Six months after her death, Breonna Taylor's killers are still looking for drugs. In March, Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and Officers Myles Cosgrove and Brett Hankison of the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department arrived at Taylor's door under the pretext of a drug raid, used a "no knock" warrant to enter, and killed her while she slept. No drugs were ever found, but now prosecutors in the case have offered a plea deal to another suspect, urging him to name Taylor as a co-defendant in a drug syndicate in exchange for reduced charges.

This isn't a new approach by law enforcement. Taylor's death magnifies the mechanism by which too many instances of violence and police misconduct, especially against people of color, are often rationalized: by pinning it on drug involvement.

At a time when advocates across the country are calling for reprioritizing funding for traditional law enforcement, it's essential that reforms also include the removal of draconian and overly punitive drug laws, which are at the heart of why so many Black people are harassed, arrested and imprisoned by police in the first place. Black people are almost four times as likely as their white counterparts to be arrested on marijuana charges, despite similar rates of consumption.

When it comes to their conduct, police officers have demonstrated that they will exploit drug use in just about every instance. The defense attorney for former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin recently argued that illicit drugs identified in George Floyd's toxicology report at the time of his death caused Floyd's death — not Chauvin's knee on his neck for eight minutes. The 2016 shooting of Philando Castile was supposedly justified because Officer Jeronimo Yanez, in the Minneapolis suburb of St. Anthony, smelled "burnt marijuana" and felt afraid.

Want to reform the police? That must start with decriminalizing drugs

By David Nutt, Steve Bazire, Lawrence D Phillips, and Anne Katrin Schlag - Drug Science

In November 2018 when the UK made cannabis-based products for medicinal use (CBPMs) legal most people assumed these would immediately be made available to patients, but they were wrong. In the year since almost no National Health Service (NHS) prescriptions have been issued and less than a hundred have been made available from private providers at a cost of at least £1000 a month.

For these reasons, some parents of children with severe epilepsy continue to go overseas to get their children access to the only treatment which has proven to be effective for their condition, that is, a cannabinoid medication. Moreover, the vast majority of the estimated 1.4million medical cannabis users source from the black market with its problems of illegality, unknown quality, content and provenance. Given the substantial evidence of the utility of CBPMs in many disorders as identified in the US National Academy of Sciences review in 2017 this failure of delivery in the UK seems odd and, to many, inexcusable.

So near yet so far: why won’t the UK prescribe medical cannabis?

Colombian President Iván Duque, who spoke in the United States in 2018, has his own plan for the cocaine trafficking: resuming air spraying to destroy coca cultures.

Colombian police at the traffic control point felt something lazy about an ambulance on the way to Santa Marta, a city on the Caribbean Sea. The driver looked nervous. Given the mandatory national shutdown associated with the coronavirus and the ban on unnecessary domestic travel, officials thought they should better inspect the emergency vehicle.

They found approximately 240 pounds of cocaine hydrochloride, valued at millions of dollars, apparently illegally transported, along with a man they suspected was pretending to be sick. The officers confiscated the drugs and arrested him, his companion, a nurse, and the driver.

A coalition of left-wing lawmakers, fed up with Colombian drug control efforts, recently included the details of the June arrests in a proposal to halt the lavish and often violent cocaine trafficking that has plagued the South American country for decades.

The plan favored by lawmakers is one that virtually everyone recognizes will be very difficult to integrate or enforce. She calls on the national government to take control of the drug market by buying crops of coca and regulating cocaine sales. Challenges include costs, setbacks from an international community seeking to maintain the status quo on drug policy, and the possible response of an illegal drug empire that does not hesitate to use force to get its way.

Colombia’s lawmakers seek to take control of the cocaine market. It’s a long shot.

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine government needs to revoke policies and rhetoric that lead to killings and other human rights violations, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said Monday.

In her opening statement at the 45th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Bachelet called for the upholding of human rights principles, norms and actions that she said will bring better social, economic and political stability.

Those principles include social protections, as well as institutions that promote respect for the views and rights of all members of society as well as policies that "require accountable policing and access to justice help to avert the escalation of tensions and grievances into violence and conflict."

Referring to the the UN rights office's work in the Philippines, Bachelet acknowledged that the Department of Justice committed in June to review 5,655 anti-illegal drug operations where "drug personalities" were killed. The government has repeatedly said that extrajudicial killings are not government policy and that the dead "drug personalities" forced law enforcement personnel to shoot back and kill them.

UN rights chief calls for end to policies, rhetoric that lead to abuses and killings in Philippines 

French deputies on Wednesday urged President Emmanuel Macron's government to stop dragging its feet over testing cannabis for medical use, saying its tardiness compared to other European countries was "worrying".

Presenting its interim report on the controversial question of legalising the therapeutic use of cannabis, a parliamentary committee said France should consider state-controlled production of the plant, which is currently banned in France.

"It's time that France emerged from the dark ages concerning cannabis, which is a drug but can also be a medicine," said Jean-Baptiste Moreau, the chief author of the report.

"For patients today, it is unbearable to have to wait a little longer," he said.

The government had failed "to act in a sufficiently pro-active way", the committee's president, Robin Reda, added at a news conference.

French government urged to speed up medical cannabis trials

There are few things in India that enjoy religious and cultural sanctions as much as the use of cannabis does. And yet, it’s consumption is illegal.

If the mainstream rhetoric around the alleged death by suicide of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput is anything to go by, cannabis—or its resin (hash) and flowers (weed)—is the epitome of evil. The only paradox is that till 35 years ago, this view of the indigenous plant and its psychotropic by-products was not viewed as a crime. And Indians have been smoking up for thousands of years before that.

The association of cannabis with crimes, and by extension social stigma, is actually an import from the US. Though India opposed the classification of cannabis alongside hard drugs during the 1961 Convention on Narcotic Drugs, it eventually buckled under the pressure in 1985. “This was the Cold War era, and India needed the US as an ally and access to American technology,” explains Kartik Ganapathy, senior and founding partner, IndusLaw.

India enacted the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act in 1985, effectively criminalising the use of the fruit and flower of cannabis, but excluding the leaves. The leaves, which Indian grind on a mortar & pestle to make a paste called 

, have deep connections with the Hindu religion, especially the cult of Shiva, the god of destruction. Commonly used as an ingredient in cool drinks and sweets during the festivals of Holi and Shivratri, the sale and consumption of 

How did marijuana become illegal in India?

An innovative legal aid programme has been launched as a collaboration between HumanRights360 and Steps. The 'Street Lawyering' programme will provide legal aid to street-connected people in situations of vulnerability, including people who are homeless, people who use drugs and sex workers.

The programme responds to the needs of socially-marginalised people who do not have adequate access to the country's welfare and support infrastructure. People who are impacted by precarity (incl. victims of the financial crisis, people who use drugs, sex workers and migrants in situations of distress) will now be able to discuss legal challenges and receive information and guidance on how to affirm their rights.

Acknowledging the challenges of navigating justice, police, administrative and bureaucratic procedures, the programme seeks to support street-connected people in overcoming legal issues that may be at the heart of, or accentuate, exclusion, precarity and vulnerability.

The programme's lawyer, Katerina Pournara, will provide legal advice in downtown Athens 3 days per week. 'Usually, the lawyer sits on their desk providing advice or solutions already determined from the initial request. We invert this common practice, in a world that is already upside-down, by going to the streets to understand realities, investigate requests and provide advice and assistance to people who may not be initially in a situation to ask for it', said Pournara, who will oversee the programme.

For more information, please contact Emmanouela Soldatou, Research and Advocacy Coordinator in STEPS, email: soldatou@steps.org.gr, tel.: 6989776739

One lawyer - A programme supporting street-connected people in Greece

The Pompidou Group's European Prevention Prize was first launched in 2004. It is awarded every two years. In each two-year cycle, up to three prizes are awarded. You can find information about earlier prize-winners by following the links in the 'Successful Projects' box on this webpage.

Prize-winners are high-quality drug prevention projects that fully involve young people. Young people are involved in the development and implementation of activities, in project decisions, in project management and perhaps in project evaluation.

The Pompidou Group awards the Prize to highlight excellent drug prevention projects that have proved successful in practice in involving young people. It aims to encourage the development of drug prevention work where young people are actively participating. The Pompidou Group believes that the genuine involvement of young people improves the possibilities of successful drug prevention.

The projects which apply are evaluated by a Jury of seven young people (aged between 16 and 21 at the time of their appointment) recruited from the Pompidou Group's and Council of Europe member States. The jurors are selected by the Pompidou Group based on their experience of youth participation in drug prevention. Jurors serve for two terms. The Jury is advised by a former juror and by a drug prevention expert, but only jury members take the decisions on awarding the Prize.

The prize-winners each receive a trophy, a diploma and a prize-money of €5.000. Previous prize-winners say that the recognition of their value by the Pompidou Group has been invaluable in helping them to secure funding.

Pompidou Group's European Prevention Prize 2021

 The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has launched a new survey to collect feedback on the World Drug Report. The objective of this survey is to maintain the relevance of the 

 by understanding how it is used and the extent to which it fulfills the needs and expectations of its readers. The survey is estimated to take no more than 10 minutes to complete. The identity of individual respondents is not recorded and anonymity will be preserved in the processing and analysis of the responses. Kindly submit your answer to the online survey by 

. Survey link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/9CNF83B

World Drug Report survey 2020

People who inject drugs who are in contact with harm reduction organisations are more likely to use condoms and sterile needles, and be on opioid substitution therapy or HIV treatment.

An analysis of five nationwide surveys conducted in Ukraine over eight years has found that people who inject drugs who are reached by harm reduction non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have consistently better outcomes relating to HIV prevention, testing and treatment.

These better outcomes were seen despite NGO clients being more marginalised as they are more likely to have been imprisoned, be economically more impoverished and inject more frequently.

A greater proportion of NGO clients were found to be living with HIV than non-NGO clients – with prevalence high at 29% – but they were more likely to be on treatment than those who had not received NGO support.

Data from national surveys carried out by the Alliance for Public Health, one of the largest harm reduction NGOs in Ukraine, was used for the analysis.

The first survey, conducted in 2009, involved around 3,900 people. Surveys in 2011, 2013 and 2015 involved between 9,000 and 9,500 people each, and the final survey in 2017 involved around 10,000 people.

All survey respondents had injected drugs in the last 30 days, were aged 14 or above and lived in one of 31 cities, covering all of the country’s regions. Roughly 80% of respondents were men and 20% were women.

Across all surveys, around one‐third of those questioned were NGO clients, a level that remained stable each year.

Indisputable worth of Ukrainian harm reduction organisations revealed by eight-year analysis

Stakeholders, who are at the forefront of drug policy reform advocacy in the country, have decried criminalisation and molestation of drug users by law enforcement agencies in the country.

They said the imperative of criminal justice reform was to adopt alternatives to incarceration for low-level petty offences, while calling on government to provide drug treatment in all primary health care centres across the country, which could be easily accessible for all drugs users.

Communications / Programme Assistant, YouthRise Nigeria, Martha Saleh, said the programme was also part of the “Support, Don’t Punish” global advocacy campaign, which called for prioritisation of health and reduction of drug-related harms among youths.

According to her, the platform gave youths the opportunity to deliberate on growing prevalence of drug use among young people, and how the current punitive response to the challenges impacts the health, human rights, and overall development of young people in Nigeria.

Stakeholders decry criminalisation of drug users in Nigeria

By European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction

Over the past five years, more than 40 000 people have died of a drug-related overdose in the European Union and the UK; around 80% of these being linked to the use of heroin or other opioids. Yet, with effective intervention, they could have been prevented.

On International Overdose Awareness Day, the EMCDDA is launching a new set of resources designed to improve understanding of drug overdoses and responses to them in Europe. These have been developed under the agency’s harm-reduction initiative, through which it aims to support countries’ actions to prevent overdose and reduce overdose-related mortality, ultimately contributing to a healthier Europe (EMCDDA Strategy 2025). The initiative consists of a rolling programme of activities which target specific areas of harm reduction practice, build on the evidence base in this area and deliver relevant tools for policy and practice.

Many people overdose in the presence of their partners or peers. Empowering friends, family and other bystanders to act effectively, before emergency services arrive at the scene, can therefore save lives. Overdose prevention programmes, combining first aid training with the provision of the overdose-reversal drug naloxone, were piloted in Europe in the late 1990s. Now available at local or national level in 12 European countries, these take-home naloxone (THN) programmes are targeted at-risk opioid users and those likely to witness an overdose.

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