With the International campaign for the elimination of violence against women 2022, the Eurasian Women’s Network on AIDS (

) and the Women and Harm Reduction International Network (

) call for an end to all forms of violence against women who use drugs.

Women who use drugs, including trans and gender non-conforming people, are subject to extreme levels and a wide range of physical and psychological harm due to punitive prohibition of some substances in the EECA region and globally.State driven stigma, criminalisation and corruption drive substantive health and safety harms and act as barriers between women who use drugs and critical harm reduction and gender-based violence (GBV) services. Women who use drugs 

the rate experienced by other women in the general public. This violence includes, (but is not limited to) forced and coerced sterilisation and abortion, rape, sexual harassment, loss of child custody, imprisonment for mere personal possession or use, and other types of gendered violations, stigma and discrimination.

Women who use drugs around the world can face arbitrary detention, extortion, police violence, torture and ill-treatment, with over a third of women in prison incarcerated for drug offences globally. Due to the war on drugs, women survivors have little recourse and often no support, particularly in cases of violence from intimate partner, police, prison guards and medical staff. The experiences of violence against women who use drugs are even more extreme for those facing intersecting discrimination, such as HIV-positive women, women of colour, sex workers, LBT women or women with disability. These conditions have only worsened during COVID-19 restrictions which have created contexts that have escalated GBV without matching responses for women at risk or being exposed to violence.

EWNA and WHRIN note that by collaborating with groups of women who use drugs, supporting and documenting peer led actions and services, the appropriate responses to these inequities and violations are clear. Meaningful involvement of women who use drugs must feature as the cornerstone to all good practice responses in developing GBV services for women who use drugs.

As the criminalization of drug use and HIV stands as the primary barrier between women who use drugs and attainment of human rights including access to harm reduction, HIV prevention, treatment and care and other essential health services, decriminalisation is also imperative.Expansion of harm reduction and inclusion of violence mitigation and support services are also critical. Sexual and reproductive health is now promoted as an essential service that should be incorporated within the harm reduction suite of services for people who use drugs, and that best practice service delivery integrates  comprehensive GBV services.

EWNA and WHRIN call for an end to the war on drugs to end violence against women

Legislation and legal principles, procedures, policies, programmes and practices relating to criminal justice must be reviewed to determine if they are adequate to prevent and eliminate violence against women who use drugs or if they have a negative impact on women and, if they do, to modify them in order to ensure that women who use drugs enjoy fair and equal treatment.

Please join us in ensuring adequate resources and legislative frameworks to uphold the safety and human rights of women who use drugs.

End violence against women who use drugs: 2022 EVAWUD campaign

The Czech Republic is the first country in Central-Eastern Europe that announced to make the non-medical use of cannabis legal. In this episode of Drugreporter Café, we present an interview with Jindrich Voboril, the National Drug Coordinator, who explained us how they will regulate the legal market.

Watch this episode – or if you don’t have time, you can listen to it as a podcast on Spotify, you can find the link below! Share this with your friends, peers!

How will Czechia legalise cannabis?

A strong majority of Oregonians continue to support Measure 110, the state’s historic drug decriminalization initiative that voters approved almost two years ago, a new poll shows. Besides decriminalizing drug possession, the measure also invested hundreds of millions in extra funding for substance use treatment and other critical services. The public’s clear backing comes as many law enforcement agencies, prosecutors and two out of three current gubernatorial candidates have loudly opposed the law. Without evidence, they claim it will worsen drug-related harms and crime.

The new survey asking Oregon voters about their feelings on Measure 110 was released by Data for Progress on September 12. Here are some of the results:

*Asked if the state should address drug use and addiction through public health approaches or the criminal justice system, 72 percent chose public health. A majority of voters in all the state’s regions favored this approach.

*Asked if the state should repeal Measure 110, 58 percent of voters wanted to keep it in place. That includes 82 percent of Democrats, 56 percent of Independents and 31 percent of Republicans.

*The survey broke down Measure 110 into its individual provisions, and tested the popularity of each. Majorities of voters supported the elements of peer mentoring, employment assistance, recovery services, health care, housing, harm reduction, and ending criminal penalties for drug use.

United States: Oregonians strongly support their state’s drug decriminalization

Voters in five states — Arkansas, Maryland, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota — will decide this Election Day on statewide ballot measures to legalize the use of marijuana by adults.

Currently, 19 states — comprising 44 percent of the US population — have legalized and regulated adult-use marijuana markets. If voters approve these measures, approximately half of all US residents will reside in a jurisdiction where the possession and use of cannabis are legal for adults.

According to recent polling, most of these measures enjoy majority support from the public. “Voters’ support for repealing cannabis criminalization crosses party lines,” NORML’s Deputy Director Paul Armentano said. “That is why, historically, these ballot initiative efforts have been equally successful at the ballot box in both ‘red’ states and in ‘blue’ states. We anticipate similar outcomes this November.”

United States: Voters in five states, dozens of cities to decide on cannabis legalisation measures this November

3-month contract on a part-time basis. Preferably starting in October 2022.

 to support our communications work. The successful candidate will work remotely on a part-time basis and provide support to Regional Director: Asia and Programme Officer based in Bangkok, Thailand, to enhance IDPC Asia’s visibility through constant updates on social media accounts and dissemination of the weekly Asia-Pacific news digest (full description of tasks and details below).

Please send a CV and 1-2 paragraphs outlining why this experience is of interest to you to Unchisa Eaimtong, Asia Programme Officer (ueaimtong@idpc.net) by 

IDPC recruits part-time Communications Consultant

Bermuda is on the brink of a constitutional crisis after Britain blocked the Government’s flagship legislation to legalise the use and consumption of cannabis.

In a landmark move, Rena Lalgie, the Governor, said she had been “instructed” by the UK’s foreign secretary to refuse to give royal assent to the Progressive Labour Party’s Cannabis Licensing Bill.

Ms Lalgie previously reserved assent on the legislation in May and called for dialogue between Hamilton and London on the matter.

David Burt, the Premier, said last year that if royal assent was not given to the Bill it would “destroy” relations between Bermuda and Britain.

Following months of tension over the legislation, Ms Lalgie announced the decision on the day Liz Truss was elevated from foreign secretary to prime minister.

The Government insisted it would push on with its initiative as voters had given the PLP a mandate to do so.

Kathy Lynn Simmons, the Attorney General, appeared to put the Government on a collision course with London over the issue.

She said: “Disappointing, but not surprising, given the confines of our constitutional relationship with the UK government and their archaic interpretation of the narcotic conventions.

“The people of Bermuda have democratically expressed their desire for a regulated cannabis licensing regime, following the strong endorsement at the ballot box and an extensive public consultation process.

Bermuda: Crisis looms as Britain blocks cannabis legalisation

Commission recommendation on the implementation of alternatives to coercive sanctions as response to drug law offences and drug-related crimes.

The European Commission has started an initiative regarding an alternative response to drug law offences; these alternatives will be evidence-based and their recommended implementation is designed to provide essential support to people who need assistance due to drug use or problems with addiction. The below exert details the aims of this initiative.

“According to a report from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, people who use drugs are eight times more likely to commit a crime than those who do not. Similarly, people in prison are substantially more likely than their peers in the community to have used drugs, to use drugs regularly or to experience drug-related problems. Indeed, some start using drugs while in this setting. There is, therefore, a vicious and costly circle of crime and drug use; nevertheless, drug-related treatment can be effective in breaking it. Furthermore, alternatives to coercive sanctions can contribute to alleviating prison overcrowding, recidivism, addiction, and problem drug use and related negative health effects. They may also have a positive economic impact since they are generally less expensive than incarceration.



Currently, alternatives to coercive sanctions are underused. Sometimes, they face problems and barriers linked to their design, implementation and delivery, and fail to deliver on their intended outcomes. One barrier to the implementation of alternatives to coercive sanctions is a lack of local coordination between stakeholders. For example, those deciding on the sanctions often do not learn about the outcome, and stop applying them in subsequent cases due to lack of feedback. Furthermore, availability of data on the implementation and outcomes of the various alternatives to coercive sanctions needs to be improved.



Experience of drug use is more frequently reported by males (50.6 million) than females (32.8 million). At the European level, 62% of women in prison and 41% of men in prison have used an illicit drug before imprisonment. The increase in drug use during imprisonment is more pronounced in women than in men. Thus, women in prison are disproportionately affected by drug use compared with the general population.



This initiative is necessary to fulfil the intention, under the EU Drugs Action Plan 2021-2025, to ‘scale up the availability, effective implementation, monitoring and evaluation of measures provided as alternatives to coercive sanctions’. Without action at EU level, alternatives to coercive sanctions will remain underused and the barriers they face will remain. Their design, implementation and delivery will remain fragmented. They will continue to be applied imprecisely and therefore ineffectively. The differential effect on marginalised groups will remain dependent on societal attitudes.”

The feedback period for the initiative is open 26 August 2022 – 23 September 2022 (midnight Brussels time), the Commission would like to hear your views to help further develop and fine-tune this initiative.

View details of the full initiative and how to provide feedback here.

Feedback request for European Commission initiative on alternatives to coercive sanctions in response to drug-law offences

On the 27th of July 2022, the Supreme Court of Ghana gave a narrow judgement on a case brought before it, challenging the constitutionality of section 43 of the Narcotics Control Commission Act, which would have enabled the provision of licenses for medical cannabis cultivation.

This decision comes as a surprise as the Narcotics Control Commission Act had legalised the cultivation of cannabis for medical purposes just in 2020, repealing the previous Narcotics Drugs Act of 1990.

The plaintiff, Ezuame Mannan, made the case that the procedure that led to the adoption of the amendment for Section 43 that enabled the cultivation of medical cannabis had been wrongly adopted. Section 43 of the Narcotics Control Commission Act of 2020 (Act 1019) states that a Minister “may grant a licence for the cultivation of cannabis which has not more than 0.3% THC content on a dry weight basis for industrial purposes for obtaining fibre or seed or for medicinal purposes”.

However, a closer inspection to the Supreme Court’s decision revealed that something more nuanced had happened. Maria-Goretti Loglo, Africa Consultant for the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) provided more details on the case, explained to TalkingDrugs that the Supreme Court’s decision was grounded on the unconstitutional way that the medical cannabis amendment had been proposed.

Ghana's legal cannabis hits a constitutional roadblock

Switzerland is to become the first European country to launch a cannabis sales pilot program to study the effects of cannabis legalization.

The so-called "Weed Care" pilot program will be officially launched on September 15 and is scheduled to last for two and a half years, ending in March 2025.

The program involves 370 participants based in Basel, Switzerland's third-most populous city.

Participants involved in the pilot program are over 18, reside in Basel-Stadt Canton, and are already adult-use cannabis consumers.

Throughout the entire study, the participants will be regularly asked about their cannabis consumption behavior and physical and mental health, among other things.

"The first research question is whether consumption changes - whether more is consumed, less or the same amount," said Regine Steinauer, head of the addiction department at Basel University, as reported by Euronews.

Switzerland to launch Europe's first cannabis sales pilot program

The Centre for Research and Information on Substance Abuse (CRISA) hereby announces its 14th Biennial International Conference on Drugs, Alcohol and Society in Africa. The conference will hold in Abuja on 26 and 27 October 2022. In the context of a growing demand for the modernization of the international drug control system, the major theme of the 2022 conference is “Towards the Reform of Drug Law and Policy in Africa: Research, Practice and Advocacy Considerations”.

We invite you to submit abstracts of policy relevant research papers on this theme for presentation at the conference. We will also consider requests to organize panel discussions, debates and workshops on the topic of drug and alcohol policy in one country, region or across the continent. We welcome original contributions from a range of disciplines, including health and social sciences, law, the humanities, and media studies (especially social media).

Papers not directly related to the major theme but address any current issue on psychoactive substance use in Africa will be accepted for presentation at the conference. You will find below a list of suggested sub-themes and topics for your consideration.

Towards the Reform of Drug Law and Policy in Africa: Research, Practice and Advocacy Considerations

Availability of services for people who use drugs; access to treatment; drug markets in Africa; decriminalization of drug use; regulation of drugs; medicinal cannabis; harm reduction; availability of medications for the management of pain; control of prescription opioids; alcohol and tobacco policies; measuring policy effectiveness; assessment of national plans of action, and national practice guidelines; stigma; alternative development; role of the media and civil society; gender perspectives; drugs and the legal system; the current state of drug policy research, vulnerable populations; etc.

Venue: The conference will take place in Abuja at a venue to be determined later.

Please take note of the following important dates:

Abstract submission deadline: 17 June 2022

Full Paper submission deadline: 2 September 2022

Early Bird registration: 9 September 2022

Begin with the paper title followed by author(s), affiliation(s).

The first and last names of authors should be written in full.

Provide full contact information for the lead author.

The main body of the abstract should be in one paragraph with no subheadings for the sections.

Submit as a Word document to crisainfo1@gmail.com or info@crisaafrica.org.

More information on pre-conference workshops, registration, travel, accommodation, etc. will be available on the CRISA website (www.crisaafrica.org) in due course. You can also contact us directly for such information.

Registered participants will be served lunch and tea/coffee for two days and will also receive conference materials, complimentary copies of the 

African Journal of Drug and Alcohol Studies

, other publications, and certificates of participation.

Early registration (by 9 September): N35,000

For further information about the conference please contact:

Ms Gloria Akpabio, CRISA, 10 Okon Essien Close, Uyo, Nigeria

Email: crisainfo1@gmail.com or info@crisaafrica.org

Professor Isidore S. Obot, Executive Director, CRISA

Email: obotis@gmail.com or iobot@crisaafrica.org

Information about registration, travel and accommodation will also be available on the CRISA website — www.crisaafrica.org.

14th Biennial International Conference on Drugs, Alcohol and Society in Africa

The Zimbabwe Civil Liberties and Drug Network (ZCLDN) is calling for the alignment of laws following the move by the government when on April 27, 2018, Zimbabwe became the second African country to legalise growing cannabis for medicinal and scientific purposes.

As such, the Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe (MCAZ) recently invited licensed cannabis and hemp producers, manufacturers, importers, exporters, and retail pharmacists to apply for approval to sell the products.

Zimbabwe’s laws for possession of cannabis for personal use are very strict while cannabis use remains highly stigmatised.

“As such, we call upon the government of Zimbabwe to reform the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act, Chapter 9:23 (57) and the Dangerous Drugs Act Chapter 15 to enable the full implementation of the Zimbabwe National Drug Master Plan in offering harm reduction services for people who use and inject drugs.

“In the same spirit, ZCLDN calls upon the government to speed up the establishment of public rehabilitation centres, one per Province for the treatment of people who use drugs. The current private rehabilitation centres are beyond the reach of the majority,” said Mr. Wilson Box, the ZCLDN Projects Executive Director.

Licensing of medicinal cannabis: ZCLDN calls for alignment of laws in Zimbabwe

This brief overview of the Hungarian system of diversion from the criminal justice system (elterelés) was prepared and submitted to contribute to the assessment of the European Commission on alternatives to criminal sanctions for drug offenders in Europe (PDF).

Diversion from the criminal justice system: its creation and development

A mechanism of treatment as an alternative to criminal sanctions, or diversion of drug offenders to treatment (elterelés) was added to the Hungarian legal system in 1993 (Pelle and Dénes 2000). From the beginning, it aimed to provide an alternative to criminal sanctions for offenders who possessed small amounts of illicit substances for personal use, and who had admitted committing the offence. These offenders are offered the opportunity to participate in a 6 month treatment or prevention program as an alternative to criminalisation. The program should be completed within 9 months.

For the duration of this diversion program, the criminal procedure is suspended and if the program is completed, the criminal charges are dropped and the criminal procedure ends with no criminal record. This can be defined as a form of quasi-coerced treatment: the offender is given a choice of either taking the criminal sanction or opting for the alternative treatment.

Offenders have to undergo a preliminary status assessment before they can begin their diversion scheme. The assessment is carried out by a psychiatrist, a clinical psychologist, or a general practitioner, with the use of the Addiction Severity Index (ASI) and/or the European Adolescence Assessment Dialogue (EuroADAD), as well as a general medical check of the offenders’ health. Based on the findings of the assessment of their social and health status, offenders can be referred to one of the three types of diversion programmes described below.


If the offender shows symptoms of drug dependence, the person is referred to a continuous treatment program, which can be either outpatient or inpatient and can include medical and/or psychosocial treatment methods.


This is for those offenders who are not drug dependent but have drug-related health and social problems, with a focus on social reintegration. This also qualifies as a treatment that can be provided by a professional health care institute.


This is by far the most frequent form of diversion, designed for those who are not diagnosed with drug dependence or any major drug-related disorders. This form of diversion, by definition, is not a form of treatment but a form of indicative prevention. Therefore it is not necessarily provided by a healthcare professional. It is prevention for those who are at risk of developing drug problems. The offender can complete these alternative programs at an outpatient drug centre, or other designed service provider, with biweekly individual or group consultation sessions with a counsellor.

The legislation has been amended multiple times since 1993. When the first Orban government came to office in 1998, it restricted access to the alternatives. For four years, only those who were diagnosed with drug dependence by an expert forensic psychiatrist were offered the alternative to punishment. Other offenders were sanctioned by a criminal court. As a result, the number of people prosecuted and sentenced increased significantly, increasing the workload of prosecutors and judges (Pelle and Dénes, 2000). Assessing drug dependence showed great variance in individual drug offenders and was deemed chaotic by many professionals.

The Socialist-Liberal government coalition abolished this restriction in 2002 and provided unlimited access to alternatives to coercive sanctions for all offenders who possessed illicit drugs for personal use. What is more, it offered this option for those offenders who shared these drugs for non-commercial purposes, that is, for collective use (e.g. the typical scenario where people share a cannabis joint with each other). This amendment was deemed unconstitutional by the ruling Constitutional Court in 2004 (54/2004. (XII. 13.)), stating that there is “no right to intoxication”, and the term “collective use” violates the principle of clarity of the law.

In 2008 a joint decree of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Social and Labour Affairs (42/2008) created specific procedural rules for the diversion to treatment mechanism, including professional requirements for service providers and supplementary documents for administration. This decree shaped the timeframe of diversion interventions (at least two hours per two weeks for 6 months, total 24 hours).

In 2011 methodological guidelines (Dudits et al. 2011) on the preventive-consulting diversion were published for service providers, based on the findings of a literature review. It established the 5 steps of this intervention:

1) Needs assessment (with structured interview)

2) Individual intervention plan design (together with the client)

3) Individual or group counselling based on the plan (focusing on improving life skills, motivational interviews, changing negative normative beliefs etc.)

In 2013 the second Orban government introduced a new, more repressive Criminal Code, with several amendments to the drug related provisions, including the diversion scheme. The most important was to introduce a new limitation to the diversion: only those offenders who have not re-offended within two years can be offered the alternative to punishment. This change has mostly affected regular/dependent drug users who have to face criminal sanctions. Relapse is considered by modern addiction science a natural part of recovery. By applying coercive sanctions to punish relapse, it is treated as a failure to fulfil treatment obligations.

In 2018 the new Criminal Procedural Law came into effect, along with some other changes to the diversion scheme. According to the new law, only the prosecutor can make decisions about the suspension of the criminal procedure, and the criminal court can charge the costs of the criminal procedure (e.g. laboratory test of seized substance) to the offender. This amount can reach several hundred Euros.

Since the completely new Criminal Code and Criminal Procedural Law came into force, civil society organisations have been demanding that the government amends the 2008 ministerial decree on the diversion to treatment, adjusting the rules to the new legal environment. To date, the government has not adopted a new decree. Although the use of novel psychoactive substances has increased significantly in the past ten years, the law does not offer the users of these substances the opportunity of diversion. It only applies to substances scheduled as illegal narcotics (kábítószerek). The use and possession of novel psychoactive substances for personal use is an administrative offence.

Decriminalisation, legal regulation & reform