On the 19th and 20th March, 2010, the Andreas Papandreou Foundation (APF) and IDPC co-hosted the first informal policy dialogue for the South East European region. A report from the meeting's discussions is now available online.
This IHRA report "3 Cents a Day is Not Enough: Resourcing HIV-related Harm Reduction on a Global Basis" calls for more money to ensure that harm reduction services are provided to those in need around the world.
A new report released by the Nossal Institute for Global Health and the Open Society Institute documents the arbitrary detention of thousands of drug users, mostly young people, in controversial detention centers in Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand. While the detention is supposedly for treatment, children and adults are held in boot camp-like centers where they do not receive adequate medical care and are subjected to routine physical and sexual abuse.
Reporting in the journal Addiction, researchers say that based on their review of available literature on needle-exchange programmes - an analysis of five previous reviews of needle-exchange programmes - the evidence for the programmes' effectiveness is weaker than generally thought. On the other hand, there was "strong" evidence across the reviews that needle-exchange programmes reduce the sharing or reuse of dirty needles, and no evidence of harmful effects.
The report starts with the observation: “Had incarceration reduced addiction, this [criminal justice focus in India] could have been tolerated. But, year after year drug addiction has only increased, and so has drug trafficking.” The same comment applies to India, the US, Russia and most countries of the world. As for the experience in Portugal, where decriminalization was adopted in 2000: “…jails have emptied out, enforcement has more time to follow the main traffickers. … “ HIV infection as a result of needle sharing is said to have been reduced to zero in 2007, and the prevalence of heroin, cocaine and synthetic drug use has decreased. Deaths reportedly were reduced 60% by 2007. Treatment – including treatment with opiate agonists - is promptly available to all who seek it.
This document builds on two national guides to policymakers, the IDPC 'Drug Policy Guide' and the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission's 'How to develop a national drug policy: a guide for policy makers, practitioners and stakeholders', to provide detailed recommendations for Latin American government policy makers to adopt more efficient and humane drug policies.
This briefing paper examines the use of schools-based drug testing, analysing its underlying assumptions, its ethical dimensions and the research so far conducted into its practical application. It explores whether this tactic should have in prevention and harm reduction strategies.
The CND Proceedings Document aims to provide a summary of what happened at this year's 53rd Commission on Narcotic Drugs, including at the various satellite events, and offers a comprehensive analysis of the key discussions and debates that took place during the meeting. Read the full report.
The EMCDDA’s 10th scientific monograph, entitled Harm reduction: evidence, impacts and challenges provides a comprehensive overview of the harm reduction field. The core audience of the monograph comprises policymakers, healthcare professionals working with drug users, as well as the wider interested public.
MENAHRA launched its first compilation report of the MENAHRA team achievements during the two last years, beginning at the launching of MENAHRA until September 2009. During the past two years MENAHRA has implemented a number of activities that aim at introducing harm reduction in the region; also MENAHRA organized its first Regional Conference on harm reduction in November 2009
that gathered a number of Organizations, people and activists on harm reduction.