Rio de Janeiro’s Pacification Police Units (UPP) are celebrating their fifth year in 2013. They do so with generally positive approval ratings from the media and society as a whole. A recent study by Instituto Data Favela indicates that 75% of favelas inhabitants approve of the UPPs. Notwithstanding major crises and criticism, the UPP constitute the single most important public security initiative in the state. And yet the persistent informality of the UPP may eventually undermine its sustainability.

Since their inception, the UPP have enabled an unprecedented reclamation of territory in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Many of the areas where the 34 UPPs were installed had once been dominated by heavily armed criminal groups. According to the Secretaria de Estado de Segurança Pública do Rio de Janeiro – SESEG (Rio de Janeiro State Public Security Department), there are 34 UPPs today, with some 8,591 officers, covering approximately 231 communities. Citizens who were terrorized by a war-like environment now experience a more normalized and stable routine. Many residents have the necessary confidence required to live more productive lives.

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Favela inhabitants in Brazil approve the UPPs, according to new study

For a long time, harm reduction has been largely perceived as a reaction to the HIV epidemic among injecting drug users. But drug use can cause other harms, besides blood-borne infections, and pragmatic, humane methods exist to prevent these harms as well. One of these harms is becoming more and more alarming, especially in the US: drug overdose. There are 100 overdose deaths in the US every day, with more people dying from an overdose than in car accidents.

As a harm-reduction activist put it, overdose is the new AIDS. This means that just as the HIV/AIDS epidemic catalysed public support for harm reduction in the early 90s, the growing rate of overdose deaths can play a similar role in our decade. It is not only the unprecedented high level of overdose deaths that makes the headlines, but the fact that most of these fatalities are caused by prescription opiates and not illegal drugs. Consequently, the majority of victims are not street heroin users but middle-class young people. It is unfortunate that the media values the lives of these people more, but at the same time, it helps to bring the issue of overdose prevention into the mainstream. We interviewed several harm reduction professionals in the US about drug overdose deaths, and ways to prevent them. Watch the HCLE video and learn more!

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How to prevent prescription drug overdose deaths?: A movie by HCLU

Black and Asian people are still far more likely than white people to be stopped and searched by police in England and Wales, a report has said.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said in some areas black people were 29 times more likely to be stopped and searched.

Overall, black people were six times as likely as white people to be stopped.

The commission said the disproportion between different ethnic groups remained "stubbornly high".

The EHRC's report for 2011-12 did not include stops carried out under anti-terrorism laws.

The majority of stop-and-searches in England and Wales are conducted under Section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (Pace).

The figure for these searches fell to 1,137,551 in 2011-12 from 1,222,378 the previous year.

Those from Asian or other ethnic minority groups were twice as likely to be stopped as white people.

Stop and search used 'disproportionately' on black and Asian people in the UK

The European Drug Prevention Quality Standards (‘Prevention Standards’) represent the work of the European Prevention Standards Partnership, working in close co-operation with the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA). The aim of this work is to provide guidance and support to those working in the European drug prevention community and to promote awareness and application of high quality policy and practice.

Phase I of this work was completed in 2010 under the project name “European standards in evidence for drug prevention”. The resulting Prevention Standards were published by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) in 2011.

Phase II entitled “Promoting Excellence in Drug Prevention in the EU – Phase II of the European Drug Prevention Quality Standards Project” began in April 2013 and is a

 of the Partnership that will report in May 2015. The project is co-funded by the European Union under the European Commission’s DG Justice “Drug Prevention and Information Programme” (DPIP).

European Drug Prevention Quality Standards Project: Phase II

European officials should rethink proposals to seize power from the individual countries like the United Kingdom to regulate and ban legal highs, peers have warned.

The House of Lords home affairs, health and education EU sub-committee said decisions to ban new psychoactive substances should be decided by individual states rather than at a European Union-wide level.

The move aims to help the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction as well as Europol's attempts to fight drug trafficking by establishing common definitions of legal highs across the European Union and better share information.

Committee chair Lord Hannay of Chiswick said: "We share the Commission’s concerns about the risks posed to public health by new psychoactive substances and consider that the EU has an important role to play in helping to tackle the creation, availability and use of new psychoactive substances.

Click here to read here the full article.

Click here to read related information: European Commission takes decisive action on legal highs

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Legal highs should be regulated in Britain, not Brussels, says UK House of Lords 

Todos os anos, milhares de pessoas em todo o mundo morrem de causas relacionadas com as drogas e a violência que podem ser evitadas. Milhões de usuários são presos e jogados na prisão. Comunidades inteiras são arruinadas pelos crimes relacionados às drogas. Cidadãos veem quantias gigantescas provenientes dos seus impostos gastas em políticas repressivas que não estão funcionando.

Mas, apesar das evidências claras do fracasso, existe uma relutância nefasta em todo o mundo em considerar uma nova abordagem em relação à política de drogas. A Comissão Global de Política sobre Drogas está determinada a ajudar a quebrar este tabu secular. Redigido com base no trabalho da Comissão Latino-Americana sobre Drogas e Democracia, nosso primeiro relatório – 

 – demonstrou como as abordagens repressivas para conter as drogas falharam.

Pedimos que os governos adotem formas mais humanas e eficazes de controle e de regulação das drogas. Recomendamos que a criminalização do uso de drogas seja substituído por uma abordagem de saúde pública. Também apelamos aos países para testar de maneira cuidadosa modelos de regulação legal como um meio de enfraquecer o poder do crime organizado, que prospera com o tráfico de drogas.

Por outro lado, existem algumas evidências de mudanças. Governantes da Colômbia, Guatemala, México e Uruguai assumiram a liderança no sentido de iniciar reformas nas políticas de drogas em seus próprios países. Estes esforços têm tido repercussões em todo a região. Em 2013, a Organização dos Estados Americanos (OEA) publicou um relatório propondo formas alternativas de regulação das drogas.

Registe-se para recever as Alertas mensais do IDPC e obter informação sobre questões relacionadas com as políticas de drogas.

Kofi Annan e Fernando Henrique Cardoso: Pelo fim da guerra às drogas

This video (English subtitles available) by Healthy Options Project Skopje (HOPS) portraits some experiences on drug dependence treatment programmes among young people in Macedonia and Vienna.

Drug dependence treatment among minors in Macedonia and Vienna

The HIV/AIDS section of the UNODC, in collaboration with partners, is preparing a background technical document and a policy brief on HIV/AIDS and the right to health of children deprived of their liberty.

Since the topic has been largely neglected in the past, and there is a lack of data and sources as a result, UNODC is looking for information on:

Data on childrendeprived of their liberty (population size and

characteristics, types of offences, HIV situation, risk and high risk

behaviors, drug use, and HIV infection rates)

Information on the availability of core harm reduction interventions and

Information on legal, political and operational challenges

The aim of UNODC is to produce a first draft by November 22, so please send your contributions before 13 November to Fabienne Hariga (fabienne.hariga@unodc.org) or Marlies Dachler (marlies.dachler@unodc.org).

Call for data: HIV/AIDS and the right to health of children deprived of their liberty

On the 7th – 8th November 2013, the Global Fund’s Board will consider revisions to the Eligibility, Counterpart Financing and Prioritization Policy (ECFP), based upon recommendations from its Strategy Impact and Investment Committee (SIIC). While some of these recommendations are positive; others, if adopted without changes, would have negative consequences for middle-income countries (MICs) and particularly regions with MICs such as Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA), Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

We – the organizations representing civil society and including communities of people living with these diseases, i.e. key affected populations from different countries and regions - are deeply concerned about these recommendations and would like to share with Global Fund Board members our position on several critical issues that should be considered by the Board during its deliberations.

Joint statement of civil society organisations to the Global Fund

CAHR project is being implemented in Chengdu (Chenghua and Xindu) with a new strategy and implementation model since its handover from Alliance China to AIDS Care China (ACC) in April 2013, and with new site established in Ruili City in Yunnan province in China.

The change of model and strategy made some innovations possible to cover more unregistered PWID and to provide more qualitative services for already registered clients on NSP and MMT programme. The objectives are realized by PDI (Peer-Driven Intervention) approach, a “chain-referral” outreach model, in which peers are motivated to educate people who inject drugs who are not reached with HIV/AIDS preventive knowledge, and to refer them to available harm reduction services including provision of Naloxone, syringes and consumables and relevant services of HIV, HCV test, counseling, as well as referral to MMT and medical care support.

Peer-driven intervention provides more services in China

By WOLA Senior Fellow Coletta A. Youngers

Each year, the Washington Office on Latin America gives human rights awards to individuals who promote human rights and justice as the foundation of public policies in Latin America. One of this year’s recipients was 

, Uruguay’s Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States (OAS). A union leader and human rights activist under Uruguay’s military dictatorship, he has been a pioneer in promoting a human rights-oriented drug policy.

The U.S. “war on drugs” has had a devastating impact on those in the region on the front-lines, including poor farmers pushed deeper into poverty when their coca plants are eradicated, Colombians forced to join the ranks of the country’s internally displaced when their crops are sprayed, and non-violent drug offenders who, as a result of disproportionate sentencing policies put forth by Washington, spend years and years in jail. U.S.-backed drug policies have led to social unrest, violence and human rights violations.

What does it mean to have a human rights-oriented drug policy?

 Kofi Annan, former secretary general of the United Nations, and Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former president of Brazil, are members of the Global Commission on Drug Policy.

 -- Each year, hundreds of thousands of people around the world die from preventable drug-related disease and violence. Millions of users are arrested and thrown in jail. Globally, communities are blighted by drug-related crime. Citizens see huge amounts of their taxes spent on harsh policies that are not working.

But despite this clear evidence of failure, there is a damaging reluctance worldwide to consider a fresh approach. The Global Commission on Drug Policy is determined to help break this century-old taboo. Building on the work of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, our first report -- The War on Drugs -- demonstrated how repressive approaches to containing drugs have failed.

We called on governments to adopt more humane and effective ways of controlling and regulating drugs. We recommended that the criminalization of drug use should be replaced by a public health approach. We also appealed for countries to carefully test models of legal regulation as a means to undermine the power of organized crime, which thrives on illicit drug trafficking.

Today, we know what works and what does not. It is time for a smarter approach to drug policy. Putting people's health and safety first is an imperative, not an afterthought.

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