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.

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

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.

Kofi Annan: Stop the "war on drugs"

On 4 November, the UNAIDS Reference Group on HIV and Human Rights Reference Group launched its new website, containing all the Reference Group's statements, papers, and recommendations since its first meeting in 2002. The Reference Group is an independent, advisory group that advises the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) on all matters relating to human rights, law and HIV. The Reference Group is comprised of human rights and HIV experts, including people living with HIV, jurists and HIV service providers and funders.

The website brings together expert opinion on a range of HIV-related human rights issues such as HIV testing and treatment, international and domestic funding obligations, protecting human rights defenders, and the rights of vulnerable, marginalized, and criminalized populations.

"Publicizing these documents in one dedicated place is part of our effort to be transparent in our advice to UNAIDS on human rights. We want to be held accountable for what we do and how we do it," said Reference Group co-chair Jonathan Cohen.

Among many other documents, the website contains the report of the Reference Group's most recent, 14th meeting, with many recommendations aimed at strengthening the response to HIV. Discussions at the meeting focused on three issues, each of which has critical human rights dimensions: shared responsibility and global solidarity for the HIV response; the investment approach to HIV; and scaling up HIV treatment.

"The Reference Group agrees that low and middle-income countries with HIV epidemics have a responsibility to progressively realize the right to health of their people, and that it is a major achievement to increase domestic spending for HIV." Said Reference Group co-chair Michaela Clayton. "But the Reference Group advises UNAIDS to continue to advocate strongly for wealthier development partners to fulfil their own responsibilities in ensuring universal access to prevention, treatment, care and support, including by providing funding in middle-income countries for key populations at risk". Beyond that, the Reference Group recommended that UNAIDS contribute to developing and promulgating clear standards on shared responsibility as a matter of human rights and ethical responsibility.

With regard to the new strategic investment approach to the HIV epidemic, the Reference Group highlighted that "faster, better and smarter" results in the global response are impossible without strong financial and political support for the "critical enablers" that support human rights, such as removal of punitive laws and law enforcement that impede HIV responses, access to justice, anti-discrimination laws and their enforcement, stigma reduction, gender equality measures and others.

With regard to scaling up HIV treatment, the Reference Group emphasized that treatment expansion is the human rights imperative of the epidemic and that it is right and critical for the UNAIDS Secretariat and Co-sponsors to make treatment expansion a priority.

"UNAIDS can and should be bold, direct, and challenging about the serious human rights and funding challenges that stand in the way of HIV treatment scale-up, said Cohen. "We urge UNAIDS to provide such leadership by expressly affirming the human rights to life, health, and non-discrimination as vital, not only in their own right, but also as essential strategies to facilitate the work necessary for an effective HIV response."

Specifically, the Reference Group urged UNAIDS to take on intellectual property issues; stock outs; inequitable and inadequate delivery; state-level denial and discrimination against people living with HIV and other key populations and marginalized groups; stigma and discrimination in health care systems; and punitive laws and law enforcement that impact treatment and/or promote low self-esteem, stigma, discrimination, retaliation, and risks of violence and imprisonment suffered by people living with HIV who are marginalized and criminalized.

For the full summary of the Reference Group's discussions and recommendations, please click here.

UNAIDS Reference Group on HIV and Human Rights launches new website

The United States is withdrawing troops from Afghanistan having lost its battle against the country’s narcotics industry, marking one of the starkest failures of the 2009 strategy the Obama administration pursued in an effort to turn around the war.

Despite a U.S. investment of nearly $7 billion since 2002 to combat it, the country’s opium market is booming, propelled by steady demand and an insurgency that has assumed an increasingly hands-on role in the trade, according to law enforcement officials and counternarcotics experts. As the war economy contracts, opium poppies, which are processed into heroin, are poised to play an ever larger role in the country’s economy and politics, undercutting two key U.S. goals: fighting corruption and weakening the link between the insurgency and the drug trade.

Despite the big U.S. investment since 2002 to combat it, the country’s opium market still flourishes

The Hepatitis C Trust is delighted to announce a success in our campaign to secure better services for people in prison with hepatitis C.

A new National Partnership Agreement between The National Offender Management Service (NOMS), NHS England (NHSE) and Public Health England (PHE) for the Co-Commissioning and Delivery of Healthcare Services in Prisons in England contains a commitment to introduce the offer of an opt-out test for hepatitis C, and other blood borne viruses (BBVs), by April 2014.

For the past 18 months, the Trust has campaigned tirelessly to introduce opt-out BBV tests for all prisoners upon entering the prison setting. Hepatitis C prevalence is higher in prisons than the general public, so testing in this setting is vital. One study estimates that almost 1 in 10 prisoners had the virus , yet only 6% of inmates were tested for it in 20112. It is estimated that more than half of those living with the condition are undiagnosed, but if caught early it can be treated and cured.

 The Hepatitis C Trust welcomes success in prison health campaign in the UK

“It’s a bit counterintuitive to people; somebody’s addicted to heroin and you’re giving them the thing they're addicted to—that’s a bit counterintuitive,” Bernstein said in a telephone interview. “But ultimately, the reason the treatment works is because it recognizes that a lot of the harm that comes to people who are addicted to heroin is not coming from the drug itself, it is coming from the fact that it’s an illicit substance.”

He explained that for some hard-core users, putting patients on a prescribed dose of heroin is proving the only effective means of bringing people into the health-care system and helping them avoid the health risks that come with using heroin on the street.

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