Puerto Rico’s legislature is taking another stab at decriminalizing weed. The island’s lower house is making preparations to begin debate mid-month on a bill that would eliminate jail penalties for possession of up to 14 grams of marijuana, Puerto Rican daily El Nuevo Día reports. The measure was passed by the Puerto Rican Senate last year, but failed to make it through the House.

Rep. Luis Vega Ramos of the governing Popular Democratic Party, who heads the House Judiciary Committee where the proposal will be considered, said Gov. Alejandro García Padilla is open to the proposal.

“There’s some factors that are forcing us to rethink this issue,” Vega Ramos told El Nuevo Día. “There’s the problem of jail overcrowding, and we have to evaluate whether jail sentences are the right way to treat people who consume marijuana.”

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

Puerto Rico marijuana reform gets a second life 

The Global Fund will cease funding HIV treatment services operating in compulsory drug treatment centres in Viet Nam.

When it signed an $85 million HIV grant with the country’s Ministry of Health in May 2013, the Global Fund said its support for services provided at the drug treatment centres was contingent on the identification by government of an international, independent NGO to monitor conditions in the centres. Human Rights Watch (HRW) and other organisations have expressed concerns about human rights abuses in the centres, including forced labour and inhumane treatment of detainees. (See GFO article)

In mid-December, the Global Fund's director of communications Seth Faison told GFO that the Fund has informed the Vietnamese government it is not prepared to accept its proposed scheme to have the Vietnamese Red Cross visit some of the centres twice a year. “We intend within the next six months to negotiate an exit strategy and to reprogram our funding outside of [the drug treatment] centers,” Mr Faison said.

The Global Fund has been financing HIV treatment at the centres for about 900 patients, and intends to divert this funding to a similarly sized cohort of patients outside. The Fund is also seeking a commitment from the government that it will fund the treatment of patients inside the centres.

Global Fund to end funding for HIV services in drug treatment centres in Viet Nam

Barely a week after an opinion poll showed that 65% of the Dutch are in favour of regulating cannabis production just as in Uruguay, the minister of Justice and Security of The Netherlands, Ivo Opstelten, told parliament that he will not allow regulated cannabis cultivation to supply the coffeeshops in the country. Two in three large municipal councils back regulated cannabis cultivation, but the minister will probably not allow a single one of the 25 proposals to experiment with regulated cultivation that have been submitted.

The Netherlands is ready to regulate cannabis

The Mexican drug war is a killing machine. The level of violence and slaughter is similar to conventional warfare. In just six years, 70,000 people have been killed, but some estimate the number is a staggering 120,000.1 More than 20,000 people have disappeared and a quarter of a million have been displaced. 2 A major investigation into narcofosas (mass graves) in Mexico by the magazine Milenio found the corpses of 24,000 people. 3 Entire cities and towns have erupted into war zones chock-full with military checkpoints and drug cartel roadblocks.

This bloody war, ostensibly to rid the country of illegal drugs and drug trafficking, has been a grisly failure. Mexico continues to be a major exporter of heroin and marijuana and a central transshipment point for cocaine from Andean South America bound for the United States. Drugs cross the heavily fortified US-Mexican border far more easily than do migrants seeking work in the United States. The power of the drug cartels to kill, corrupt, and elude capture has grown exponentially as have their profits.

Former president Felipe Calderón unleashed 

 upon his inauguration in 2006. For six years as the death toll climbed and drugs flowed unimpeded through the country, 

insisted that the war was being won. Calderón had no sympathy for those murdered in drug war violence.

The drug warriors in Mexico are junior partners in the war on drugs. It is on the other side of the border, thousands of miles away in Washington, DC and Langley, Virginia where the senior partners call the shots. The drug warriors in the White House, the Congress, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have blood on their hands, too. For almost a century, American politicians and federal antidrug agencies have dictated drug policy to their neighbor. Coercing Mexico to enforce total drug prohibition has been a central and enduring source of tension between the two countries.

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

The political economy of Mexico's drug war

On January 1st, 420 days after the citizens of Colorado voted to legalise marijuana, around 37 pot shops across the state opened their doors to all-comers. Stoners in Denver and other cities braved freezing temperatures and two-hour queues to be part of this historic moment, for Colorado has become the first jurisdiction anywhere in the world to oversee a legal, regulated market for recreational marijuana (20 states plus Washington, DC, allow patients with doctors' recommendations to buy the stuff).

Amendment 64, the measure approved by 55% of voters in November 2012, set certain parameters for Colorado's marijuana regime, including maximum tax rates and the rights of cities and counties to exclude pot shops from their jurisdictions. But the details were worked out by officials and legislators over the course of 2013. Unlike many states (including Washington, which has also legalised marijuana but not yet licensed recreational outlets) Colorado's medical-marijuana system is well regulated; not only did that make full legalisation an easier sell to voters, it provided a foundation for the recreational industry.

How does Colorado's marijuana market work? 

Last month, Association Margina – a non-governmental, non-profit association which aims to support marginalised young people in Bosnia and Herzegovina with a special focus on drug use and HIV – marked the tenth anniversary of their formation. Members, guests and volunteers attended a special ceremony in city of Zenica to celebrate ten years of existence and successful work.

Association Margina was created in 2003 in Zenica by a group of people gathering around a common vision – that every individual from marginalised groups of society in Bosnia and Herzegovina needs to have health and social care. At the very begining of the Association's work, private resources of the founders were used. With great effort and dedication, the organisation quickly began implementing programmes and has gone from strength to strength since.

President Denis Dedajic, in a short address to the audience, expressed great satisfaction with the achievements of Association Margina during the past decade, and reflected on the very beginnings when Margina operated from a renovated garage and consisted of just a few dedicated enthusiasts. At the ceremony, plaques and certificates were awarded to the institutions and individuals who have contributed to the development of Association Margina during the first decade of its existence – including IDPC – and those present took the opportunity to congratulate their hosts and wish them well for the future.

Alongside this event, Association Margina also organised a three-day symposium: “Analysis of the cost-effectiveness of services for the prevention and treatment of HIV and Hepatitis C among people who inject drugs in Bosnia and Herzegovina”. The symposium was supported by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and was administered by UNDP. It gathered professionals together to facilitate broad discussion on the topic. The need for strong cooperation and coordination between governmental and non-governmental sectors was raised, and particular emphasis was placed on financial issues and the necessity of rationalising health systems and optimising existing services in order to achieve more efficient results.

In conclusion, all participants agreed on the importance of alternative programmes and services, and the desired goals which can only be achieved through joint efforts and working together. A final report based on this topic will be available soon (the first document of this kind in Bosnia and Herzegovina, if not the whole region).

Association Margina celebrates 10 years

A UK ban on khat - widely used in the Somali community - comes into force in the next few months. But there is anger in Kenya, where thousands of farmers depend on exports of the herbal stimulant.

Somali campaigners against the herbal stimulant khat are celebrating on Tuesday, 

. They have invited some Conservative MPs who supported them in their fight to ban it. The ban is expected to come into force in the next few months.

But anti-khat activists have been holding victory parades since the home secretary announced khat is to be banned.

By making such decisions, Theresa May defied government scientists and some of her fellow MPs. But she became an unlikely hero of the Somali community.

Click here to read the full article and watch the video.

Khat producers left high and dry after UK ban

Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina and other government officials said repeatedly this week that they are considering legalizing and regulating opium poppy production in areas where it is already being grown illicitly.

"We started exploring the capacity that we could have for controlled planting," said Perez Molina. "What that means is that we would know exactly what extensions are being planted, what the production would be and that the sale would also be well controlled, especially for medicinal use."

Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez said the government was considering both regulated legal cultivation and alternative development.

"There are two paths, one is cultivated substitutes, and the other is the alternative which is controlled cultivation," Lopez explained. "This is what is already being done in other countries such as India and China, that is to say identifying hectares clearly, seeing how they are grown, carrying out the harvest, taking control of the commercialization and above all making sure this serves mainly the pharmaceutical industry."

Guatemala considers legalizing opium growing for medicinal market

appointed 15 high-level scientists to serve on the agency’s 

 for the period 2014–16. The selection followed a call for expressions of interest in the Official Journal of the European Union in February this year which yielded 79 eligible applications. The new members have been informed today of the Management Board’s decision. The mandate of the current Committee draws to a close at the end of 2013.

The 15 members — selected from the EU Member States and Norway — were chosen, following a public selection process, on the basis of scientific merit and independence and their expertise in the most relevant scientific fields linked to the problems of drugs and drug addiction today. One third of the scientists appointed are new members, while 10 previously served on the Committee. As members are appointed in a personal capacity, they are required to give their opinions independently of their country and of the Community institutions.

EU drugs agency announces Scientific Committee line-up for next three years


Remembering the Rio Declaration of 2011 that acknowledged the limited efficacy that repressive law enforcement policies have on the trade and use of illegal drugs. Calling on the police to develop smarter drug enforcement strategies in collaboration with other government sectors and society members.

Based on the discussions at the 2013 International Conference on Drug Policy and Policing, a set of principles on drug law enforcement practice are proposed.

The Frankfurt principles on drug law enforcement

With nearly a month to go before their signature-gathering deadline, organizers of an Alaska marijuana legalization initiative are well-placed to qualify for the ballot, but it's not a sure thing yet. The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana told local media outlets last week they have already gathered almost 45,000 signatures, nearly half again the 31,169 valid voter signatures they need to take the issue to voters.

Campaigners said they would continue to seek signatures up until a January 21 deadline. Initiative campaigners want a healthy number of excess signatures because they must assume that some number of signatures will be deemed invalid.

A common rule of thumb is that 25% to 30% of gathered signatures will be ruled invalid. As things now stand, if 30% of the signatures were found invalid, it would barely qualify.

If the measure qualifies for the ballot, Alaska could become the next state to legalize marijuana because even if other states qualify initiatives for the November ballot, Alaskans would vote on their measure in August.

Alaska marijuana legalisation petition passes goal

The Directorate General Health and Consumers (DG SANCO) of the European Commission invites non-governmental organisations and networks to apply for a membership of the EU HIV/AIDS Civil Society Forum (CSF). The involvement of civil society is one of the cornerstones of European HIV/AIDS policy as presented in the Commission communication "on combating HIV/AIDS in the European Union and neighbouring countries, 2009-2013" (COM/569/2009)pdf(62 KB) Choose translations of the previous link.

The HIV/AIDS Civil Society Forum is composed of NGOs and other civil society organisations from EU Member States, Candidate and accession countries, EEA countries, and selected countries belonging to the European Neighborhood Policy area.

The aim of the Forum is to facilitate and improve the exchange between civil society organisations across Europe and to support the HIV/AIDS Think Tank and DG SANCO on matters related to the response HIV/AIDS. The CSF meetings are organised twice per year in close co-operation with the co-chairs, currently representatives of AIDS Action Europe (AAE) and the European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG).

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