It’s time for a grown-up conversation about the racialization of antidrug policies. Ethnic and racial minorities are incarcerated, policed, shot, and killed at growing rates across the globe. The UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent called for drug laws to be amended in light of racial injustice. The reasons for this injustice are not rooted in any problem with these communities, but rather because of problems with the criminal justice systems that disproportionately punish them. Indeed, the war on drugs was designed specifically for this purpose.

The first step in trying to address this challenge is for countries to collect data on drug crimes; tracking data (on race, ethnicity, gender, nationality, etc.) of those arrested and prosecuted for such offenses is particularly needed. Lax data collection can have serious pitfalls, and distort our understanding of what’s actually happening in countries in ways that carry problematic consequences.

Consider the case of Portugal, a country lauded for leading the world in progressive drug policy reform. As a 2016 study shows, there is a sharp difference between the number of men and women incarcerated on drug offenses in Portugal; women made up 76 percent of the total number of people imprisoned on drug offenses, while men accounted for 40 percent. To put those figures in context, the disparity between women and men in 2005 was 60 percent to 25 percent; in 2000, it was 47 percent to 19 percent.

Why had the number of women incarcerated on drug charges climbed so high?

The uncounted victims of the war on drugs

By Marilou Gagnon / Journal of Mental Health and Addiction Nursing

: Supervised consumption sites (SCS) have been implemented in Europe, North America and Australia, reaching a total of 158 sites worldwide. In addition to reducing harms and preventing overdoses and overdose deaths, SCS act as a point of service for people who use drugs to access much needed health care services. Registered nurses who work in SCS provide care, support, education, and resources to reduce health risks and improve health. It has been clearly established that these interventions fall within the legislated scope of practice of registered nurses but the actual role of nurses in SCS remains poorly defined and understood, especially by decision-makers, employers, health care providers, and the broader community.

: To address this significant practice, policy and research gap, a consensus statement was developed based on information generated by 17 content experts from 10 countries namely, Canada, Spain, Australia, France, Denmark, Norway, Ireland, Switzerland, Germany, and Scotland. The statement was developed from “the ground up” by gathering information on three content areas: nursing practice in SCS, training, and needs. This information was summarized, and then submitted to two rounds of voting using a modified Delphi method to build consensus.

: The final content of the consensus statement is comprised of five sections: 1) Philosophy of care, 2) Framework, 3) Nursing role, 4) Training requirements, and 5) Needs of nurses.

: This consensus statement is a first step toward a better understanding of the role of nurses in SCS. There is an immense responsibility on nurses in this setting, as the majority of people who access SCS face many barriers in accessing other health and social services, even when their need for those services may be critical. For these reasons, it is essential to better prepare nurses for these realities. It is our hope that this first international consensus statement can serve as a foundation to guide practice, policy, research, and operational decisions in SCS.

International consensus statement on the role of nurses in supervised consumption sites

The 2018 Cannabis Act transformed Canada into 

 financial and legal jurisdiction for cannabis entrepreneurs and investors looking to do business internationally. Today, Canadian weed companies have their eye on a massive prize: the lucrative medical and adult cannabis markets that are emerging around the world.

Much of the hype around corporate cannabis is linked to the acquisition of lands and smaller growing operations internationally. The selling point is that cannabis can be grown overseas and exported to meet demand in Canada (and eventually the US), but also that Canadian companies position themselves as suppliers in emerging local markets.

Legal bud is a new gold rush, and some of the practices of the corporate cannabis giants are reminiscent of the

 that tarnished the reputation of Canadian mining companies abroad. Lobbying to impact national legislation, supporting criminalization of traditional producers, and moving into remote territories with plans to implement plantation style economies are just some of the critiqued practices of Canada’s emerging cannabis sector.

By far the biggest name in cannabis today is Ontario’s Canopy Growth, with operations in 14 countries and shares outstanding worth nearly $8 billion. Then comes Tilray, a pharmaceutical and cannabis company headquartered on Vancouver Island; Ontario’s Aphria, with operations in 10 countries; and Aurora Cannabis, with sales and production in 25 countries. There are dozens of smaller companies across Canada, many of which are start-ups looking to do big business on the legal cannabis boom.

Canadian cannabis companies are active in Europe, in Asia and Africa and especially in Latin America. Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Mexico have all passed medical marijuana laws, Uruguay fully legalized cannabis for adult and medical uses in 2012, and in other countries herb is effectively decriminalized.

Canada’s cannabis colonialism

Drug consumption rooms provide hygienic and supervised spaces for people to inject or otherwise consume illicit drugs. When counted at the end of 2018, there were 117 sanctioned drug consumption rooms in 11 countries around the world, generating an evidence base of ‘real world’ trials for scrutinising their biggest appeals and detractors’ greatest fears.

Evidence of their effectiveness is one motivation for introducing drug consumption rooms; another is that they provide a common sense solution to the suffering and risks associated with public injecting.

The Scottish Government has recognised mounting harms to the health, wellbeing, and dignity of people who use drugs, and supports trialling drug consumption rooms as part of an approach to substance use based on public health objectives and human rights principles. However, the UK Government based in Westminster (London) has repeatedly blocked any such action. This stalemate provides the backdrop for a hot topic exploring the following questions:

In communities dealing with the consequences of public injecting, could drug consumption rooms be part of the solution?

Knowing the human cost of unsafe public injecting practices, would it be negligent for governments 

Time for safer injecting spaces in Britain?

Marina Sachek, Director of the State Institution “Republican Scientific and Practical Center for Medical Technologies, Information, Management and Health Economics” (RSPC MT) of the Republic of Belarus

Tatiana Makarevich, Head of the Grant Management Department for Global Fund projects, RSPC MT

Vladimir Karanik, Minister of Health of the Republic of Belarus

Peter Sands, Executive Director, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria

Valeria Grishechkina, Grant Portfolio Manager, Secretariat of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria

With this letter, we, the representatives of civil society, communities affected by HIV and tuberculosis, as well as professional communities working in the field of combating the three diseases in different countries of the world, express our profound concern as to the actions of the leadership team and employees of the Republican Scientific and Practical Center for Medical Technologies, Information, Management and Health Economics (RSPC MT) - the organization that is the Principal Recipient of Global Fund grants in the Republic of Belarus - in relation to Yekaterina Parfenyuk, a current member of the Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) of the Republic of Belarus for collaboration with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, in representing the interests of the community of people who inject drugs and people living with HIV1 . We condemn the prosecution of Yekaterina Parfenyuk by the RPTC MT and the accusation that she has damaged the business reputation of the RPTC MT owing to her open letter addressed to the RSPC MT and the Global Fund in which she expressed the assumption that the situation related to the provision of medicines in Belarus is problematic and that there are interruptions in the supply of the anti-TB drug ‘Bedaquiline’.

Open letter to support the case of Yekaterina Parfenyuk

The Australian Capital Territory took the next step towards regulation of the illicit drug market yesterday with new legislation passing through parliament.

The legislation, which won’t come into effect until January 31, 2020, allows cultivation and possession of small amounts of cannabis for personal use for anyone over 18 years.

However, the sale or supply of cannabis is still a criminal offence.

The ACT has historically been one of the more liberal jurisdictions when it comes to cannabis.

The territory removed criminal penalties for possessing small quantities of cannabis in 1992 and broadened this in 2013. Currently, anyone found in possession of less than 50g of dried cannabis receives a “simple cannabis offence notice”, essentially a fine.

The new legislation allows adults to grow cannabis plants at home, with limits of two plants per person and four per household, or to possess 50g of dried cannabis.

Cannabis plants can only be cultivated in parts of someone’s home not generally accessible by the public, and only by people who usually live there.

There is a 150g limit for fresh (or “wet”) cannabis to account for cannabis that has been harvested but not yet dried.

The law allows adults to possess cannabis within these limits without the need for a cannabis offence notice to be issued.

Home grown cannabis to be legal in the ACT. Now what?

October 2 will live long in US harm reduction history. A federal judge ruled that Safehouse⁠—a nonprofit planning to open the first sanctioned safe consumption site on US soil in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood⁠—would

“The ultimate goal of Safehouse’s proposed operation is to reduce drug use, not facilitate it,” wrote US District Judge Gerald Austin McHugh Jr. in his detailed 56-page opinion, “and accordingly 856(a) does not prohibit Safehouse’s proposed conduct.”

Bill McSwain, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, filed a motion in February seeking to prevent 

 from opening on the grounds that providing a safe space for drug users to inject is illegal under law 856(a)—the so-called “crack house statute” of the Controlled Substances Act.

US Attorney McSwain and his allies then argued in court against both the legality and the efficacy of safe consumption sites—which operate in 10 countries around the world and are shown by reams of evidence to reduce harms and save lives. A June survey showed 90 percent local support for an SCS in Kensington.

Huge court win for Philadelphia safe consumption site⁠ — but fight isn’t over

«ROAD 184» is an opportunity to spend several days with LUNEST, travel hundreds of kilometers and visit several cities - Tallinn, Johvi, Kohtla-Järve, Narva, where the organization works. This film is a story about incredible people, where each person is a road full of pain, love and hope.

The clip discusses what LUNEST is and what they do, along with presenting the perspectives of different people associated with the organisation who have previous history of drug use, prison and/or diseases.

Road 184

On 13 July 2019, Think Centre reported that 32 executions have occurred in Singapore since it ended its moratorium on the death penalty in 2014. At the same time, lawyers defending capital cases have reported receiving threats from the government. As of the date of writing, Singapore is among 24 world states that have not ratified the ICCPR and its protocols.

Drug trafficking offences topped the list


The overwhelming majority (84%) of the executions in Singapore is drug-related offences, presenting a significant increase of execution numbers for drug offenders since 2017. Singapore is among 35 countries that retain the death penalty for drug offences, Harm Reduction International highlighted.

The recently amended Misuse of Drugs Act stipulated that the accused could avoid mandatory death penalty on two conditions; if their role is merely a courier and if they provide substantive assistance to receive Certificate of Cooperation issued solely by the Attorney-General’s Chambers. As highlighted by Think Centre, two problematic factors might significantly reduce the likelihood of getting the certificate. First, when the status of merely a courier prevents the accused to provide enough information to receive the certificate, as illustrated in the case of Bill Agbozo, a Ghanaian man executed to death in 2018. Second, when the accused have borderline intelligence levels and played only the role of a mere courier, such as the case of Nagaenthran.

“The death penalty is a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment that has no place in any society that wants to pride itself as being modern, developed and civilized,” Think Centre reiterates. Furthermore, it has never been conclusively shown that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than long term imprisonment.

Singapore executes people sentenced to death for non-violent crimes and threatens their lawyers

This year’s Results Report shows clearly why we must step up the fight against the epidemics of HIV, TB and malaria. While the Global Fund partnership continues to have huge impact, saving 32 million lives since 2002, the world is not on track to meet the Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG 3) target of ending the epidemics by 2030. We need a sharp change of trajectory.

In the fight against HIV, we continue to make progress through expanding testing and treatment towards UNAIDS’s 90-90-90 targets. To maximize impact, we must improve retention and viral suppression rates and the treatment of coinfections through greater focus on the quality of treatment services, including more differentiated approaches to reflect the distinct needs of different communities, greater integration of services and swifter adoption of new regimens.

Yet, while effective diagnosis and treatment are fundamental to the strategy to defeat HIV, it is increasingly clear that we must get better at prevention and in particular, in addressing the underlying drivers of new infections. We will only beat HIV if we dismantle the human rights barriers faced by key populations that simultaneously increase their vulnerability to infection and impair their access to health services. Likewise, we will only beat HIV if we tackle the stark structural gender inequalities that make adolescent girls and young women in sub-Saharan Africa twice as likely to be infected with HIV than their male peers.

The United Nations High-Level Meeting on Tuberculosis in September 2018 represented a significant milestone in the fight against the infectious disease that is now responsible for more deaths than any other: for the first time, political leaders across the world acknowledged the scale of the epidemic, recognized the pace of progress is unacceptable and committed to a bold new goal of finding, and treating, 40 million people from 2018-2022.

Global Fund results report 2019

It is deeply worrying that the fundamental rights of people who use drugs are constantly compromised by hostile supply reduction activities and the criminalisation of minor non-violent drug offences.

All too often, governments are quick to blame drugs and drug users for so many lives lost, while forgetting the impact of drug control mechanisms that are causing more harm than the drugs themselves. The negative impacts of the criminalisation of people who use drugs continue to raise serious concerns in most African countries. Every individual has a right to access life-saving health services without fear of punishment or discrimination.

However, fear of criminal sanctions generally drives people who use drugs away from proven, effective harm reduction services, leading to infections and premature death from HIV, hepatitis C and overdose. This notion has most recently been recognised by all UN agencies in their new Common Position on Drugs.

The failed war on drugs: What Africa needs to do

This week UN member states convened at the UN high-level meeting on universal health coverage to agree a political declaration and discuss ways forward towards reaching UHC for all.

Frontline AIDS, in partnership with the Global Network of People Living with HIV, International Civil Society Support and our Partnership to Inspire, Transform and Connect the HIV Response (PITCH) partners, have been pushing for the inclusion of the most marginalised within this declaration, and for strong commitments for people living with, and most affected by HIV.

We welcomed the declaration’s three references to HIV/AIDS, and recognition of the need to support people living with HIV/AIDS in particular, as well as mentions of the additional barriers faced by marginalised and vulnerable groups.

We had pushed for explicit references to key populations (gay men and men who have sex with men, transgender people, sex workers, people who use drugs and adolescent girls and young women), without success. However we’re happy that there is explicit mention of the impacts that stigma and discrimination have on people who are (as the declaration puts it) “vulnerable or in vulnerable situations”.

Strong support for sexual and reproductive health and rights (despite opposition)

Throughout the negotiations on the political declaration there had been resistance from conservative governments against the inclusion of progressive language on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). Led by the US, a group of 19 governments, issued a statement against the inclusion of sexual and reproductive rights. In response, a much larger group of over 50 supportive governments, issued a strong counter statement in support of comprehensive SRHR and continued to push for the rights of adolescent girls, women and the most marginalised.

Discussions during the high-level meeting revealed continued support for SRHR and particularly for sexual and reproductive rights, which is missing from the political declaration. For example, the UK government made a pledge to spend £600 million on a new program for reproductive health supplies.

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