By Gideon Lasco and Gloria Lai / Philippine Daily Inquirer

Life was made harder for many people when the COVID-19 virus swept the world. It was even harder for people who found themselves caught up in the wide radius impacted by blindly brutal drug policies. This is particularly true for Asia—a continent characterized by governments that demonize drugs and the people associated with them.

In Cambodia, a pregnant woman at home opens the door to police accusing her and her husband of selling drugs; no drugs could be found but she and her husband are still sent to prison where, after being denied justice at every step, she eventually gives birth then raises her baby in a dirty, dank, overcrowded cell.

Alas, her case is no rarity in the region, as the predicaments of people in various countries show. People like Kian delos Santos, the 17-year-old boy in Caloocan City, Philippines, who was shot dead, then later accused of being a drug courier. Or Merri Utami, the migrant worker in Indonesia’s death row because, in her own words, “I was accused of smuggling drugs in the bag I brought, inside of which lay 1 kilogram of heroin I did not know of.” Or Fidelis Arie Sudewarto in Indonesia, jailed for eight months and fined $75,000 for the “crime” of growing medical marijuana to help ease the suffering of his dying, cancer-stricken wife.

Alongside many others who faced or are facing similar violence, legal or otherwise, what these cases have in common is that drugs are invoked by authorities as justification for measures that go beyond the bounds of what is just, reasonable, and humane. Another thing they have in common is they come from economically deprived or marginalized backgrounds, reminding us that a “war on drugs” is all too often a war on the poor.

Fair, humane drug policies for Asia in 2021

In 2020, the Harm Reduction Consortium* submitted a successful proposal to the Robert Carr Fund (RCF) to deliver a new project titled: ‘The Global Drug Policy Index (GDPI): A bold new approach to improve policies, harm reduction funding, and the lives of people who use drugs’.

The GDPI project aims to develop and implement a new composite index to document, measure and compare government policies related to drugs deemed illicit.

The GDPI will be housed in a brand-new website with relevant branding (including a dedicated logo). The website will display data to a diverse audience, which is why it is imperative that the design is engaging, accessible and prioritises ease of use.

Proposals to develop the GDPI's new website and branding should be submitted by 

, via e-mail to Juan Fernandez Ochoa, IDPC Campaigns & Communications Officer (jfernandez[@]idpc.net). Please ensure the subject contains the following in the subject line: GDPI Website & Branding development. Award decisions will be made by 5 March 2021 at the latest. Please note that we will only be able to respond to proposals that respond to this brief.

For more information, please check our full brief, below.

* For the purposes of this project, the Harm Reduction Consortium comprises: the 

Women and Harm Reduction International Network

Middle East and North Africa Harm Reduction Association

Global Drug Policy Observatory at Swansea University

 (EHRA) as an additional, non-financial partner.

Call for proposals: Development of the Global Drug Policy Index’s logo, branding and website

Washington State lawmakers on Thursday introduced landmark legislation to decriminalize possessing small amounts of all drugs and expand treatment services for people with substance use disorders, part of a growing trend of U.S. states backing away from a crime-control model of drug enforcement and instead treating the issue as a public health matter.

“Substance disorder is among the only health conditions for which a person can be arrested for displaying symptoms,” says the new Washington bill, HB 1499, sponsored by Reps. Lauren Harris (D) and Kirsten Harris-Talley (D). “Treating substance disorder like a crime through arrests and incarceration further disrupts and destabilizes the lives of these individuals.”

The proposal would eliminate criminal penalties for possession of so-called “personal use amounts” of controlled substances and direct the Washington State Health Care Authority (HCA) to craft a plan under which “continual, rapid and widespread access to a comprehensive continuum of care must be provided to all persons with substance use disorder.”

Washington state lawmakers introduce long-awaited bill to decriminalize all drugs and expand treatment

Statement from participants in the Global Fund’s community and civil society 2021 Pre- Partnership Forum collective

As representatives of civil society and communities of people living with and affected by HIV, TB and malaria around the world, we acknowledge and appreciate the Global Fund’s work over the past 20 years in leading and supporting the delivery of services essential to our health and the health of our families, friends, neighbours and colleagues. We have a strong desire to help the Global Fund do this work even better, so that it will have a bigger and longer-lasting impact among the millions of people who can benefit from its programmes.

More than 100 of us discussed what could and should be done toward this overall objective during a series of three civil society pre-Partnership Forum virtual gatherings held over the last two weeks of January 2021. These meetings were also organized by the Global Fund Secretariat and had the same regional breakdown as the Partnership Forums themselves. They offered an opportunity for us to strategize on collective community and civil society priorities for the 2022–2026 Global Fund Strategy and prepare for how they could be presented and discussed during the Partnership Forums.

Because we come from different countries and regions, face different epidemics and risks, and live and work in a wide range of political, social and economic contexts, our specific needs regarding HIV, TB and malaria vary as well. But we collectively come with many years of experience of implementing Global Fund programmes, including as members of Country Coordinating Mechanisms (CCMs); engaging on regional Community, Rights and Gender (CRG) platforms; serving as Board Delegation members; and in many other different ways. Our common commitment to deliver services to address the needs of communities underpins our shared hopes and expectations from the Global Fund.

Three building blocks to a new Global Fund Strategy: Tackle the barriers, invest more in communities, maintain the focus on HIV, TB and malaria

With no fanfare, President Joe Biden’s administration has announced its priorities for, and some new appointees to, the White House’s Office on National Drug Policy. The wait for Biden’s pick as “drug czar” continues, however.

The priorities outlined by the ONDCP on February 3 for the administration’s first 100 days are historic: For what appears to be the first time in the drug-war body’s history, harm reduction and racial equity are explicitly included among its aims.

In a marked departure from the Trump administration’s stigmatizing pursuit of a “drug-free” country—promoting cruel, punitive policies up to and including the death penalty to combat “drug abuse”—the Biden-era ONDCP identifies “Enhancing evidence-based harm reduction efforts” and “Confronting racial equity issues related to drug policy” among its “five key policy priorities to address substance use disorder in America.”

US: Biden quietly announces harm reduction among his drug priorities

With the words of our Focal Point in Slovenia, Katja Krajnc:

“In Slovenia, we still don’t have official DCR. Initial ideas of opening DCR in Ljubljana date from the middle of 90s. In 2004 NGO Stigma filed an official application for opening drug consumption room to the Governmental Office for Drugs, who unfortunately did not materialise the idea at the time. Shortly after, the Office was abolished and became a small part of Ministry of health. Four years later, in 2008 NGO Stigma (together with other NGOs and Union of non-governmental organisations working in the field of drug use and harm reduction) filed an amendment to Criminal Law to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which led to change in Criminal Law in 2012. The new amendment states that provision of place for drug use is still criminal offence. However, if an organisation provides treatment programmes or a controlled space for drug use, it is no longer considered criminal offence. It is though obligatory that the programme is under the control of relevant medical institution.

The fight for a Drug Consumption Room in Slovenia

Dire warnings of legal loopholes, a mental health crisis and drug driving fears accompanied the legalisation of cannabis in the ACT last year. But one year on, cannabis users and stakeholders alike say that, while overall the impacts have been subtle, the change has been for the better. "Overall, we found cannabis use hasn't changed and, in some ways, that's the big story, because there were really dire predictions at the outset," Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Association ACT chief executive Devin Bowles said. "The sky hasn't fallen and people who need to access treatment are better able to do so while the taxpayer is saving money. It's a win-win."

The legislation changed the laws governing personal possession, use and cultivation of cannabis in Canberra. Coming into effect on January 31 last year, the new laws allowed possession of up to 50 grams of cannabis per person, and made it legal to grow and consume cannabis in your own home. The plants must be grown outdoors and there is a limit of two plants per person and four per household. While possession and cultivation became legal, buying the seeds and supplying cannabis or cannabis plants to anyone remained illegal. But the legislation is at odds with Commonwealth cultivation and possession laws, which still make it unlawful to possess cannabis in the ACT.

What has changed in the year since cannabis possession was legalised in the Australian Capital Territory?

Alþingi has passed a bill which will make it legal for municipalities around the country to open safe injection sites (SIS) for intravenous drug users, 

 reports. Heiða Björg Hilmisdóttir, chair of the City of Reykjavík’s Welfare Committee, has praised the bill as a step in the right direction and believes that in Reykjavík, such a facility would do the greatest good if opened downtown. According to the SIS bill, around 700 people use intravenous drugs in Iceland each year. It’s estimated that somewhere between 25 and 40 people would use the Reykjavík SIS initially.

Safe injection sites (also referred to as overdose prevention centres, supervised injection facilities, or drug consumption rooms) are facilities where individuals over the age of 18 can use intravenous drugs in a safe environment, under the supervision of healthcare professionals and without fear of arrest or legal repercussions. They are intended to provide sterile injection supplies, provide healthcare guidance, referrals to rehabilitation and social services, and monitor for overdose, thus decreasing overdose-related expense and pressures on the healthcare system, increasing the likeliness of users seeking treatment and social aid, and reducing behaviours that put users at risk of contracting HIV and Hepatitis C, such as needle sharing.

Icelandic parliament legalizes safe injection sites

Indonesia is a tough jurisdiction for achieving drug policy reform. Massive corruption, lack of evidence in policy making, and a struggling democracy are all prevailing hurdles that won’t go away in the near future.

Every year at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, Indonesia’s government pats itself on the back over-proudly about diverting people from the criminal justice process. For those who work in the field, we know for sure that such “success” aren’t manifested in practice – and if there’s any, it should be attributed as well to the work of civil society actors and it seldom has nationwide implementation.

Indonesia’s approach towards drug policy, like many countries, is still steered by a prohibitionist manner: simple drug possession could imprison someone 4-12 years, selling/buying drugs more than 5 grams is an act punishable with the death penalty, and forced inpatient rehab is viewed as “humane” punishment.

As of October 2020, Indonesia’s prison capacity is around 135,000 yet it is filled with almost 240,000 people. Stopping to arrest people who use drugs will directly help the situation since the number of people who are charged with the drug law is almost 136,000 and most of them are people who use drugs.

How COVID-19 failed (to inspire) drug policy reform in Indonesia 

The European Union (EU) which welcomed Sri Lanka’s record on maintaining its moratorium on executions had encouraged the country to legally abolish the death penalty.

A Joint Statement released by the EU and the Foreign Ministry yesterday said the EU also reiterated its opposition to the use of the death penalty in all circumstances.

This has been discussed during the 23rd meeting of the EU-Sri Lanka Joint Commission held yesterday.

The EU and Sri Lanka took note of the ad-hoc Counter-Terrorism Dialogue, which took place in Colombo in July 2019 and reviewed on-going cooperation provided through an EU funded project with UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Interpol.

EU encourages Sri Lanka to legally abolish death penalty

Unlike some of its neighbouring countries, the Brazilian government has continued to block efforts to decriminalise cannabis. In 2017, when Argentina legalized medical cannabis, the right-wing Brazilian president Michel Temer censored the publication of a study by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ) which questioned the very existence of a drug addiction epidemic; the government was accused of suppressing data that would call its war on drugs into question.

The current president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, has promised to invest in the war on drugs since he began campaigning for the presidency in 2018, a vow he renewed upon election. In 2019, during his first year in office, Bolsonaro signed a decree establishing his own kind of drug policy. The new piece of legislation excludes previously adopted harm reduction approaches, relying on the enforcement of coercive abstinence. In practice, this channels taxpayers’ money into abstinence-only institutions and removes support for people who use drugs.

The Brazilian government also altered the composition of the National Drug Policy Council, excluding civil society representatives; 13 seats were removed, including those held by the Order of Attorneys of Brazil; the Federal Council of Social Work; the Federal Council of Medicine; the Federal Council of Nursing; the Federal Council of Psychology; the Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science; and the National Student Union. The seats previously occupied by an anthropologist, a journalist, and an artist were also extinct.

In Brazil, Bolsonaro continues to pump blood to the war on drugs

In 2019, Equis Justicia para las Mujeres A.C. (Equis hereinto) carried out an advocacy-oriented research on women and girls who use drugs and are in detention, either in prison centres or in drug treatment centres. Our purpose was to listen to and give visibility to women and girls who use drugs, in order to increase knowledge and reduce stigma. Our research collected women’s testimonies on how their drug use began, which circumstances and motivations prompted it and what response they received. We interviewed 43 women and girls in a total of three female prison centres, two public and two quasi-public treatment centres and five 

The experience of being locked up in a treatment centre happens at different stages of their lives, but is generally ignited by their families, in response to a situation they see no other solution for. Usually, people who use drugs are taken by their families and forced to enter the centre, or picked up using violence by the centre’s personnel (usually former drug users) in their house, stuck into a van and forced to stay in the centre against their will. Families pay a weekly amount for the person’s maintenance and usually are not allowed to release their relative until the treatment is considered to be over. However, the decision to determine the treatment as successful – on an abstinence-based model – is made by the drug centres’ owners themselves, who are often former drug users or religious figures, such as pastors, and clearly have an economic interest in keeping people inside.

During our visits, we witnessed and recorded through testimonies all sorts of abuse and ill-treatment: people detained are usually given rotten food, they are not allowed to wash themselves every day, have no access to education or medical attention and are often punished in humiliating ways, such as having wet, hard sand thrown at their bare back by their peers – who are compelled to do it – or being forced to wash blankets and then sleep with them while they are still wet and freezing cold. In the case of relapse – which is a normal condition in the rehabilitation process of substance dependency – they are also punished, for instance by shaving their head or sitting at the front on “the bench of relapse” during group treatment sessions.

News