El Primer Ministro malayo discutirá el caso con el Fiscal General, al tiempo que sugiere una revisión a la ley. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir has indicated that the government should review the case of a man who had been sentenced to death for having medicinal cannabis oil.

Dr Mahathir said: " I think we should review that," when asked about the case of Muhammad Lukman, a 29-year-old father of one who was sentenced to death for possessing, processing and distributing medical marijuana (cannabis oil).

He was arrested in 2015 for the possession of 3.1 litres of cannabis oil, 279 grams of compressed cannabis and 1.4kg of substance containing tetrahydrocan nabininol (THC). Muhammad Lukman was given the death sentence by the Shah Alam High Court on Aug 30.

Permatang Pauh MP Nurul Izzah Anwar said she will be writing an appeal to the Attorney-General seeking a pardon for Muhammad Lukman.

Dr Mahathir: En Malasia, debemos revisar la pena de muerte a Lukman en relación al cannabis medicinal

Escocia ofrece kits de naloxona a las personas usuarias, pero el miedo a represalias por la policía obstaculiza su uso. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

The levels of fatal overdose in the UK are catastrophic. More than 4,500 people died of a drug-related death in 2017 alone. In Scotland, the figure totalled 934, the highest ever annually recorded. Drug mortality rates in Scotland per head of population are roughly two and half times higher than the UK average, and among the highest in Europe. The vast majority of these deaths continue to involve opioids such as heroin, morphine and methadone.

In Scotland, around 40,000 naloxone kits have been supplied to date. Mortality rates among those at greatest risk – people recently released from prison – have plummeted, from roughly 10% to 4% in a decade.

It may be that people who inject drugs are not aware of Police Scotland’s new approach – or they may still feel at risk of being stopped anyway. The reduction in stop and search rates is certainly likely to have been more marked for people in general than for opioid users. This points to an urgent need for the police to reassure people that no action will be taken if they are found carrying the kits – and more generally to raise awareness around the code of practice.

El miedo a la policía continúa a disuadir a las personas usuarias de opioides de llevar kits anti-sobredosis

Pese a las pruebas, en algunos países el uso de droga sustancia la denegación de tratamiento. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

Researchers are calling on an end to discriminatory health and illicit drugs policies, based on overwhelming evidence that new hepatitis C therapies are effective at curing the virus in people who inject drugs.

The Kirby Institute research, being presented tomorrow at the 7th International Symposium on Hepatitis Care in Substance Users in Cascais, Portugal and published in 

The Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology

, provides the strongest evidence-base to date to support the removal of restrictions to accessing hepatitis C therapy based on recent drug use.

Globally, more than one in three people who have injected drugs in the past year are living with hepatitis C. New therapies for hepatitis C can cure the virus in more than 95% of people, however in many countries the treatment is inaccessible to people who inject drugs, due to restrictions on treatment reimbursement related to an individual's recent drug use. In addition, many clinicians are hesitant to prescribe hepatitis C therapy to people who use or inject drugs, as there are concerns about adherence and the chance of reinfection.

"The results of our research show that the response to hepatitis C therapy among people who inject drugs was very favourable. Across almost 40 studies worldwide, involving more than 3,500 people with recent or ongoing drug use, hepatitis C was cured in almost 9 out of 10 people," said Dr Behzad Hajarizadeh, from the Viral Hepatitis Clinical Research Program at the Kirby Institute, and lead author on the study. "We conducted a systematic review, which means we examined all the available evidence from studies conducted globally on this topic. It means we can be very confident about these results."

Abundante evidencia sobre la efectividad del tratamiento para la hepatitis C para personas que usan drogas

La evidencia de otros países indica su potencial para reducir muertes por sobredosis y los costos sociales del uso ilícito. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

Norway will offer free heroin prescriptions through a heroin-assisted treatment (HAT) programme by 2020 in an attempt to improve the living conditions of people dependent on the drug. The Norwegian scheme sets out to provide the drug to up to 400 people, although details on quantities are unclear while authorities formulate specific plans. Health professionals will also be on-hand when the heroin is administered so that they can intervene should an overdose occur.

Prescribing and administering heroin in a safe environment will allow people to avoid illegal heroin which may have been cut with potentially harmful substances, including the powerful opioid fentanyl.

Norway's Health minister Bent Høie said “we hope that this will provide a solution that will give … a better quality of life to some [people dependent on heroin] … who are today out of our reach and whom current programs do not help enough”.

Norway currently has one of the highest drug-induced mortality rates among adults in Europe, 81.23 deaths per million in 2015, compared to the European average of 21.8 deaths per million.

Elsewhere in Europe, HAT (Heroin-assisted treatment programme) has been an important part of drug treatment for many years. Such schemes are already offered – albeit restrictively in some cases – in Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Switzerland, and the UK. Evidence from some of these jurisdictions indicates that effectively-implemented HAT can reduce overdose mortality rates, as well as reduce the societal costs of drug harms and the illegal heroin trade.

Noruega será el 7mo pais europeo a ofrecer tratamiento asistido con heroína

Su presidente ha dicho que los ensayos pudiesen mostrar potencial para educar y reducir los daños a las personas que asisten a festivales. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

The peak body for Australian doctors has called for clinical trials on pill testing after two people died of suspected overdoses at a Sydney music festival.

A 21-year-old Victorian woman and a 23-year-old Sydney man died and three more revellers were taken to hospital in a critical condition after the Defqon.1 music festival at Penrith on Saturday.

Australian Medical Association president Tony Bartone says law enforcement can't be the sole strategy when it comes to dealing with illicit drugs.

Pill testing allows people to anonymously submit samples for on-the-spot forensic analysis to determine their composition.

A trial at a major Australian music festival in 2016 found two in three people wouldn't consume a pill if a test showed it contained methamphetamine.

"It's an opportunity to try and inform ... about the dangerous consequences and try to get an opportunity to give them education and access to rehabilitation in terms of trying to reduce their drug dependency," Dr Bartone told Sky News on Monday.

El gremio de doctores australiano llama a ensayos de verificación de sustancias

Las autoridades públicas se han disculpado y prometen un fin a la política de tolerancia cero, así como también avanzar a un enfoque más compasivo. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

Thousands of public housing tenants in New Zealand will receive millions of dollars in compensation and an apology from the government for being wrongly evicted after incorrect meth testing of their homes. Under the previous government, Housing New Zealand (HNZ) ended more than 800 tenancies on the basis that the houses could be contaminated because methamphetamine had been cooked or smoked on the premises. Evicted tenants were advised to leave all their possessions behind, and were often barred from accessing state housing again, meaning they had to foot the bill for new homes, bonds, furniture, clothing and household goods. Some evicted tenants became homeless as a result of their evictions.

“There is currently no evidence that methamphetamine levels typically resulting from third-hand exposure to smoking residues on household surfaces can elicit an adverse health effect,” Gluckman concluded. “This means that, because the risk of encountering methamphetamine on residential surfaces at levels that might cause harm is extremely low, testing is not warranted in most cases.” said chief science adviser Sir Peter Gluckmen

Tenants who were evicted from their homes – regardless of whether they had smoked methamphetamine or not – would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, HNZ said. The tenant holder would receive up to NZ$3,000 (£1,500) in compensation, which would include costs associated with moving, securing new accommodation and buying new furniture and household goods.

Ross Bell from the New Zealand Drug Foundation said the compensation was too little given the devastation wrought, and said the housing minister, Phil Twyford, had indicated to him more money would be made available soon.

“The country got caught up in this widespread hysteria regarding meth contamination that drove all of the decision making. When experts tried to inject some science and rational thinking, they were ignored,” said Bell, who added that state housing stock that was urgently needed during the housing crisis was also unavailable due to ill-founded contamination fears.

“A lot of people just left their house with all the stuff in in because they were so fearful that everything was contaminated. The scale of this is just huge.”

Nueva Zelanda pagará millones después de haber desalojado por error a miles de personas por uso de drogas

MONTEVIDEO — Las carpas de marcas, de estilos musicales, de comidas y bebidas, son parte habitual del escenario de los festivales de música.

Pero desde hace cinco años, en los festivales de Uruguay, México y Colombia también hay otro tipo de puestos. En la última edición de Estéreo Pícnic —celebrada en marzo en Bogotá— muchos jóvenes hacían fila frente a una carpa distinta: la de Échele Cabeza Cuando Se Dé en la Cabeza, un programa que promueve la reducción de riesgo y la mitigación de daño en el consumo de drogas. Más que una tienda de campaña parecía un laboratorio ambulante lleno de frascos, reactivos y colorantes para hacer pruebas rápidas de drogas de tráfico ilícito pero de uso regular. Aquella noche, Échele Cabeza analizó 548 muestras.

“Las personas que consumen drogas no son kamikazes, lo hacen por placer y diversión, no porque quieran morir”, dice Nuria Calzada, miembro de Energy Control, una organización que hace veintiún años testea drogas en España y que ha entrenado en el uso de reactivos químicos y luces UV a grupos de activistas en México, Colombia y Uruguay.

Calzada subraya que, por lo general, la mayor fuente de información de alguien que usa drogas es otra persona que también las consume. Pero el boca a boca no garantiza la seguridad de los consumidores. En cambio, las organizaciones sociales que analizan sustancias hablan su mismo lenguaje, sin preconceptos ni juicios morales. Montan su estand en una fiesta y explican los efectos esperados de tal o cual sustancia y sus adulterantes más frecuentes; además, ofrecen recomendaciones sobre hidratación, alimentación y cómo actuar frente a una mala experiencia.

Así se adulteran las drogas en América Latina

La Oficina de las Naciones Unidas contra la Droga y el Crimen (Unodc), en asocio con el Gobierno de Colombia, presentan hoy el Monitoreo de territorios afectados por cultivos ilícitos 2017. 

, ya se ha sostenido que el debate debe situarse en los derechos de las familias cultivadoras y no en la cantidad de “matas sembradas”. Quizás por eso, a propósito de la entrega de dicho reporte, vale la pena compartir la experiencia de Briceño, un pequeño 

 donde el desafío es hacer sostenible en el tiempo los avances logrados en erradicación voluntaria de coca.

Entre mayo y junio de 2017, cientos de familias de once veredas de Briceño que se comprometieron con el programa de sustitución voluntaria arrancaron sus matas de coca. Naciones Unidas hizo visitas a las fincas y comprobó que la comunidad cumplió su palabra. Posteriormente, 

otras 24 veredas acabaron con toda la coca que había sembrada en la zona rural de este municipio.

 Al principio nadie creía que esto se lograra, pero un esfuerzo conjunto en el que participaron muchos actores ha venido mostrando que al menos aquí la sustitución voluntaria es más benéfica, incluyente, respetuosa de derechos humanos y más eficaz que la erradicación forzada, aun cuando requiere tiempo.

más de 120 asambleas comunitarias y mesas temáticas se efectuaron

, al tiempo que se conformó una estructura local de funcionamiento del Programa Nacional Integral de Sustitución de Cultivos de Uso Ilícito (PNIS).

La sustitución voluntaria en Briceño, Colombia, es posible

El presidente Enrique Peña Nieto destacó los resultados de la sesión especial sobre el Problema Mundial de las Drogas de 2016, porque son un parteaguas en el régimen internacional de control, y se manifestó por la regulación de estas sustancias.

“Su implementación (resultados) nos permitirá transitar de la mera prohibición a una eficaz regulación, que conjugue los enfoques de prevención, salud pública y derechos humanos”, aseguró.

Durante su última participación en la Asamblea General de la ONU como jefe de Estado y a poco más de dos meses de dejar el cargo, subrayó que el tráfico ilícito de armas es uno de los más grandes retos a la seguridad interior que ha enfrentado México, como muchos otros países. “Lo digo con toda claridad: el tráfico de armas ilícitas, por su gravedad, constituye un flagelo que debemos atender urgentemente”, sostuvo.

El mandatario defendió el multilateralismo y la cooperación internacional, ya que, consideró, son la mejor manera de demandar respeto a la soberanía y la dignidad de cada Estado.

Ante la ONU, Peña propone ‘regular’ drogas

Lukman, padre de familia de 29 años, ofreció aceite de cannabis a pacientes que sufrían de condiciones difíciles de tratar con medicinas legales. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

A man has been sentenced to death in Malaysia for processing cannabis oil and distributing it to patients in need.

On 30 August, the Shah Alam High Court sentenced Muhammad Lukman to death by hanging, after he was convicted of possessing, processing, and distributing cannabis oil. Three litres of cannabis oil and 279 grams of compressed cannabis were found in his home, according to local sources.

Lukman, a 29-year-old father of one, provided cannabis oil to patients who were suffering from ailments that were difficult to treat with legal medicines. Lukman did not profit from this, and would provide cannabis oil for free to patients who could not afford it. Despite the lack of financial gain from his endeavour, his offences fall under section 39B of Malaysia’s Dangerous Drugs Act 1952. This stipulates that “Any person who [traffics an illegal drug] shall be guilty of an offence against this Act and shall be punished on conviction with death”.

Lukman’s defence team called upon patients who had successfully used his cannabis oil to treat their illnesses, and emphasised that he produced and provided the medicine on a non-profit basis for their wellbeing. The prosecution argued that, regardless of intent or revenue, Lukman produced and distributed an illegal drug that is not recognised for its medical uses by the Ministry of Health or any accredited Malaysian physician. This lack of recognition, the judge concluded, invalidated Lukman’s defence.

Pena de muerte en Malasia para hombre que donó aceite de cannabis gratuitamente a pacientes

El Parlamento libanés prepara legislación para regular el cannabis con fines médicos; una primicia en la región. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

Bekaa Valley, Lebanon (CNN)The farmer plucks a cannabis flower from a long stalk. He presses it against his nose, inhales deeply and begins to extol the therapeutic -- if not necessarily scientific -- properties of his crop. "Smell this. It smells like heaven," says Abu Salim, who doesn't want his real name used for security reasons. "This is the herb of happiness. My friend says that when he smokes a joint, his wife becomes a princess, the world shines, and life is beautiful!" This is part of the heartland of Lebanese farming, once considered the breadbasket of the Middle East. It is also home to some of the region's most conservative and controversial political groups. An expanse of cannabis -- almost the size of three soccer fields -- stretches out in front of Abu Salim. Harvesting season hasn't started yet, but the country has recently trained its sights on fields like these. Heeding the recommendation of international consulting group McKinsey, which was part of a broader development plan, Lebanon's parliament is preparing to legalize medicinal cannabis and its cultivation. It's meant to pave the way to a nearly $800 million industry, according to Economy Minister Raed Khoury, and could serve as a quick fix for some of the country's many economic woes.

El cambio climático está convirtiendo al granero del Medio Oriente en una granja de cannabis

La única excepción, explica la Corte, sería si el uso afecta a terceros. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

Georgia’s Constitutional Court has ruled that all punishments for cannabis consumption, including fines, be immediately abolished.

The court’s ruling – which took place on July 30 - was effective immediately, meaning it is now the law.

The only exception to this, according to the Court, is if the cannabis consumption is perceived to cause direct harm to a third party. The Court stated that cannabis use could still be punished if “it is conducted in [educational] institutions, in some public places, for example in public transport, [or] in the presence of juveniles”.

It remains illegal to cultivate or supply cannabis in any circumstances.

The case was filed in the Court by Zurab Japaridze, leader of the 

 political party. Japaridze lauded the ruling for making Georgia the first former-Soviet country to permit cannabis consumption, 

“This wasn’t a fight for cannabis”, he said, “This was a fight for freedom”.

 has previously reported, cannabis use was decriminalised in Georgia in November 2017. While this decision ended the criminalisation and imprisonment of people for cannabis use, someone caught smoking the drug could still face a fine of up to GEL 500 ($204).

Prior to this, cannabis offences were met with harsh punishments in Georgia. An amendment to the Georgian Criminal Code in 2006 led to the possession of a small quantity of cannabis being punished by up to 11 years in prison, while possessing a large quantity could be punished by between seven and 14 years. In 2015, amendments reduced these punishments to six years for a small quantity, and between five and eight years for a large quantity.

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