This briefing provides an overview of the IDPC side event held in the margins of the annual ECOSOC meeting in Geneva on 7th July 2009. Michel Sidibe, Executive Director of UNAIDS and Michel Kazatchkine, Executive Director of the Global Fund both spoke out strongly in favour of system-wide coherence on drug policy at the UN level.
Three Italian NGOs, Forum droghe/Fuoriluogo, Antigone, Società della ragione, have recently released a “White Book”, to illustrate the effects of drug legislation on the penal system (from 2006 until 2007).
A new report from the European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction focuses on Methamphetamine. The report discuss the drug in both global and European contexts, gives some historical background and examines initiatives to respond to its growing prevalence.
This paper explains how the cease-fire agreements in Burma came about, and analyses the goals and strategies of the cease-fire groups. It also discusses the weaknesses the groups face in implementing these goals, and the consequences of the cease-fires.
In the Kokang and Wa regions in northern Burma opium bans have ended over a century of poppy cultivation. The bans have had dramatic consequences for local communities.
Transform's submission highlights that numerous reports have shown that the criminalisation of drugs including cocaine largely creates the ‘drug problem’.
In their submission, Release, argues that celebrity culture of using drugs does not affect the use of drugs by young people as implied by UNODC. They also advise that looking at absolute numbers of users is not an adequate way to address the harms caused and also that a increase in price and fall in purity of cocaine in the UK cannot be considered an indicator of successful policy.
TNI's submission to the Home Affairs Select Committee on the cocaine trade addresses the myths surrounding the use of the coca left and calls for an evidence-based judgement on its legal status.
IDPC produced this briefing note for the ECOSOC high level meeting in July 2009. The political declaration of the CND, adopted by consensus, masks deep divisions between member states and contains elements that bring UN drug control policy into conflict with the work of UNAIDS, the development agencies, and the human rights apparatus.
The findings of this study suggest that Thai police are violating the human rights of people who inject drugs by planting drugs on them. Immediate action should be taken to address this form of abuse of power and other punitive tactics used by Thai police.