The paper, 'Narcophobia: drugs prohibition and the generation of human rights abuses', appears in the March edition of Trends In Organized Crime. It examines the history of the drug trade - from the 18th Century when opium was traded as a valuable commodity by, among others, the British, Dutch and Portugese governments - to the modern day in which the United Nations has adopted international treaties against drug trafficking.
Arms trafficking from the USA to Mexico is a central issue in bilateral relations, closely linked to drug trafficking and, in particular, the lethal violence unleashed by Mexican drug trafficking organisations. Drug traffickers are obtaining increasingly sophisticated weapons at reasonably low prices thanks to easy access to guns in the US market. As with drug trafficking, gun smuggling implies a relationship of co-responsibility between supplier and consuming countries.
This article published in Il Manifesto criticizes Italy's position on the concept of harm reduction. Whereas the concept is now well accepted at the European level, Italy has taken the position to adopt the term, but to impose its own definition of it via a list of 'acceptable' and 'non-acceptable' interventions. This was followed by intense propaganda in Italy, wrongly stating that the European Union had accepted the Italian views on harm reduction.
This book aims to contribute to the public debate about illicit drugs in Colombia by bringing together contributions from different fields to the study of drug policy in Colombia. The first part of the book is devoted to describing the dimension of cocaine production and trafficking and the extent and prevalence of drug consumption in Colombia. The second section addresses the effectiveness and costs of anti-drug policies, focusing mainly on eradication campaigns, the interdiction of drug shipments and alternative development programmes. The third section is devoted to the study of the interaction between international relations and drug policy in Colombia. The fourth section of the book will study the legal aspects behind the so-called 'war on drugs'. The last section of the book has different contributions on the topic of institutions and drugs in Colombia, including impunity, electoral participation, corruption, etc.
This document illustrates how drug control can be better synchronized with the need to protect human rights. The first three sections outline the conceptual and legal foundations that underpin the human rights aspect of drug control, crime prevention and criminal justice; and the fourth section indicates a way forward to mainstreaming human rights in the work of UNODC.
This report was prepared pursuant to Commission on Narcotic Drugs resolution 49/4, entitled "Responding to the prevalence of HIV/AIDS and other blood-borne diseases among drug users". It contains an overview of the technical assistance provided by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to Member States in developing comprehensive demand reduction strategies and measures, including HIV/AIDS prevention and care in the context of drug abuse. The report provides an overview of the global situation with regard to the prevalence of HIV/AIDS and other blood-borne diseases among drug users and a summary of relevant activities implemented by UNODC in 2008 and 2009. It includes recommendations and indicates gaps and remaining challenges for responding to HIV/AIDS and other blood-borne diseases among drug users".
The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union’s (HCLU) video advocacy team attended a press conference organized by the Russian delegation in Vienna at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), where the representatives of the world's governments discussed the burning questions of international drug control policies. HCLU asked Mr. Viktor Ivanov, the head of the Federal Drug Control Service, the largest anti-drug agency in the world, to explain why his country does not tackle the demand side problems present in Russia with evidence based interventions, such as Opiate Substitution Treatment (OST). Mr. Ivanov declared that there is no evidence that methadone treatment works and in those former Soviet countries where OST was introduced it proved to be a failure. However, he also said that there is a possibility to experiment with methadone in the regional level.
The New Zealand Drug Foundation has produced a short video from an interview with the authors of the review of New Zealand's 35-year-old Misuse of Drugs Act. The video can be visualised online via the following link: http://vimeo.com/9643269.
This briefing paper calls for a much needed Impact Assessment of drug policy. All stakeholders in the drugs debate share the goal of a policy and legal structures that maximise social, environmental, physical and psychological wellbeing. However the drugs debate has been emotive, polarised and deadlocked and as a result, policy development has lacked objective scrutiny. Impact Assessments would bring drug policy back into the arena of science.
IDPC welcomes the appointment of Jonathan Lucas as Secretary of the INCB and chief of the INCB Secretariat. On the eve on the 53rd Session of the CND, IDPC has identified key areas of concern to bring to Mr Lucas's attention, outlined in this advocacy note.
The ‘war on drugs’ has failed to eradicate drug markets and use. A growing number of policy options are available to address drug-related harms. The IDPC Guide brings together global evidence and best practice to assist national policy makers in the design and implementation of drug policies. The Guide will be updated regularly to reflect new developments in the drug policy field.
Welcome to the first issue of the IDPC magazine. The stories in this inaugural issue tell us of the disproportionate harm suffered by individuals because of badly focused resources that target low-level “offending”, and of the human rights abuses committed in the name of drug control.