This collection of papers addresses the issue of the 'legal highs' market, one which only a few years ago was regarded as an area of limited significance. Things change rapidly however, and today the question of how to respond to the challenges posed by the emergence of new drugs has become one of major international concern. The papers in this virtual issue highlight the need for a very different regulatory regime to address the challenge presented by a plethora of new psychoactive substances appearing on the market.

Acute toxicity due to the confirmed consumption of synthetic cannabinoids: clinical and laboratory findings

Controlling new drugs under marketing regulations

New Zealand to establish fit for purpose regulation for new psychoactive substances

Supply always comes on the heels of demand: what effects to do control strategies have on drug users themselves?

Cognitive and subjective effects of mephedrone and factors influencing use of a new "legal high"

Scheduling of newly emerging drugs: a critical review of decisions over 40 years

Mephedrone: use, subjective effects and health risks

AN ANTI-INFLAMMATORY AS A RECREATIONAL DRUG IN BRAZIL

Legal highs and the challenges for policy makers

Warning: legal synthetic cannabinoid-receptor agonists such as JWH-018 may precipitate psychosis in vulnerable individuals

How globalization and market innovation challenge how we think about and respond to drug use: 'Spice' a case study

Dangers of banning spice and the synthetic cannabinoid agents

Keep up-to-date with drug policy developments by subscribing to the IDPC Monthly Alert.

The legal and public health response to novel psychoactive drugs

This annual Progress Report offers information about the main activities implemented by IDPC during 2012 and 2013 and highlights our main achievements this year in terms of national and international advocacy, communications and publication of multilingual documentation.

IDPC Progress Report 2012-2013

In July 2012, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) won the Mexican presidential elections after twelve years of government by the Partido de Acción Nacional (PAN). President Enrique Peña Nieto took office on 1st December. This paper analyzes the first six months of his administration from the standpoint of Mexican drug policy. Because drug policy in Mexico is closely tied to security, both issues are examined.

This report begins with a brief analysis of the context in which Peña Nieto began his term. It then analyzes government rhetoric on security and drugs. The next section examines some institutional changes that are part of the security strategy, the Social Prevention of Violence and Crime program, its link with drug policy and bilateral relations with the United States. The paper ends with a series of conclusions and recommendations.

Keep up-to-date with drug policy developments by subscribing to the IDPC Monthly Alert

IDPC Briefing Paper - Mexico: Drug policy and security in the first six months of the Enrique Peña Nieto administration

This report demonstrates that the policing and prosecutions of drug possession offences in England and Wales is unduly focussed on black and minority communities. This report looks at racial disparity rates at stop and search, arrest, prosecution and sentencing and clearly demonstrates that the drug laws in the UK are a major driver of the disproportionality that exists in our criminal justice system in relation to the black community.

Stop and search has increased steadily since 2001/2 from less than 750,000 to a peak of almost 1.3 million in 2010/11, more than 1.2 million of which were carried out under PACE and associated legislation. Despite a slight decline, there were still more than one million stop searches carried out in 2011/12. Half or more of these searches are for drugs. This means that every 58 seconds someone in England and Wales is stopped and searched by the police for drugs.

In 2009/10 the overall search rate for drugs across the population as a whole was 10 searches per 1000 people. For those from the white population it was 7 per 1000, increasing to 14 per 1000 for those identifying as mixed race, 18 per 1000 for those identifying as Asian and to 45 per 1000 for those identifying as black.

The numbers in black and white: Ethnic disparities in the policing and prosecution of drug offences in England and Wales

Despite cannabis and alcohol having a long history of use in Nepal, they did not traditionally cause any major social problems. Cannabis only became known as an “illegal drug” in the 1970’s. However, the major public health issues developed with the gradual increase in heroin use until it became an epidemic from the 1980s onward’s, coupled by a shift in the mode of use from smoking/ingesting to injecting

This shift has been attributed to various factors, including the relatively porous open borders, the influence of hippy era tourism, poverty, illiteracy drug availability and accessibility These factors have lead to a rapid increase in the levels of drug use among Nepalese youth.

This study was conducted in the largest 5 cities of Nepal: Kathmandu, Pokhara, Nepalgunj, Biratnagar and Bhairhawa and it primarily aims to address the issues of young people who use (inject) drugs (YPU D’s).

The specific objectives of the study are as follows:

To determine whether the available drug services are youth friendly from the perspective of YPUDs

To identify the initial age of drug use and main factors influencing a young person's drug use

To collect other information related to YPUDs such as their socio-demographic characteristics, types of drugs used, history of imprisonment and their needs and issues

Exploratory survey research on young people who use drugs  and their perception about existing drug-related services

In all the countries of South East Europe there are initiatives to change the drug laws. Several countries are changing their legislation in order to adjust it to the new socio-political conditions and some are changing their legislation in order to meet the requirements of the European Union in view of becoming members of the EU.

The Diogenis Association took the initiative to set up a project on Drug Law reform in South East Europe, because this is a crucial period for the development of drug policy in the SEE countries within which civil society involvement can play a positive and decisive role. It is our conviction that non-governmental actors in the field of drugs have to have a say in shaping drug policy and influence drug Legislation.

The empirical part of this study compares the relevant national strategies on drugs, national substantive criminal legislations, national drug laws and institutions, as well as drug law enforcement in practice, sentencing levels, and the prison situations in Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Greece, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, and Montenegro.

This task includes examination and development of laws, theories, structure, processes and procedures, causes and consequences of societal responses to drug criminality, delinquency, and other security issues. The next paper focuses on supra-regional comparisons and aims to explain why NGOs play an important role in identifying the factors necessary for effective reforms.

Drug policy and drug legislation in South East Europe

Latin America has emerged at the vanguard of efforts to promote debate on drug policy reform. For decades, Latin American governments largely followed the drug control policies and programs of Washington’s so-called war on drugs.

Yet two parallel trends have resulted in a dramatic change in course: the emergence of left-wing governments that have challenged Washington’s historic patterns of unilateralism and interventionism and growing frustration with the failure of the prohibitionist drug control model put forward by the US government. In recent years, the regional debate on drug policy issues -- long dormant -- has surged as evident in media coverage, renewed interest on the part of academia, the emergence of grassroots initiatives such as the cannabis reform movement, and perhaps most importantly, calls for reconsideration of prevailing drug policies by a range of local and national officials.

For the first time, sitting presidents are questioning the underlining premises of the international drug control paradigm and calling for debate on alternative approaches. Their actions have had repercussions internationally, as those presidents have successfully pushed for debate within the Organization of American States (OAS) and the United Nations (UN).

Version 1 of the paper is available here.

IDPC Briefing Paper - The drug policy reform agenda in the Americas (Version 2)

This working paper has been prepared as part of the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing (DoHA) commissioned review of alcohol and other drug treatment service funding, being undertaken by the Drug Policy Modelling Program. The review aims to inform the distribution of Commonwealth government alcohol and other drug treatment funding.

This paper sets out to explore the central concepts behind treatment planning: need for treatment and demand for treatment. We outline the various approaches to assessing the extent of unmet need and unmet demand, and the substantial challenges associated with creating estimates to assist health planners. The paper focuses initially on unmet need and provides examples of the difficulties associated with the accuracy of such estimates. This is followed by analysis of the methods of estimating unmet demand.

We then turn to other considerations in planning treatment services around need and demand–including the dynamic interplay between demand for treatment and service system characteristics. The paper concludes with an examination of the implications of this work for generating Australian estimates of need and demand for AOD treatment.

Estimating need and demand for treatment – a background briefing

The baseline report provides the results of the baseline assessment study conducted in the beginning of CAHR project implementation in five countries (Kenya, China,Malaysia, India, and Indonesia). It also offers analysis of the obtained results, as well as recommendations for further research agenda and improvements of access to quality harm reduction services.

Baseline report for the Community Action on Harm Reduction project

Violence is often a greater concern for key populations than the risk of infection by HIV. Community led crisis response systems can reduce the vulnerability of key populations by helping to address and prevent the violence, abuse, harassment, and discrimination that they frequently experience. Community Led Crisis Response Systems, a new handbook based on the experience of the Avahan India AIDS Initiative, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is an important tool for any program wishing to provide a comprehensive package of HIV prevention interventions.

Based on the experiences of grassroots NGOs working with female sex workers, men who have sex with men, transgendered people, and injecting drug users, it offers program managers and key population leaders practical, operational guidance on setting up and managing a community led crisis response system.

The handbook describes how to tailor systems to local contexts and provides multiple examples of the administrative and organizational tools that are essential to make a crisis response system effective.

Violence is often a greater concern for key populations than the risk of infection by HIV. Community led crisis response systems can reduce the vulnerability of key populations by helping to address and prevent the violence, abuse, harassment, and discrimination that they frequently experience. Community Led Crisis Response Systems, a new handbook based on the experience of the Avahan India AIDS Initiative, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is an important tool for any program wishing to provide a comprehensive package of HIV prevention interventions. Based on the experiences of grassroots NGOs working with female sex workers, men who have sex with men, transgendered people, and injecting drug users, it offers program managers and key population leaders practical, operational guidance on setting up and managing a community led crisis response system. The handbook describes how to tailor systems to local contexts and provides multiple examples of the administrative and organizational tools that are essential to make a crisis response system effective. - See more at: http://futuresgroup.com/resources/publications/community_led_crisis_response_systems_a_handbook_based_on_the_experience_of?utm_source=Avahan+-+Crisis+Response+--+Global+Audience&utm_campaign=Avahan+Global+1+Crisis+Response&utm_medium=email#sthash.54RgJ3cH.dpufViolence is often a greater concern for key populations than the risk of infection by HIV. Community led crisis response systems can reduce the vulnerability of key populations by helping to address and prevent the violence, abuse, harassment, and discrimination that they frequently experience. Community Led Crisis Response Systems, a new handbook based on the experience of the Avahan India AIDS Initiative, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is an important tool for any program wishing to provide a comprehensive package of HIV prevention interventions. Based on the experiences of grassroots NGOs working with female sex workers, men who have sex with men, transgendered people, and injecting drug users, it offers program managers and key population leaders practical, operational guidance on setting up and managing a community led crisis response system. The handbook describes how to tailor systems to local contexts and provides multiple examples of the administrative and organizational tools that are essential to make a crisis response system effective. - See more at: http://futuresgroup.com/resources/publications/community_led_crisis_response_systems_a_handbook_based_on_the_experience_of?utm_source=Avahan+-+Crisis+Response+--+Global+Audience&utm_campaign=Avahan+Global+1+Crisis+Response&utm_medium=email#sthash.54RgJ3cH.dpufViolence is often a greater concern for key populations than the risk of infection by HIV. Community led crisis response systems can reduce the vulnerability of key populations by helping to address and prevent the violence, abuse, harassment, and discrimination that they frequently experience. Community Led Crisis Response Systems, a new handbook based on the experience of the Avahan India AIDS Initiative, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is an important tool for any program wishing to provide a comprehensive package of HIV prevention interventions. Based on the experiences of grassroots NGOs working with female sex workers, men who have sex with men, transgendered people, and injecting drug users, it offers program managers and key population leaders practical, operational guidance on setting up and managing a community led crisis response system. The handbook describes how to tailor systems to local contexts and provides multiple examples of the administrative and organizational tools that are essential to make a crisis response system effective. - See more at: http://futuresgroup.com/resources/publications/community_led_crisis_response_systems_a_handbook_based_on_the_experience_of?utm_source=Avahan+-+Crisis+Response+--+Global+Audience&utm_campaign=Avahan+Global+1+Crisis+Response&utm_medium=email#sthash.54RgJ3cH.dpuf

Community-led crisis response systems – A handbook on the experience of the Avahan India AIDS Initiative

Drug use practices that can lead to transmission of HIV, HCV, and other infections are pressing issues affecting communities throughout Canada. To stay current with emerging evidence and ensure that people have access to high-quality services that help prevent HIV and HCV transmission, best practice recommendations must undergo review and update.

A Canada-wide team of researchers, service providers, policy makers and people with lived experience have developed, through extensive literature review and synthesis, an updated and comprehensive set of best practice recommendations.

The document has new and improved best practice recommendations about needle and syringe distribution, other injection equipment distribution, handling and disposal of used drug-use equipment, and safer drug-use education. In addition, lots of new material can be found on safer crack cocaine smoking equipment distribution and opioid overdose prevention (education and naloxone distribution).

The Best Practice Recommendations are divided into two parts. Part 1 is a synthesis of the most up-to-date scientific evidence available about the distribution of injection and smoking equipment, safer drug use education and overdose prevention. Part 2 will focus on program models, testing and vaccination, first aid, referrals and counselling, and relationships with police and other organizations. It is scheduled be completed in the latter part of 2014.

Best practice recommendations for Canadian harm reduction programmes

The tenth meeting of the Informal Drug Policy Dialogue series, organised by the Transnational Institute (TNI) and Association Diogenis, took place in Warsaw, Poland, gathering over 35 NGO representatives, academics, policy makers and practitioners. The Dialogue comprised five major sessions on drug policy.

During the first session, participants discussed the current state of drug policy in Poland. The second session focused on the new European Union (EU) Drug Strategy for 2013-2020 and its Action Plan for 2013-2016. Thirdly, participants discussed cannabis policy reform movements worldwide, with a special focus on the legal regulation of cannabis markets in US states Colorado and Washington and the Uruguayan bill on cannabis policy. In the following session, participants shared their experience and expertise on different models of decriminalisation, with a specific focus on Poland, Italy and the Czech Republic. The final session of theDialogue provided updates on the 56th Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), which was held from 11th to 15th March 2013 in Vienna, Austria.

Publications