or comments, please email support.amr@unteamworks.org. For technical issues with this platform, contact support@unteamworks.org

E-discussion: Addressing challenges for meeting the MDGs and sustaining development gains

Serbia is a country at the crossroads of a number of heroin trafficking routes. It has a significant injecting drug user population, many of them belonging to a marginalised ethnic minority, the Roma. Thanks to grants from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tubercolosis and Malaria, several harm reduction services were introduced into Serbia during the first decade of this century. There are approximately two thousand people enrolled in opiate substitution programs, and four NSPs (needle and syringe programs) provide sterile equipment to injecting drug users.

The prevalence of HIV among drug users has so far remained low, but access to harm reduction services is far from adequate – the best indicator of risk being the high prevalence of Hepatitis C infections. Hopes, on the part of service providers, that programs can be scaled up, seem to be going up in smoke: the country is not eligible for any more money from the Global Fund, and the last grant will end in June. This means that NSPs face an uncertain future: the government has made no commitment to continue their funding, and there are no other donors available to step in. In September, the Drugreporter filming team was invited by ReGeneracija (like them on Facebook!), a local NGO working with young people, to produce a movie about the situation. We hope this video will give you an overview of the situation, and show why it is so important to provide adequate funding for harm reduction programs.

At a crossroads: Will Serbia fund harm reduction programs to save lives?

Norway is poised to start trials of a nasal spray that reverses the effect of a heroin overdose, in a move that could encourage other countries to follow suit.

Despite its oil wealth, well-funded drug rehabilitation programmes and generous welfare safety net, Norway has western Europe's worst overdose rate. Campaigners have long been urging the government to approve the rollout of the nasal spray, which administers Naloxone to people who have taken an overdose, in effect acting as a kind of liquid defibrillator.

Now, regulatory approval permitting, the Norwegian trials will offer the kit in Norway's two most populous cities, Oslo and Bergen, later this year. Philipp Lobmaier, the doctor leading the trials, said that while Naloxone was no silver bullet, he was confident it would cut down the number of ambulance cases. "I hope we will soon be able to show fewer incidents of paramedics being called out for overdoses," he said.

Norway will trial Naloxone spray to tackle its alamring rate of heroin overdose.

Norway to trial nasal spray antidote to heroin overdose

This documentary shows the cannabis law reform around the world, as well as the history of the prohibition and potential benefits of the plant.

Documentary on cannabis law reform

People smoking a joint in France face a maximum penalty of a year behind bars and a €3,750 fine for the first offence, yet 13.4 million French people admit to sparking up at least once in their life. Even France’s top cop, Interior Minister Manuel Vallls, said in a recent interview, he’d tried it “maybe once.”

The numbers go up as you look at the younger portion of the population. France had the unhappy distinction of being the European “champion” of teen pot smokers in 2011 when 24 percent of its 16-year-old kids admitted to smoking at least once a month, daily Le Monde reported.

Not surprisingly legalizing cannabis has come up regularly in France, but the discussion never has never gotten far. In fact, it was only this month that authorities announced medical cannabis spray Sativex had been authorized for sale in France, though only by prescription and solely to multiple sclerosis patients.

'First ever' bill proposes legal cannabis in France

On 13th February, Mexico City submitted bills to both the Local House and the Federal Congress of Mexico that, if passed, will decriminalise the possession of small quantities of cannabis for personal use.

The move is being backed by four former Latin American presidents (PDF), all of whom are members of the Global Commission on Drug Policy: Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former president of Brazil; Ernesto Zedillo, former president of Mexico; César Gaviria, former president of Colombia; and Ricardo Lagos, former president of Chile.

The bills are the result of lengthy discussions that began last summer, when the ALDF (Local House) organised a series of public hearings to explore alternative policies aimed at addressing the city's drug problem. Staff from the Latin American Drug Policy Programme run by México Unido Contra la Delincuencia (MUCD) and Transform Drug Policy Foundation (TDPF) co-organised and spoke at the hearings. After six months of work, the technical group in charge of the drafting process – which consisted of lawyers, health practitioners, security advisers and drug policy experts – finalised the two bills that were presented this morning.

Mexico City: New bill on cannabis decriminalisation submitted to local congress

Britain's "hopelessly out-of-date" drug laws could now be debated in Parliament after 100,000 people signed a petition. The success of Caroline Lucas' campaign has prompted Russell Brand to promise to "snog" the 100,000th signatory live on Channel 4 News.

Brand's endorsement, plus the intervention on Sunday of Nick Clegg, has helped drive support for the petition, which must now be considered for debate by Parliament's Backbench Business Committee.

CAROLINE LUCAS BLOG: Time for a sane, evidence-based drugs policy

It urges the Government to order a cost-benefit analysis and impact assessment of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 within the next 12 months. Lucas argues that, as the Government is spending £3 billion a year on its drug policy, it is worth "checking whether Britain's current approach is value for money or money wasted".