The purpose of this briefing is to highlight the dangers associated with funding drug control activities in countries with capital drug laws as detailed in IHRA’s report 'Complicity or abolition?', and to provide recommendations to donor-countries.
The report focuses on human rights violations that occurred in Ciudad Juarez in the context of Joint Operation Chihuahua, which began in March 2008. The five cases described involve acts of torture, forced disappearance and sexual harassment of women by Mexican soldiers.
The International Centre for Science in Drug Policy has released new research that demonstrates the clear failure of U.S. marijuana prohibition and supports calls for evidence-based models to legalise and regulate the use of cannabis.
Drug laws vary widely from country to country. Some nations embrace various elements of a harm reduction approach, in which drug policies are set and evaluated with the goal of reducing the harm of drugs and drug policies. A few nations (most notably Portugal) are even exploring a post-prohibition model by decriminalizing drugs.
This Human Rights Watch report found that most Kenyan children with diseases such as cancer or HIV/AIDS are unable to get palliative care or pain medicines. The Kenyan government has taken a step in the right direction by establishing a few hospital palliative care units in recent years, but much more needs to be done to stop sick children from suffering needlessly.
In 2007, the New Zealand Government entrusted an independent agency, the New Zealand Law Commission, to comprehensively review the country drug laws. The Commission's final report is likely to feature a new approach to personal possession and use, placing less emphasis on conviction and punishment and more on the delivery of effective treatment.
This report outlines interventions for tackling hepatitis C in drug injecting populations in Europe and the surrounding area. These approaches are detailed in the context of the major common challenges faced across the region in addressing hepatitis C in drug injecting populations.
This paper discusses the “substance-oriented approach” Dutch authorities implemented to to scare off potential small-scale cocaine smugglers. The focus was on the drugs, rather than the couriers, and on incapacitating the smuggling route, rather than deterrence by incarceration.
In August 2009, the Argentina Supreme Court declared legislation criminalizing drug possession for personal consumption as unconstitutional. This briefing discusses the background of that decision, the small steps taken since, but argues that there is still much to do before a genuine reform agenda can be implemented.
This report reveals that the Watergate-like scandal in Colombia is even more shocking than initially reported, with the presidential intelligence agency, DAS, not only spying, but also carrying out dirty tricks and even death threats on major players in Colombia's democracy
The one percent increase in coca cultivation reported by UNODC for 2009 contrasts sharply with the 2010 U.S. International Narcotics Control Strategy report, which cited a 9.38 percent increase from 32,000 to 35,000 hectares for 2009, which they inexplicably rounded up to ten percent.
The authors undertook qualitative interviews with 209 injecting drug users in three Russian cities to explore IDU's accounts of HIV and health risk. Policing practices, and how these violate health and human rights, emerged as a primary theme.