In its decision 18/117 adopted on 28 September 2011, the Human Rights Council requested "the Secretary-General to continue to submit to the Human Rights Council, in consultation with Governments, specialized agencies and intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, a yearly supplement to his quinquennial report on capital punishment and the implementation of the safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty, paying special attention to the imposition of the death penalty on persons younger than 18 years of age at the time of the offence, on pregnant women and on person with mental or intellectual disabilities:. Furthermore, in its resolution 22/11, adopted on quinquennial report of the Secretary-General on the question of the death penalty will continue to inform" on the matter of "the human rights of children of parents sentenced to the death penalty or executed".

OHCHR call for contributions: Report on the death penalty

Rhetorically, drug policy is objective and indiscriminate. Practically, it is quite the opposite. As the recent deportations over minor drug offences make clear, the drug war produces profoundly different outcomes depending on race.

Last week, 17 people were deported to Jamaica by the Government for being “serious foreign national offenders”. The Home Office has refused to release a breakdown of the crimes they committed, but at least four of those on board were condemned to a life away from their family and friends for minor drug convictions.

Throwing together non-violent drug offences with crimes of the highest order – such as rape, murder and manslaughter – Cabinet members have repeatedly insisted that those deported were “serious, violent and persistent foreign national offenders”.

But, as the case of Tajay Thompson demonstrates, this is false. Spared at the eleventh hour by a successful legal case, Thompson was convicted of possession with intent to supply, serving half of a 15-month sentence in 2015. Groomed into a ‘county lines’ operation when he was just 17 – in which vulnerable youngsters are recruited by adult drug dealers to travel to rural parts of the country to sell drugs on their behalf – it is difficult to see how he fits the definition of a “serious, violent or persistent criminal”.

This poses two questions. Firstly, can the Government really continue to condemn ‘county lines’ while deporting its victims? Secondly, why, as Jeremy Corbyn put it, is it “one rule for young black boys from the Caribbean and another for white boys from the United states?”

Boris Johnson admitted to taking cocaine as a teenager, as did Michael Gove as a young journalist. However, the trajectory of their lives have been nothing but positive and they have faced no consequences of their admissions. Granted they have admitted to taking drugs, not selling them, but how do they think cocaine is acquired? As free marketers, they must know that supply is created by demand.

Both claim that it was a mistake, but that their “foolish” choices should be overlooked. To quote Gove: “I don’t believe that past mistakes disqualify you”. Essentially, a mistake is a mistake and it shouldn’t tarnish your life years down the road.

The Jamaica deportations reveal the racial injustice of the UK's drug laws

Every weekend people of all ages flock to the venues of the north’s vibrant and varied dance music scene, raving together in huge warehouse-style venues or small specialist nights in spaces commandeered or custom built for clubbers. Their focus is the mutual appreciation of music and the joy of movement to “a series of wholly repetitive beats”. When these venues close at around 4am or later, the party continues, with hundreds, maybe thousands of after-parties taking place. Since its emergence in the late 1980s, the UK’s dance music scene has grown into a multi-billion-pound global industry, bringing jobs and cultural kudos to our cities and towns.

What many know but rarely discuss is that this partying is fuelled by the class A drug MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy or simply MD, consumed in the form of pills, powders and crystal. When we do get to hear about this drug, it is mostly as the result of the loss of a young person’s life. MDMA-related deaths have risen over the last seven years, reaching an all-time high of 92 deaths in 2018-19 across England and Wales alone. Calls on the government to regulate the MDMA market, rather than leave it in the hands of organised criminal gangs and small-time social dealers, have long been ignored. We are also facing a new set of problems with the emergence of online drug markets.

MDMA in its pure form is relatively safe, having been administered in successful clinical trials as a therapeutic drug to help people with all manner of health conditions, from PTSD to alcohol addiction. Yet successive governments have actively blocked science-based policy change about MDMA for therapeutic use, preventing much-needed clinical research via the prohibitive costs and bureaucracy required to run clinical trials with Schedule 1 substances such as MDMA.

At the same time, government have spent decades undermining harm reduction efforts for recreational users – such as free drinking water and on-site drug checking – for the sake of appearing tough on drugs. As Professor David Nutt, esteemed neuro-psychopharmacologist and former chair of the government’s own Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) testifies, when faced with the ACMD’s recommendation to downgrade MDMA to a class B drug in the late 2000s to reflect its lesser harms, the then Home Secretary Jaqui Smith shouted down the phone and promptly sacked him.

Why don’t we just… regulate MDMA?

We invite submissions from people with lived experience of illicit drug use to reflect on how drug use has both featured as part of their personal lives and has informed their public engagement. We are particularly interested in work that explores the tensions intrinsic to negotiating the personal, professional and political in regard to drug user activism and scholarship.

Recent scholarly trends have demonstrated an increased interest in exploring pleasure (see 

special issue, Vol 49, 2017) – that is, how drugs are intensely and pleasurably embodied, experienced as both capacitating and sublime. This is a crucial move in subverting dominant, pathologizing narratives around drug use, but, it does not always capture the complexities of identifying as a “person who uses illicit drugs” while also embodying the role of drug use researcher and/or activist. With this special cluster of papers we hope to expand the conversation around how participating in two, at times competing and contradictory worlds impacts one’s output and subjectivities.

Call for expressions of interest - Upcoming issue of the IJDP: Negotiating tensions and conflicts in drug user activism and scholarship

It is time for drug professionals, including the harm reduction community, to have a say about the upcoming regulation of the European cannabis market. If not, we miss an important historical opportunity to shape the future.

I have just read the 5th European Cannabis Report from Prohibition Partners, a think tank on the legal cannabis industry. It is an interesting read indeed, and an eye-opening one. There are revolutionary changes occurring in European cannabis policies that are not always visible, even for professionals working in the field of harm reduction. That is partly because Europe, despite all its joint institutions, is still so fragmented in terms of language, culture, and politics. Sometimes it is difficult to connect the dots. And partly because drug professionals traditionally focus on injecting drug use, opiates, and stimulants, where most of the public health harms concentrate. Meanwhile, they can tend to forget that the most popular illicit drug in Europe is still cannabis – and policies regulating it are changing rapidly.

A number of countries have introduced new legal regulation schemes for medical cannabis, established new cannabis agencies, and created legal channels to supply the market in recent years. An initiative running in the UK, for example, could see up to 20,000 patients given medical cannabis over a two-year period, with the aim of building the largest body of evidence on cannabis as a medicine in the region. Ireland has launched a pilot Medical Cannabis Access Program. France granted approval for a two-year trial to help doctors to understand medical cannabis. Germany, the biggest market, imported more than 6,7 tonnes of legal cannabis last year – and this amount is likely to grow multiple times in the following years. Europe is still dependent on imported cannabis but it is likely to change in the next couple of years, with more and more cannabis grown domestically. Medical cannabis reform is not only under way in western Europe but in the eastern part of the region as well: in countries where you would not expect it, like North Macedonia or Poland.

If you think that the reform will stop at medical cannabis, you are wrong. Luxembourg has announced that it will be the first European country to make cannabis legal. Prohibition Partners accurately points out that this will likely have a domino effect: neighbouring countries will relax their own policies. Cannabis reform is gaining speed in other countries too – again, not only in the west. I was surprised to learn that a new bill was introduced to the Croatian parliament recently about regulating the cannabis market. Even though it may be years before the first European countries legalise the recreational market, it is now obvious that it is just a question of time.

Cannabis legalisation has arrived in Europe: Civil society should not be silent

By Ian Hamilton, Alex Stevens, and Niamh Eastwood / The Conversation

The latest data on UK homicide rates shows that 31% of victims and suspects were “under the influence” of alcohol and other drugs at the time of death. Drugs and alcohol continue to be a convenient scapegoat when it comes to finding blame. But there is still very little being done about other contributing factors – including poverty, cuts to youth services, domestic violence and education.

Homicide rates have been falling around the world and have remained low over the past few years. But they have been rising in England and Wales since 2015 toward levels last seen in the early 2000s. Although we can’t be sure exactly why England and Wales buck the global trend the rise in those carrying knives and other sharp instruments is likely to have played a part, but this isn’t the only factor.

The latest data from the Office for National Statistics shows there were 671 homicides for the year ending March 2019, a small decrease of 5%. But this disguises an increase in homicide incidents of 3% – even though there was a fall in the number of victims.

Fatal knife crime has been rising and has received significant government and media attention. An important aspect of recent debates on the rise in murders is the role that drugs play in these fatalities.

Understanding how a drug-related homicide is determined and defined is important in understanding, not only the data, but how this contributes to policy.

The influence of drugs on murder rates in the UK is being overstated

Only a "handful" of inmates enrolled in the prison needle exchange program in its first 10 months, because Correctional Service Canada (CSC) appears to have designed the program around security considerations rather than health, according to the Correctional Investigator of Canada's annual report.

The report from Ivan Zinger, the ombudsman for federally sentenced offenders, on the country's prison system was tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, outlining several concerns with the approach prison officials have taken in regards to the needle exchange program.

Zinger noted that the purpose of prison needle exchanges is reduce harm associated with injection drug use, namely the spread of infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C, but CSC won't be successful in that goal if inmates don't participate in the program.

He urged CSC to increase participation by considering best practices for successful prison needle exchanges detailed by the United Nations, which include:

Leadership support at the highest level.

Steadfast commitment to harm reduction and public health objectives.

Clear policy direction and oversight of the program.

Participation of staff and prisoners in planning and operational process.

The prison needle exchange program (PNEP) was launched in June 2018 at Atlantic Institution in New Brunswick and Grand Valley Institution for Women in Ontario. It was gradually introduced to other CSC facilities afterwards.

Prison needle exchanges in Canada driven by security, not health concerns, federal watchdog says in critical report

By Angus Thompson / The Sunday Morning Herald

Harm reduction advocates say the state government's decision to destroy drugs ditched in amnesty bins at music festivals is a wasted opportunity to test the dangerous substances on the market.

The bins - announced late last year - have so far been used at eight NSW events deemed "high risk" by state authorities between December 31 and February 2, including major festivals such as Field Day and Laneway festival.

A response to Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame's inquest into the deaths of six young people at NSW music festivals, Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the bins would allow punters to avoid panicking when they see police and dispose of their drugs "without any questions asked".

Ms Grahame said amnesty bins would also give authorities the chance to test the discarded substances and provide information to health providers. Results can also be used to send out real-time alerts to revellers about dangerous drugs that may be present at a music festival.

But NSW Health, which is managing the rollout of the bins, has since confirmed the substances are being destroyed by a waste management company.

"The bins that are being introduced to festivals are amnesty bins only and there is currently no testing performed on the drugs deposited in the bins," a NSW Health spokesperson told 

Health experts say failure to test drugs discarded in amnesty bins is a wasted opportunity

I slipped out of a stall in the dimly lit basement bathroom of a Brooklyn soul food restaurant, sliding a frosted glass dropper bottle and chubby three-milliliter pink syringe into my friend’s hand as she quickly replaced me. My mouth burned, a sore beginning to develop on the side of my tongue. I had just squirted a dose of “G”—likely a combination of GHB and its more potent precursor, GBL—into my mouth without the usual water or 7-Up chaser.

GHB and GBL are central nervous system depressants, like alcohol, and produce an alcohol-like intoxication. GHB is a chemical that occurs naturally in the human brain, while GBL is an industrial chemical that can be manually or metabolically converted into GHB. In the US, GHB tends to be more common, while GBL is bigger in Europe. G, as both chemicals are colloquially known, is usually dissolved in water, sold as a clear liquid and consumed orally.

I wasn’t able to sip it slowly like I usually do. Neither was my friend. That’s because we were at a popular New York City queer rave in mid-January called Unter, which has a harsh anti-G policy. A sign with a big slashed “GHB” was taped by the coat check, commanding partygoers to “KEEP GHB+GBL OUT!” and claiming that “GHB IS ACTIVELY HARMING THE GREATER DANCE MUSIC COMMUNITIES.”

Data on G-related harms among New Yorkers is scarce. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene was not able to comment by the time of publication. But in London, fatal G overdoses and G-involved sexual assaults have been shown to be widespread. More than a quarter of mostly-British gay men reported that they knew someone who has died from a G overdose, and the same proportion said that they had been subjected to sexual assault while using G, found

Banning GHB at raves is dangerous

By Associated Press Television News, Republic World

Ruling party lawmakers have proposed legalizing marijuana in Nepal, where it has been used for generations and was famed during the counterculture '60s.Forty-six members of the ruling Communist Party of Nepal filed the proposal in Parliament to legalize the production and use of marijuana, party lawmaker Birod Khatiwada said Monday.

He said the Himalayan country's mountainous terrain is suitable for the crop and allowing farmers to grow it would greatly benefit those who are impoverished.

“Legalizing marijuana will help the poor farmers and since most of the Western world, which was reason for making it illegal in the first place, have already ended the prohibition, Nepal should also lift the ban,” Khatiwada said.

Nepal lawmakers seek to legalize growing, using marijuana

President Donald Trump is campaigning on criminal justice reform efforts that reduce sentences for nonviolent offenders, while suggesting he’d like the American justice system to work more like ones in authoritarian countries where drug dealers are executed after “fair but quick” trials.

If those two things sound hard to square with each other, that’s because they are. But the contrast serves as an especially stark illustration of the incoherency at the core of Trumpism.

Just days after his Super Bowl ad and State of the Union speech highlighted his support for legislation that makes a modest effort to reduce prison sentences at the federal level, Trump on Monday said the best way to further reduce the quantity of fentanyl in the US is to follow China’s lead.

“States with a very powerful death penalty on drug dealers don’t have a drug problem,” Trump said during a White House event with governors. “I don’t know that our country is ready for that, but if you look throughout the world, the countries with a powerful death penalty — death penalty — with a fair but quick trial, they have very little if any drug problem. That includes China.”

(Trump made a number of other eyebrow-raising comments during the event, including saying of the coronavirus that “a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat” and claiming the European Union “was really formed so they could treat us badly.”)

It should be noted that Trump’s claim about China and other authoritarian countries having “very little if any drug problem” is false. Records from the Chinese government indicate that there are more than 2.5 million officially registered drug users in the country, and that the total has increased significantly in recent years. (The real numbers are likely much higher since not all drug users have registered with the state.)

Trump is running on criminal justice reform but just praised China’s execution of drug dealers

George Charlton’s T-shirt is emblazoned with the words “nice people take drugs” in vibrant neon orange. George is sitting in the offices of Addaction, one of the UK’s leading drug and alcohol charities, in Redcar, in the north-east of England, looking out over the town’s esplanade and the North Sea beyond.

“I like these T-shirts,” he says. “I like to go into the Co-op on a Monday morning and have someone do a double take and say: ‘Really? Are you mad wearing that?’ It allows us to have a conversation. They’ll say: ‘You’re a decent lad,’ and I’ll say I was a problematic drug user for 15 years. Nice people do take drugs.”

George is a force of nature. He’s hard to contain. He speaks rapidly and enthusiastically about life, love and his work as a drug-user activist. He’s a qualified counsellor and offers mentoring and training to people affected by drugs.

What he defines as his life’s purpose emerged from 15 years of problematic drug use of his own. “My drug of choice was ‘more’,” he says. “It was more of anything I could get my hands on.”

He works tirelessly across the country on a range of projects but his focus at the moment is here in Redcar and Cleveland, where together with Addaction he is rolling out a pioneering project designed to save lives.

Under the project, a team of peers – people with lived experience of drug issues – take an intravenously administered medication called naloxone out on to the streets and train members of the community, including active drug users, in how to use it. The main life-threatening effect of an opioid overdose is to slow down or stop breathing. Naloxone blocks this effect and reverses breathing difficulties.

The majority of people who access naloxone do so through drug treatment or harm reduction services, but studies show people outside of structured drug treatment are most likely to die of a drug-related cause, so taking it out on to the streets is key.

George is joined in the Addaction offices by his team of four peers, or “naloxone champions”, dressed in matching azure hoodies. Jimmy, Chris, Andy and Nicky all pile in, laughing, talking over each other, excited about the day. Over cups of tea and chocolate biscuits, they complete a hectic “check-in”, one by one sharing with the room how they are feeling. They are “buzzing”, “excited”, “nervous” and “ready to save lives”.