When we think about people who use drugs, there is a tendency to refer to drug rehabilitation centers as the solution, and without thinking about the importance of what the person actually needs or wants. Moreover, for women who use drugs, their experiences too often involve stigmatization, marginalization, and violence. Little is known about what happens in the many drug rehabilitation and treatment centers around Asia and whether they are helping or hurting. Conditions in drug rehabilitation centers can be overcrowded and poor, and fail to treat people with the standard of health and human rights that each of us deserve.

This year, twelve United Nations entities have issued a joint statement calling for the closure of compulsory drug detention and rehabilitation centers. Amnesty International has also reported torture, sexual violence, and deaths in their report covering prisons and places of detention, including drug rehabilitation centres, on Cambodia.

To shed light on this issue, UNAIDS and the International Drug Policy Consortium launched a podcast series ‘Reality Bytes: On Drugs in Southeast Asia’ to chat with various experts about the real experiences faced with drug treatment and rehabilitation in the region. Tune in to hear stories and voices that are too rarely heard.

In this first episode, we talk with Rosma about her experiences going through over 17 different types of drug treatment and rehabilitation programmes in Indonesia. She bravely opens up about how she started using drugs, struggles with her family, and why she believes it is important to talk about her difficult experiences. Transcript available here.

Episode 2: On understanding community needs

In this second episode, we talk with Thomas Cai about his experience working with people who use drugs in Asia to help provide treatment and other services they need to live a life of dignity. Transcript available here.

Episode 3: On providing community-based treatment and services

In this final episode, we talk with Sam Nugraha, the founder and Executive Director of Rumah Singgah PEKA, a oeer ryb rehabilitation centre in Indonesia. Transcript available here.

Podcast - Reality Bytes: On drugs in Southeast Asia

Since compulsory isolation was installed in Argentina on March 20, 2020, the measures that followed to comply with it have made visible an escalation of institutional violence against young people from vulnerable sectors, people living on the streets, trans people, sex workers. Above all, young people from vulnerable sectors are permanently stigmatized and criminalized.

In the months of confinement, the list of names of adolescents and young people who died as a result of police violence did not stop. In Argentina this is called “easy trigger” 

. The case that is shaking society the most is Facundo Astudillo Castro (22) who has been missing since April 30 after being delayed by the police of the province of Buenos Aires for violating the quarantine while on his way to Bahia Blanca to meet his ex-girlfriend. Searches are currently being carried out to find his whereabouts. The last thing that was found was a kind of amulet that belonged to Facundo in a police station where the police had previously stated that they had not detained him. The prosecutor of the case requested the collaboration of the renowned Argentine team of forensic anthropology (who have worked in the recognition of bodies of people who had disappeared during the last Argentine dictatorship in 1976 as well as in the Malvinas War of 1982) to advance the cause.

Other high profile cases of deaths at the hands of the police lately are Luis Espinoza (31), Florencia Magali Morales (39), Raul Davila (22), Lucas Veron (18) and Valentino Blas Correas (17).

Over the last few years, the names of Luciano Arruga (16), murdered by the police of the province of Buenos Aires in 2009 but disappeared until 2014, the police persecution that ended with the death of four adolescents between 13 and 22 years old in San Miguel del Monte (also province of Buenos Aires) or the murder of Diego Cagliero (30), in 2019, also after a police chase, have been in the public mind.

In conclusion, it is necessary to emphasize that the harassment of the security forces in Argentina towards young people is a situation that has been going on for a long time and with the COVID 19 pandemic, all it did was stand out. The excess with which the police act in the name of the public good only continues to discriminate and stigmatize being young and with certain characteristics (the 

 as they say in the country: male, young, with a cap or hood that is presumed that use drugs or steals in order to get them).

As organized Young people, it is urgent for us to continue reporting this and to fight for their deaths not go unpunished.

Institutional violence and arbitrary detention of young people in Argentina during quarantine during COVID-19 pandemic

One in five of those found guilty of cannabis possession in England and Wales last year was black, official figures show, prompting accusations of racial injustice at the heart of the UK’s drug laws.

Campaigners said the rate was grossly disproportionate when only an estimated 3 per cent of the population is black. The latest figures, obtained from the Ministry of Justice, show one in five, 21 per cent, of those convicted in 2018-19 was black. But the true figure could be even higher, because in 23 per cent of cases data on ethnicity was not recorded. Nearly one in 10, 8.2 per cent, of those found guilty were Asian, while 42 per cent were listed as white, according to the data.

Niamh Eastwood, executive director of Release, an independent charity which campaigns on drugs and drugs law, said: “Unfortunately, these shocking figures are unsurprising. Our drug laws are being used as an excuse for police officers to target young black men in particular, with the ‘smell of cannabis’ being routinely used as a ground for a search.”

She added: “The drug laws are not only outdated but they allow for racial harassment by law enforcement and it is high time we reformed these laws by ending criminal sanctions for possession.”

Campaigners demand reform as official figures show one in five found guilty of cannabis possession is black

For a long time, Malta had a repressive approach to drugs, but there is an increasing understanding and acceptance of harm reduction measures now. We interviewed Karen Mamo, a researcher and harm reduction professional.

 Can you please speak about your personal background – what made you interested in drug policy and harm reduction as a researcher? What harm reduction activities do you do beside your academic work?

Karen Mamo: I am 32 years old and my academic background is quite a varied one. In fact, at University I studied Italian language and literature. I later moved into the world of conflict resolution and Mediterranean security, and last October I enrolled for a Master of Science in Addiction studies. I was always intrigued by substance use, and considering that Malta introduced legislative changes in 2015 (small amounts of drugs depenalised), during the same time I started doing personal research about cannabis and policy. In reality, it was Prof. David Nutt’s book, Drugs without the Hot Air that encouraged me to question what I have been taught till now and to re-configured my view about substances and people who use substances. During these years I was also reaching out to foreign NGOs working in the field of harm reduction and trying to explore how Malta too could introduce this important public health concept. I am very grateful to collaborate with UK-based Talking Drugs and Drugs & Me, but also had the opportunity to participate in the general assembly meeting of the ENCOD in 2019. (Links to these organisations can be found here!). To further expand my outreach, in September 2019 I set up the first harm reduction stand at the Bubble Festival and earlier this year a harm reduction page on facebook. I also held a number of meetings with the University of Malta’s administration and Student Council. Unfortunately, I had to scale back my work due to Covid-19. However, I look forward to revamping my harm reduction advocacy in the coming months.

Malta at the crossroads of drug policy reform – an interview with Karen Mamo

From this weekend, police can no longer arrest and haul before courts children found in possession of dagga during searches conducted inside and outside school premises.

This follows a judgment delivered by Judge Ingrid Opperman at the South Gauteng High Court in Joburg on Friday.

Judge Opperman declared the Drug Trafficking Act, as it applied to children, unconstitutional.

Her ruling brings children to equal footing with adults regarding the invalidity of the act.

The Constitutional Court ruled in 2018 that the legislation was unconstitutional as it empowered police to arrest adults found in possession of dagga.

The apex court effectively decriminalised the use or possession of dagga by an adult.

Parliament was given 24 months to fix the defects in the act.

Judge Opperman said the Concourt judgment left children “in an invidious position: those who use and/or possess cannabis are treated as criminals and criminally prosecuted for this behaviour whereas their adult counterparts are not”.

This amounted to what was legally termed status offences, a type of law that criminalised actions only for certain groups of people, she said.

Children found in possession of cannabis in South Africa must not be prosecuted, court rules

On Tuesday, Laurie Brooks received the news she's waited more than 100 days to hear — she now has the legal right to use magic mushrooms.

"I was pretty emotional. I was surprised," the 53-year-old Abbotsford, B.C. mother of four told CBC.

"Just to have that recognition … that what I was fighting for was worthwhile, it meant a lot to me."

Brooks has had two bouts with colon cancer and has struggled with psychological distress as she reckons with the possibility of imminent death.

She's one of four Canadians with terminal cancer who received approval this week from the federal government for an exemption from drug laws that have made psilocybin — the active ingredient in magic mushrooms — illegal since 1974.

Psilocybin has shown promise in relieving end-of-life distress for palliative cancer patients, but it's still undergoing clinical trials that are necessary before it can be made widely available to the public.

The four patients applied for their exemptions with help from the advocacy group TheraPsil, which argues that terminally ill patients deserve compassionate access to something that might help with their anguish when other treatments have failed.

The group's founder, Victoria psychotherapist Bruce Tobin, applauded the federal government for allowing the patients access to psilocybin.

Four Canadians with terminal cancer win the right to try magic mushrooms

France will introduce on-the-spot fines nationwide for drug users, particularly targeting cannabis, from September.

The move comes amid concerns about drug-related violence and was announced by PM Jean Castex on a trip to Nice, which has seen weeks of unrest.

The roll-out of fines follows tests in cities such as Rennes and Marseilles.

The €200 ($233; £182) fixed fine will reduce to €150 if paid within 15 days. France is one of the leading consumers of cannabis in Europe.

Legislation on recreational cannabis use varies widely from country to country. Several nations, like Canada, have legalised it while others have policies of minor punishment. But many others impose severe jail terms.

France drugs: Prime Minister Castex to impose on-the-spot fines nationwide

In this 10-episode series, Drugreporter and INPUD document how people who use drugs around the world have organised and formed collectives and unions to protect and defend the health and human rights of their community.

Episode 1: The Netherlands, Belgium and France

Since January 1981, when the first drug user group ‘Junkie-bond’ was established in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the drug user movement has grown exponentially: people who use drugs have continued to organise and form collectives and unions to protect and defend the health and human rights of their community. This struggle for autonomy, self-determination and empowerment of people who use drugs has been, and is, a global phenomenon.

In the early ‘90s the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) was formed in response to the HIV crisis and overdoses among people who use drugs. The tireless work of Ann Livingston and VANDU contributed to significant changes in how people who use drugs were treated in the city. Among the various harm reduction services that formed, they contributed to the opening of the first legal drug consumption room in North America and trials with heroin prescription programs.

With the emergence of fentanyl in the illegal drug market, the overdose epidemic skyrocketed, and in 2018, more than 10,300 Canadians died as a result of an apparent opioid-related overdose. Activists like Zoë Dodd from the Toronto Drug Users Union and the Toronto Overdose Prevention Society reacted by opening up illegal overdose prevention sites, saving many, many lives. Their civil disobedience has changed the landscape of Canadian Drug Policy: those illegal sites eventually became legal.

Many people are still dying every day in Canada, and drug user activist groups like VANDU, the BC-Yukon Association of Drug War Survivors, and the Canadian Association of People Who Use Drugs (CAPUD) are fighting for a safe drug supply, so people in need have access to an unpolluted source of their drug of choice.

This year JES network in Germany celebrated its 30th anniversary, and is one of the oldest drug user groups in the world. Dirk Schäffer – a member of the network – tells us how with the support of Deutsche Aidshilfe, the JES drug user network contributed to the availability of harm reduction services in Germany, including drug consumption rooms and heroin prescription programs.

The drug user groups in Denmark and Norway were also crucial to achieve the opening of these kinds of life-saving services in their own countries. The Danish Drug Users Union (Brugerforeningen), under the leadership of Jørgen Kjær, has been a model for drug user organisations all over the world. The drug user groups in Norway, led by Arild Knutsen from the Association for Humane Drug Policy, have changed the drug policy landscape significantly. Drug consumption rooms are available, heroin prescription and other innovative substitution programs are planned, and a major drug policy change is happening right now, with a move away from punitive measures and towards a more humane and evidence based decriminalisation model, based on the experiences of Portugal.

The rapid development of harm reduction services in recent years in South Africa has largely been influenced by the movement of people who use drugs in the country. 10 years ago, there was no needle exchange program in the country, and now there are multiple, providing 2 million sterile syringes a year for people who inject drugs. The South African Network of People who Use Drugs, supported by the non-governmental organisation TB HIV Care, tirelessly campaigns for the humanisation of people who use drugs. They managed to change the aim of the South African drug strategy to focus on providing support for problematic drug use, rather than creating a drug free society. People who use drugs are consulted when developing the country’s drug strategy. Their advocacy for visible policing resulted in fewer arbitrary arrests, and the South African Police Services stopped the use of quota systems, which required a certain number of drug users to be arrested. There is still a lot to do to end the criminalisation of people who use drugs, and to end the racial injustice and discrimination of women, which are widespread in the country. Watch the film featuring Angela McBride, Nelson Medeiros, and Shaun Shelly of SANPUD.

Disclaimer: SANPUD believes in representativity and diversity. This film features three of the four founders and does not reflect the current diversity of the board, staff, or membership of SANPUD.

In the country which coined the term "War on Drugs", people who use drugs have been fighting against extreme levels of criminalisation and stigmatisation for decades. Despite this, drug user activists have achieved impressive victories over the last several years. In this episode Louise Vincent (Urban Survivors Union), Robert Suarez (VOCAL-NY and Urban Survivors Union), and Hollis (San Francisco Drug Users Union) discuss both their achievements and the work still to be done as North America continues to suffer from unprecedented levels of overdose stemming from decades of neglectful policy.

This episode features four pioneers of the drug user movement in Australia: Jude Byrne from the Australian Injecting and Illicit Drug Users League (AIVL), Annie Madden and Charles Henderson from the New South Wales Users and AIDS Association (NUAA) and Geoffrey Ward from the Canberra Alliance for Harm Minimisation and Advocacy (CAHMA). The movement has achieved some incredible successes since the 1980s, including the opening of medically supervised injecting rooms in Sydney and Melbourne, and their work is far from over.

In Asia, the mere existence of drug user groups is a testament to the resilience and strength of the community. Despite dealing with torturous labor camps and detention centers, capital punishment, extrajudicial killings, and incredibly harsh societal stigmatisation, the movement of people who use drugs all over the diverse region have achieved incredible victories. In this episode Anand Chabumgbam and Bikas Guring (Asian Network of People who Use Drugs), Simon W. Beddoe (Indian Harm Reduction Association), and Edo Agustian (PKNI) discuss how they have called aattention to human rights violations and expanded harm reduction services within these conditions.

Episode 8: Afghanistan, Tanzania and Mexico

This episode takes us to three different regions to examine familiar themes on the subject of drug user organizing. In Afghanistan, Abdur Raheem Rejaey (Bridge Hope Health) shows how his organisation is distributing syringes to people who inject drugs under extremely harsh and neglectful conditions. In Tanzania, Happy Assan (Tanzania Network of People who Use Drugs) talks about amending her country's drug bill in 2015 to lessen penalties for drug offences. In Mexico, Brun Gonzalez (Latin American Network of People who Use Drugs & INPUD Board Chair) discusses some of the major barriers for drug user organising including the false equivilancy of people who use drugs with "Narco culture", amidst other forms of religious and cultural stigma.

In this episode we meet activists in three countries with some of the most harsh drug laws in the world. In Russia, which is infamous for both its punitive drug policies and resistance to advocacy as a whole, there is still a vibrant harm reduction community dating back to the story of FrontAIDS activists in the early 2000s. In Georgia, youth movements of people who use drugs and those in the techno music scene have led tens of thousands of people into the streets demanding change after state raids on clubs in the name of drug prohibition. In Ukraine, a well established drug user movement has set an example for others in the region while continuously fighting against the same levels of stigma and discrimination felt by others in the region.

The final episode of the series focuses on activists from the UK and the International Network of People who Use Drugs. Just as in many other countries we've visited, the drug user rights movement in the UK started as a response to the HIV crisis. Andria Efthimiou-Mordaunt, the widow of Mainliners founder John Mordaunt, discusses some of the history of the first peer-led support group of people who use drugs living with HIV. Meanwhile Mat Southwell discusses his work putting together numerous drug user groups in both the UK and Europe as a whole after learning community organising through gay men's organisations. The series concludes by talking to Judy Chang, Executive Director of INPUD, about bringing all of the voices you've heard throughout the series to the international level to advocate for the rights of people who use drugs.

Taking back what's ours! - An oral history of the movement of people who use drugs

On June 26, 2020 a number of events were held within the framework of the global campaign “Support. Don’t Punish” in the countries of the Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) region with the support of the Eurasian Network of People Who Use Drugs (ENPUD), the Eurasian Harm Reduction Association (EHRA), the International Consortium on Drug Policy (IDPC) and other networks and organizations, as well as with personal support of the activists and initiative groups. The COVID-19 pandemic made its adjustments to the campaign. However, the restrictive measures did not stop the activists, and they managed to hold the activities and events albeit in a changed format.

The campaign declares that health care and human rights must be installed in the core of drug policy. Activists took to the streets to publicly protest cruel and senseless government policies aimed at people who use drugs. Every year this campaign is held all over the world with the purpose of drawing attention to this unsolved problem over and over again!

June 26 is also the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking. Such a discriminatory and repressive name for this day was invented at the UN. Of course this is not surprising, taking into account the roles played by the United Nations in the never-ending "war on drugs" around the world, and in cowardly disregard or support by various structures and agencies of this organization of the methods of repressive drug policies of many countries around the world.

On the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking many countries talk about how they have “contributed” to a successful “war on drugs”. In past years, some countries celebrated this day with public executions or public beatings of people who committed drugrelated crimes.

On the other hand, the UN has designated June 26 as the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. It is intended to remind us that torture did not remain in the distant Middle Ages together with inquisition, alchemy, bubonic plague and cities without sewers.

However, it is in the name of the "war on drugs" that people are subjected to murder, torture and violence. Torture and punishment are at the heart of modern drug policy. Thus, participation in the international campaign “Support. Don’t Punish” is an opportunity to support a proper and humane understanding of this important day.

ENPUD Information Digest No. 8: Support. Don’t Punish - Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) - 2020

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its analysis of overdose deaths from 2019. The new projections indicate that the United States has failed to maintain the marginal progress represented by 2018’s slight fall in fatalities. The nation is projected to have seen a 4.8 percent increase in deaths in 2019.

Tragically, 70,980 people are recorded as having lost their lives last year. Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids were involved in over half of these deaths, with cocaine and methamphetamine involvement rising. CDC officials are pointing to the introduction of fentanyl to other drug supplies, like meth and cocaine, as a major factor.

Traditional addiction treatment organizations and harm reduction groups are alarmed by this, although many are not surprised.

With the 2020 presidential election looming, the new data could become a political hot button, potentially inspiring calls for more repressive law enforcement tactics. The White House took credit for the drop in fatal overdoses from 2017 to 2018, and Trump personally campaigned on the issue in 2016.

Diving into the new data on a regional level, a more complex story emerges than the overall worsening situation. Most states did indeed experience at least a small rate of increase. However, most of the nine states in the Northeastern region managed to reduce their rates of overdose deaths significantly from 2018 to 2019. Other states that saw significant drops include Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, Utah and Nevada.

Beneath tragic new United States overdose figures, there are wide regional variations

Reports from Kenya suggest violence against women who use drugs rose during the COVID-19 lockdown, fuelled by tensions as incomes disappeared and couples found themselves in close confinement with one another.

Both men and women who use drugs are also being unfairly blamed and beaten for petty crimes, often without evidence, which are on the increase due to a lack of wages.

But Kenyan partners from the Partnership to Inform, Transpire and Connect the HIV response (PITCH) are finding ways to address the situation. To link women to various forms of support they have formed a response team with police and a referral system with legal and medical services. Peer workers are also receiving training in counselling, mediation and conflict resolution, while advocacy is underway to ensure the lockdown experiences of women who use drugs are being heard and understood.

“Gender-based violence has escalated during lockdown, it has taken a turn for the worse,” says John Kimani, director of the Kenya Network of People using Drugs (KeNPUD). “Before, these cases [of violence] were there but there were not as many and they were not as extreme.

“We are seeing an increase in women becoming homeless as a result of this. Fewer women are also accessing healthcare, particularly antenatal care, for fear of emotional or verbal abuse.”

In Nairobi it is common for women who use drugs to engage in sex work to support themselves, their partner and their children. But Bernice Apondi, Policy Manager at VOCAL Kenya, says lockdown made sex work impossible as bars and lodges where many women find business shut down and curfews meant people were no longer allowed on the street.

First responders: The peers providing psychological first aid for women who use drugs in Kenya

The new Security Union strategy would “fight” against drugs together with child abuse and arms trafficking. This is a bad approach.

The European Commission has published its new EU drug strategy (now called the Drugs Agenda), which is part of a wider Security Union strategy entitled “Delivering on a Security Union: initiatives to fight child sexual abuse, drugs and illegal firearms.” While I celebrated the previous Action Plan as the most progressive ever, I think this document has come as a disappointment for civil society organisations that have been advocating for a sensible, balanced approach in drug policies.

Here are 4 reasons why (this article is not a comprehensive review and it does not reflect the official position of the Civil Society Forum on Drugs or other organisations but only my personal views).

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