Colombia is one year into peace negotiations with the country’s largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (

Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, 

FARC). After reaching tentative agreements on the land and political participation agenda points, the parties are currently negotiating the issue of illicit drugs.

This WOLA article outlines 11 elements of a more effective and humane approach to drug policy. The first six propose immediate changes that can be agreed at the negotiating table with the FARC. The next five ideas take advantage of the peace talks as a springboard to commence a broader discussion on drug policy reform. Both at the negotiating table in Havana and in Bogota, policies must prioritize alternative development over forced eradication, public health over criminal prosecution, and the protection of human rights above all else.

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

Peace, drug policy, and an inclusive society

Twenty-three local mayors have drawn up plans to authorise and regulate the production of cannabis in the Netherlands.

The manifesto aims to resolve a long-standing anomaly in Dutch drugs policy. Small amounts of soft drugs can be purchased by individuals in licensed coffeeshops, but the wholesale trade remains illegal and criminals run the supply chain.

Municipal politicians say the current approach is “hamfisted” and are stepping up pressure on the justice department to allow them to license legal suppliers. Some councils have even contemplated cultivating cannabis themselves.

They say the current system is unworkable, dangerous and a burden on the criminal justice system. A quarter of all urban fires in the Netherlands are estimated to be “hemp related”.

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

Dutch town halls demand powers to decriminalise cannabis production

Self-defense forces in Michoacan, Mexico have signed an agreement with federal and regional authorities, a move that raises the specter of the paramilitary death squads in Colombia, Guatemala and Peru that flourished with state collaboration.

The eight-point agreement, signed by 30 vigilante leaders on January 27, stipulates that the self-defense forces will be incorporated into Rural Defense Units and will work to assist municipal security forces, reported Animal Politico. It also states that vigilantes must provide a list of their members and register all arms currently in their possession.

Additionally, it requires the Michoacan Commission for Security and Integral Development -- a body recently set up by President Enrique Peña Nieto to coordinate security efforts in the region -- to work closely with municipal governments and provide any needed assistance.

Alfredo Castillo, the federal commissioner for security and development, called the measure "a powerful step towards ensuring that security and development strategies see results," reported Milenio.

Earlier the same day, security forces arrested Dionisio Loya Plancarte, the alleged second-in-command of the Knights Templar criminal organization, in Morelia, Michoacan, reported Milenio. Plancarte has been linked with the murder of federal police officers and is thought to be responsible for drug trafficking operations in Morelia.

Mexico vigilante legalisation raises paramilitary concerns

Groups battling one of the world’s worst HIV/AIDS epidemics say their task may get “catastrophically” harder following the introduction of controversial laws in Ukraine in response to months of anti-government protests. Among legislation introduced this week – dubbed a “charter for oppression” by some international rights groups – is a new law forcing NGOs that receive foreign funding to register as “foreign agents” or face hefty fines and closure.

For many years Ukraine has had one of the world’s fastest growing HIV/AIDS epidemics.
Copied almost exactly from similar legislation introduced recently in Russia, the law not only puts a label with derogatory Cold War connotations on civil society groups, but, crucially for many, also forces them to pay tax on foreign income.

For organisations in the front line of response to the country’s raging HIV/AIDS epidemic, this could spell disaster.

Pavel Skala, a senior policy manager at the International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Ukraine, the largest NGO in the country working on tackling the disease, told IPS: “The new law will be catastrophic for local NGOs, making things harder for organisations working with HIV/AIDS sufferers and providing harm reduction services. The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Ukraine would only get worse.”

For many years Ukraine has had one of the world’s fastest-growing HIV/AIDS epidemics, according to United Nations figures, and currently has the highest rate of HIV infection in Europe.

Ukraine crackdown hits fight against AIDS

2014 marks the 25th anniversary of the identification of the hepatitis C virus (HCV). HCV infection continues to be a major global health problem. Unlike many chronic diseases, hepatitis C can be cured, but it is difficult to treat, not all patients are responsive, side-effects can be severe, and progression to end-stage liver disease and liver cancer is common.

Over the past few years, new medicines for HCV infection have begun to transform the treatment landscape, and, just in the past few months alone, the development of new regimens has been so successful that disease experts are heralding an era where all patients can be cured, even debating whether eradication is possible.

Only just the beginning of the end of hepatitis C

The proposal is an appeal to the Italian Parliament that they “move from a prohibitionist structure to one where soft drugs, particularly cannabis, are legally produced and distributed”. This means that while the vote doesn't make it legal to consume, buy or sell cannabis for individual use yet, it paves the way for a more tolerant view of the drug in the eyes of the law.

There are two parts to the proposal; the first called for the right to use cannabis for 'therapeutic' purposes, something already permitted in Tuscany, Liguria and Veneto, where as well as authorizing pharmacies to sell cannabis-based products, experimental distribution of free medications containing cannabis has been approved in hospitals, as well as direct production of marijuana.

Turin votes in favour of legalising cannabis

Labour MP Marith Rebel said the government should listen to local councils who have asked to be allowed to regulate cannabis cultivation.

She called for justice minister Ivo Opstelten to drop his opposition to legalised cannabis production. Opstelten has threatened in the past to go to court to stop municipalities such as Utrecht from authorising cannabis growers.

The Liberal (VVD) minister has blocked all attempts to extend the current drugs laws in the Netherlands. Drugs are illegal but small quantities of soft drugs can be bought from licensed premises (‘coffeeshops’) under tightly regulated conditions.

Only people resident in the Netherlands are legally allowed to visit coffeeshops, but it is left to local mayors to decide whether the rule is enforced. In Amsterdam, which is home to around one-third of the cannabis cafes, tourists are still welcome, while Maastricht strictly enforces the ban on foreigners.

Coalition MP calls on Dutch justice minister to review ban on cannabis cultivation

The European Commission proposed to strengthen the European Union’s ability to respond to ‘legal highs’.

This proposal for a legal highs regulation intends to withdraw faster dangerous new psychoactive substances from the legal market.

 A progressive response based on a risk assessment

 This regulation will increase the race between laws and drug traffickers and, consequently the risks for users' health.

The NEW Net members were invited to contribute to the European Economic and Social Committee's Opinion on this proposal.

New Net influences EU regulation on legal highs

In the first debate of its kind the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting hosted a discussion with leaders on both sides of the rising debate over drug policy. Although there was vigorous disagreement on many points, the leaders marked out a pathway towards at least some decriminalization. While Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, USA, and Juan Manuel Santos, President of the Republic of Colombia, defended current law enforcement in both of their jurisdictions, they agreed with the general need for policy reform.

World Economic Forum: First drugs debate highlights need for policy reform 

Denmark has joined a handful of other countries worldwide in providing “fix rooms,” or drug consumption centers (DCR’s) where users are supervised when using. The Danish Parliament passed legislation in June 2012 that would allow municipalities to open these centers and Copenhagen launched the first one in October of that year. Two other Danish cities have since followed suit.

A second DCR was opened in Copenhagen last August and both centers now host 1,800 users who smoke and inject heroin and cocaine. Nurses witness up to 800 injections each day at the centers. However, that isn’t to say that drug use at DCR’s is necessarily safer. Although no deaths have taken place in the two Copenhagen fix rooms, 135 people overdosed on site in the first year.

But despite claims from some that DCR’s encourage and promote illegal drug use, studies are now showing that the rooms reduce the issue of public drug use without increasing crime and actually save lives in the process. "It's very similar to the early days of needle exchange in the U.S., where there was a lot of opposition," explained Laura Thomas with the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance. "Pretty much all of that opposition has now faded away and a lot of people acknowledge they were wrong to oppose it: that it didn't increase drug use, that it didn't do a lot of things that people feared. But at the same time, there's a very human cost to a slow learning curve."

The Danish DCR’s also assist addicts when they leave the rooms. Rasmus Christansen, manager at one of the Copenhagen DCR’s, said they have helped over 1,000 users get access to housing and medical care through the country’s welfare system.

Denmark's drug consumption rooms: A proven success in first year

Hundreds of Scotland’s most vulnerable young people are to be given greater rights to continuing their care placement into early adulthood from next year, the Scottish Government has announced.

From April 2015, teenagers in residential, foster or kinship care who turn 16 will be entitled to remain looked after until the age of 21 under new provisions proposed for the Children and Young People Bill.

This increased support, to be funded by £5 million a year up to 2020, is in addition to the Scottish Government’s recent commitment to provide support up to the age of 26-years-old for care leavers to help them move into independent living.

Minister for Young People Aileen Campbell said:

“It is vitally important that the support available to young people leaving care will help make the transition to independent living as comfortable and successful as possible. Care leavers in Scotland currently receive care and financial support up to the age of 21 and we have already committed to extending this to 26. We are now able to announce that, from April next year, those 16-year-olds in foster, kinship or residential care will have a right to stay up until the age of 21 before receiving aftercare.

Greater rights for young people in care

by Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno, Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch, US Program

Nearly every country in the world plays a part—as producer, consumer, or transit point—in the multibillion-dollar illicit drug trade that supplies more than 150 million people every year and keeps on growing.

To combat this trade, many countries over recent decades have launched so-called “wars on drugs” that entail crackdowns on participants large and small in the drug business, including harsh penalties for users.

Human Rights Watch has long documented the widespread human rights abuses resulting from this approach: in the United States, the devastation that disproportionate prison sentences for drug offenses have wrought on individuals and their families and disturbing racial disparities in drug law enforcement; in Mexico, the killings committed in the name of combatting drugs; in Canada, the US, and Russia, how fear of criminal law enforcement deters people who use drugs from accessing necessary health services, exposing them to violence, discrimination, and illness; in Afghanistan and Colombia, how narcotics production has fueled armed groups opposed or allied to the government; in India, Ukraine, and Senegal, how cancer patients suffer severe pain due to drug control regulations that render morphine inaccessible; and in China, Vietnam, and Cambodia, the “drug rehabilitation centers” where people are subjected to torture, forced labor, and sexual abuse.

But there was a growing sense within Human Rights Watch that this approach did not go far enough—that the problem did not lie merely with ill-considered policies or their abusive execution. Rather, the criminalization of drugs itself seemed to be inherently problematic. Especially when it came to personal possession and use, imposing the full force of the criminal justice system to arrest, prosecute, and incarcerate appeared contrary to the human rights to privacy and personal autonomy that underlie many rights.

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