Since 2014, Ukraine is at war. This war led to big human losses and to a huge wave of displaced people who had to flee the occupied territories.

Women who lived on temporarily occupied areas of Donetsk and Lugansk regions, with the history of drug use and HIV status as well as female clients of opioid substitution treatment programs were among the most vulnerable.

With the armed conflict, humanitarian crisis and mass internal migration, they face poverty and gender-based violence, lack of access to medical and social services, stigmatization and prosecution.

Before the war, Svitanok (“Dawn”) NGO worked in Donetsk providing support to such women.

When the armed conflict started, the NGO team and their clients had to leave Donetsk and other temporarily occupied areas.

Today, Svitanok activists continue their activities in Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine.

Looking for the Dawn. Women of Donbass

It is urgent that all actors involved in drug policy redouble their efforts to address the problem. This is the challenge highlighted by the European Drug Report 2019, which painted a rather discouraging picture of the situation in Europe: increase in drug trafficking and drug-related deaths, emergence of new drugs, more powerful, pure and diversified.

The CSFD, an expert group of the European Commission, held its last meeting in Brussels (Belgium) on 8 and 9 October. The Forum is composed of 45 member organizations from different European countries, which provide a number of prevention, treatment, risk reduction and rehabilitation services for people with substance use disorders. All these entities form a diversified group in terms of vision and experience.

At its last meeting, the CSFD presented a European financing project to obtain additional resources to carry out activities such as organizing seminars and training programmes, carrying out studies, etc. The financing project has been approved.

The agenda for last October’s meeting was also determined by the political situation. After the European Parliament elections in April, a new team of Commissioners has been formed to lead European legislative initiatives. The many changes involved in setting up a new European Parliament and a new team thus provide an opportunity to give the drug problem more importance on the European political agenda.

Several of the processes addressed by the CSFD are already underway, such as the evaluation process of the EU Drugs Strategy and Action Plan, in which civil society should have a role to play – or the changes in the financial frameworks for health and justice issues.

The working groups took the opportunity to plan their activities for the coming years. Dianova has joined the working group on relations with international institutions, which is organizing a seminar at the European Parliament on December 5 to draw Members’ attention to drug policies.

The meeting concluded with a joint session of CSFD members with representatives of the Horizontal Working Party on Drugs of the Council of the European Union, a group of national experts participating in the Brussels Policy Framework. Other stakeholders and experts from the European Commission also participated in the session, such as the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. During the session, civil society representatives asked questions, made specific proposals and requests and shared information on the work of the CSFD.

The Civil Society Forum on Drugs (CSFD), an actor Involved

Sri Lankan President, Maithripala Sirisena, has vowed to hang at least one drug dealer before he leaves office; conditional on the Supreme Court ruling in his favour and repealing the 43-year-old hiatus on the use of the death penalty for drug offences.

In July of this year, Sri Lanka's Supreme Court order temporarily postponed the trial and possible execution of four people until October 30. The court will hear their case the day prior.

Over a hundred human rights organisations have spoken out against Sri Lanka’s return to the death penalty.

Biraj Patnaik, South Asia Director at Amnesty International, stated;

“The taking of a human life by the state is one of the gravest acts a government can commit. The severity of the punishment as a minimum requires complete transparency as a key safeguard of due process.”

Sri Lanka currently has 24,000 people incarcerated, 60 per cent are arrested on drug-related offences. There are 1,229 inmates on death row and 48 are being convicted of drug offences.

"There are cases filed against my decision. But if the court gives a favourable decision, I will surely hang at least one. I am doing them for the future of youth.”

He further stated that Sri Lanka’s future leaders would need to invest more heavily in education; conflating drug use with intelligence.

"All developed countries have invested heavily in education”

Sirisena’s war on drug draws parallels with Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, in January of this year he said to the Philippine president;

“the war against crime and drugs carried out by you [President Duterte] is an example to the whole world, and personally to me. Drug menace is rampant in my country and I feel that we should follow your footsteps to control this hazard.”

The EU has warned against Sri Lanka stating that it may further damage Sri Lanka’s international standing and discourage investors. Sri Lanka is currently a beneficiary of the GSP+ agreement with the EU which enables a preferential trade scheme but is dependent upon Sri Lanka fulfilling its commitments to human rights.

Sri Lankan President vows to use death penalty before leaving office

The Rising Wave 

By Daniel Mejía, Mounu Prem and Juan Vargas

According to figures from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, in 2017 the extent of coca cultivation in Colombia reached a record high of 171,000 hectares. This figure has risen consistently since 2013 and represents almost a fourfold increase over that period. This steep rise set alarm bells ringing in Washington. On May 2017, during an official visit by then president Juan Manuel Santos, the White House expressed its concerns, and a month later the US Secretary of State asked Colombia to resume aerial coca-spraying campaigns. Four months later, President Trump threatened to decertify Colombia in the fight against illegal drugs due to the extraordinary spread of illicit-crop cultivation.

But was suspension of aerial spraying responsible for the rise in the first place? Here there is significant disagreement between Duque and his predecessor Santos.

At a public hearing on the issue in March 2019, Santos dismissed the view that suspension of aerial spraying was to blame. There were, he said, four other key factors:

Devaluation of the peso, which increased the profitability of drug trafficking

Falling gold prices, which decreased the opportunity cost of cultivating coca

Repositioning of criminal gangs in areas previously controlled by FARC guerrillas

Early announcement of an incentive programme for switching from coca to legal crop

Our recent research confirms that on these third and fourth points in particular, Santos was absolutely right.

On 16 May, 2014, the government and FARC delegations announced that there would ultimately be a Comprehensive National Programme for the Substitution of Crops for Illicit Use “in order to generate the material and intangible conditions for well-being and good living amongst populations affected by crops for illicit use, in particular for rural communities in situations of poverty that currently derive their subsistence from these crops.”

Crucially, the words “material conditions” created the possibility that farmers would expect to receive direct monetary transfers in exchange for voluntary substitution of illegal crops.

Good incentives, bad timing: Crop substitution, coca cultivation, and aerial spraying in Colombia

The Polish Psychedelic Society (PTP) is an initiative formed by Polish Drug Policy Network to popularize and support scientific research on psychedelic substances (psychedelics) and to provide space for essential debate regarding their potential application in science, medicine, psychotherapy and culture, which might positively contribute to the development of society. The Polish Psychedelic Society brings together experts representing multiple areas of science and numerous professions, including: activists, social anthropologists, artists, biologists, chemists, journalists, ethnobotanists, pharmacists, doctors, lawyers, psychologists, sociologists and herbalists, as well as individuals interested in supporting the development of science and debate on psychedelics in Poland.

Mestosław and other speakers present what the Polish Psychedelic Society is as well as introduce some of their main arguments. In particular, they focus on the medical advantages that psychedelic subtances can have as well as the policy that currently governs their regulation in Poland.

The Polish Psychedelic Society has also begun a crowdfunder to support the activities of the initiative.

Polish Drug Policy Network launches Polish Psychedelic Society

By the Public Health Association of Australia

The Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA) supports medically supervised pill testing as an integral part of Australia’s harm-minimisation approach to drug use.

Taking illicit drugs, especially ecstasy, is becoming more common among young people in Australia.

70% of pills taken by young people in a 12 month period were taken at clubs, festivals and dance parties.

The growth in new psychoactive substances and evolving chemical composition of illicit drugs means users have no way of knowing what they are taking and the potential risks involved.

Testing of pills by appropriately trained health professionals can inform users about the content and thereby minimise the risk of injury or death.

Evidence from several European countries indicates pill testing may reduce use, and health-related harms including deaths.

Public Health Association of Australia – Pill testing policy position

History was made last week in Lyon, when governments, philanthropic donors and the private sector pledged US$14 billion for the Sixth Global Fund Replenishment, more than any other global health institution has ever raised. Harm Reduction International, Eurasian Harm Reduction Association, International Network of People Who Use Drugs and the India HIV/AIDS Alliance congratulate the Government of France, the Global Fund to Fight HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) and the broad network of health advocates, academics and policy makers on this tremendous success.

Recognising that a strong and fully-funded Global Fund is vital to the harm reduction response, over 150 organisations and parliamentarians around the world signed on to the Call to Action on harm reduction funding earlier this year.

However, US$14 billion was the minimum amount required for the Sixth Replenishment and will not be enough to meet 2030 targets. The Global Fund also assumes a very ambitious 48% increase in domestic resources from low- and middle-income governments between 2021-2023. Yet, most governments have not prioritised harm reduction in their spending to date, even where the epidemic is concentrated among people who use drugs.

A seismic change is needed if we are serious about achieving Sustainable Development Goals and ending AIDS and combating viral hepatitis among people who use drugs by 2030. Much more is needed to address the funding and political crisis for harm reduction around the world.

We’re not there just yet: A joint statement on harm reduction and the Global Fund Sixth Replenishment 

It is not our search for pleasure that is so damaging to the environment, but corporal greed, social injustice, and inequality.

“You can’t call yourself a climate change activist if you’re doing coke,” says Dan Burkitt in his opinion piece for the Metro. “MDMA is killing trees,” says a video on VICE. It seems the idea that drug users should be blamed and shamed for destroying the planet is a very virulent one. The environmental damage these people refer to is real and it is related to the production of substances many people use, such as cocaine or MDMA. However, if you have a closer look at the arguments, you will see that it is not people who use these substances who should be blamed – but governments who keep the production of these drugs unregulated.

In the early 20th century the coca leaf was a legal agricultural commodity and cocaine was a legal substance widely used in medicine. The German pharmaceutical company, Merck, imported coca leaf and crude cocaine paste from South America to produce hundreds of kilos of cocaine in its laboratories in Frankfurt. An Italian entrepreneur, Angelo Mariani, invented a popular beverage called Vin Mariani, containing low levels of alcohol and cocaine. He also imported coca leaf from Peru and produced thousands of bottles in his factory in Neuilly, France.

Drug users are not damaging the environment, the war on drugs is

As a Thematic Network, we have the opportunityto produce a Joint Statement. This JointStatement has been co-created by NLOinitiative participants with input from broaderstakeholders via theEU Health Policy Platform.

In health and social policy, the EU’s main roleis to support and complement the activitiesof Member States by encouraging cooperationand best practices. The EU can introduce policyframeworks that foster good health by supportingdynamic health systems that are integratedand people-centred, as called for by the G7 andOrganisation for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment (OECD), and address inequalitiesby engendering financially sustainable socialprotection and inclusion policies.

This Joint Statement aims to providepolicymakers with a range of priorities, principlesand recommendations on how to improve accessto health and social care for Europe’s mostunderserved people. It aims to translate theunderstanding of the determinants of poor healthand unequal access, together with good practicesand experiences of target communities, intoconcrete calls to action. Inequity is not inevitable.

Improving healthcare access for marginalised people

The drug-overdose crisis is the most acute health emergency that Canada has faced in a generation. More than 12,800 people have died of an opioid overdose since Health Canada began counting in January 2016.

There are now so many fatal overdoses that this single cause of death has stalled the average life expectancy for the entire population. “Life expectancy at birth did not increase from 2016 to 2017 for either males or females, a first in over four decades,” Statistics Canada warned last May.

There’s a federal election less than one week away, on October 21. And yet more than 4,000 fatal overdoses each year is something that no one is talking about.

The word “overdose” appears in the incumbent Liberal party’s 85-page election platform exactly once.

“The opioid crisis is the greatest public health emergency since the AIDS epidemic,” it reads. Then there are only another two paragraphs.

The Liberals promise “new investments” in treatment services and briefly outline a plan to divert people charged with possession away from the criminal system and into “drug treatment court”. In addition, injection sites will hopefully operate with longer hours. That’s it.

The Conservative party’s 2019 platform gives the opioid epidemic a little more space, but that’s not necessarily a good thing. Andrew Scheer’s plan to reduce overdose deaths appears to be nothing more than the same tough-on-crime, abstinence-only approach to addiction that’s failed in every jurisdiction across North America for more than half a century now.

Canada's 2019 election shows that nobody in any position of power cares how many drug users die

"Do you feel that some drugs are inherently worse for the user than others?”

A man had approached the stage at the Horizons NYC 2019 psychedelic conference on Saturday, where Dr. Carl Hart, a Columbia University psychology professor and harm reduction expert, was taking questions after his keynote address.

“I have seen methamphetamine have very destructive consequences for a lot of people, and opioids even more so in my view,” the man continued.

“You should probably broaden your scope of people who use them,” Hart responded. “You’re looking at someone who uses all of those drugs.”

Hart’s closing address at New York’s largest annual psychedelic science event, held at The Cooper Union, was titled “Dispelling the Lies that the Psychedelic Community Believes About Drugs.” He explained to an audience of psychedelic researchers, advocates, and enthusiasts why the concept of “psychedelic exceptionalism” is so destructive (among other topics).

Psychedelic exceptionalism is an ideology that claims purportedly less-harmful or less-addictive drugs—such as cannabis, psilocybin mushrooms, or ayahuasca—to be inherently better, safer, or more desirable for people to use than other drugs.

Heroin, alcohol, or crack cocaine are treated as their contrast. When taken to its extremes, psychedelic exceptionalism stigmatizes not just certain drugs but also the people who use them.

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