By Sheila Coronel, Mariel Padilla, David Mora, and the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism, for The Atlantic

MANILA—All Jefferson Soriano wanted was to go to bed. But the power was out, his tiny room felt like a furnace, and his friend Manuel Borbe had come by. The pair walked outside to chat and get some air, eventually stopping for a late-night coffee along a busy road.

Soriano and Borbe had lived nearly their entire lives in the area, a shantytown in a Manila community called Holy Spirit, and had met as teens on a neighborhood basketball court. They had been friends ever since, growing up together, and now both were new fathers in their 30s struggling to make ends meet—Soriano by working odd jobs in grocery stores and fast-food restaurants, Borbe as a construction worker.

At the time, Rodrigo Duterte’s first year as president of the Philippines was coming to a close, a violent period during which the government prosecuted a war on drugs, in which police swept down, arrested suspected drug sellers, and conducted sting operations against them. Officers were given wide latitude to shoot, and kill, suspected drug dealers—ostensibly in self defense—and Holy Spirit was one of the offensive’s epicenters.

Soriano and Borbe had themselves been caught up in police raids: The former had been reported for his contact with drug dealers, the latter had previously surrendered to police and admitted that he was a user of crystal meth, or 

. In fact, just a month before, policemen had barged into Soriano’s home while he was in the bathroom naked and dragged him outside as he begged for his life. They took him to the police station and, he says, beat him as they questioned him about his association with drug dealers.

So that night—June 15, 2017—Borbe was anxious, worried for his wife and infant son were he to be arrested, or worse, killed. “My time,” he told Soriano as they sipped coffee, “will soon be up.”

While they sat and chatted, a car drove past, its headlights casting a glow on a tall, well-built man standing on the corner on the opposite side of the street. He was soon joined by another man, who arrived on a motorcycle. Each was clad in the same attire—a dark jacket, shorts, and a balaclava.

“Bro, cops,” Soriano told Borbe, believing that the men, despite their face coverings, were police officers. Their stocky build, their posture—hands on their sides, as though they were about to draw their guns—reminded him of the many policemen he’d had run-ins with over the years. Before either friend could do anything, one of the men raised his arm and fired a pistol. Borbe slumped to the ground, taking a fatal shot to the head. Soriano tried to run, but other shooters were waiting at nearby street corners, and fired at him from different directions, hitting him in the neck and leg. As he lay bleeding on the pavement, pretending to be dead, Soriano recalls, he heard the gunmen mount their motorcycles to flee, only for one of the bikes not to start, forcing two of the men to push it downhill to get away.

“The only thought I had in my mind then,” he said in an interview this year in Manila, where he is in hiding, fearing for his life, “was that I had to live for the sake of my son.”

Borbe’s death was posted on the police blotter and investigators were sent to the scene. Journalists arrived shortly after and reported the incident in the news. Photographs were taken, showing Borbe’s corpse splayed on the street corner, the blood from his head wound flowing into the storm drain.

Yet this well-publicized killing is not included in any official count of drug casualties. It has not been fully investigated. It is unclear who the shooters were. As we have found, that is far from unusual: Borbe is only one among a huge number of uncounted victims of Duterte’s drug war.

The uncounted dead of Duterte's drug war

GENEVA, 14 August 2019—UNAIDS warmly welcomes the appointment of Winnie Byanyima as its new Executive Director. Ms Byanyima has more than 30 years of experience in political leadership, diplomacy and humanitarian engagement.

“I am honoured to be joining UNAIDS as the Executive Director at such a critical time in the response to HIV,” said Ms Byanyima. “The end of AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 is a goal that is within the world’s reach, but I do not underestimate the scale of the challenge ahead. Working with all its partners, UNAIDS must continue to speak up for the people left behind and champion human rights as the only way to end the epidemic.”

The United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, appointed Ms Byanyima as the UNAIDS Executive Director and United Nations Under-Secretary-General following a comprehensive selection process that involved a search committee constituted by members of the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board. The UNAIDS Committee of Cosponsoring Organizations made the final recommendation on the appointment to the Secretary-General.

Ms Byanyima brings a wealth of experience and commitment in harnessing the power of governments, multilateral agencies, the private sector and civil society to end the AIDS epidemic around the world. Ms Byanyima has been the Executive Director of Oxfam International since 2013. Prior to that, she served for seven years as the Director of Gender and Development at the United Nations Development Programme.

Ms Byanyima began her career as a champion of marginalized communities and women 30 years ago as a member of parliament in the National Assembly of Uganda. In 2004, she became the Director of Women and Development at the African Union Commission, working on the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, an international human rights instrument that became an important tool for reducing the disproportionate effect of HIV on the lives of women in Africa.

UNAIDS welcomes the appointment of Winnie Byanyima as its new Executive Director

On the occasion of the Global Day of Action of the Suport. Don’t Punish campaign, during Pride month, Re Generation organised a screening of the film “Chem-Sex and the city” in Belgrade. The film was produced with the support of the Drugreporter Video Advocacy Network. Watch the video and read Irena Molnar’s report!

This short documentary premiered at the International Harm Reduction Film Festival in April this year in Portugal. It was made within Re Generation’s video advocacy public campaign to raise awareness of psychoactive substance issues. As Belgrade’s chemsex scene is on the rise (read more about chemsex here!), and more and more people are getting into it, the cases of overdose and sexual assaults are more and more frequent. With this event marking the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, we wanted to raise awareness and make an open and safe space for people engaging in chemsex, to ask questions, talk about their experiences and seek any advice they may need.

This event – co-organised with the LGBTI Equal Rights Association and supported by the Pride Info Center – marked the beginning of an open dialogue on chemsex as a new phenomenon in Serbia, and as a result, we started new cooperation and mapping of the needs of communities practicing chemsex in Serbia, with an aim to create services that would respond to their specific needs.

Chemsex and the City

In November 2018, the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB) adopted the UN system common position on international drug control policy through effective inter-agency collaboration. This forward-thinking document calls for strong support for policies that promote health, human rights, including equality and non-discrimination, and sustainable development. In particular, the document calls for the promotion of alternatives to conviction and punishment, including the decriminalisation of drug possession for personal use, the principle of proportionality, and harm reduction interventions. To achieve these goals, the Common Position acknowledges the importance of inter-agency cooperation.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres today announced the appointment of Jan Beagle of New Zealand as Special Adviser on System-wide Implementation of Chief Executive Board (CEB) decisions.

As part of his ongoing efforts to ensure system-wide coherence, the Secretary-General has decided to enhance the focus on system-wide implementation of the decisions, strategies and policies adopted by the CEB. The Special Adviser will advise the Secretary-General, the Deputy Secretary-General, the Chef de Cabinet and senior management in the system on ways to leverage system-wide agreements and accelerate implementation at global, regional and country levels.

Ms. Beagle has over four decades of distinguished service to the United Nations, including most recently as Under-Secretary-General for Management Strategy, Policy and Compliance. Previously, she served as Deputy Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), Deputy Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, and Assistant Secretary-General for Human Resources Management. She has also held senior positions in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General, the Office of the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the United Nations Department of Political and Security Council Affairs.

Secretary-General appoints Jan Beagle of New Zealand Special Adviser on system-wide implementation of Chief Executive Board decisions

This week the Guardian revealed that police attempts to tackle violent crime had brought about a sharp rise in the use of stop-and-search powers by some of England’s major forces. Boris Johnson, most likely to be Britain’s next prime minister, has said he wants to increase the powers further. Critics say stop-and-search powers disproportionately target black people and undermine community relations.

Jamal talks to Anushka Asthana about the impact a recent stop and search has had on him – a search that ended in him being charged with assaulting a police officer. Adam Elliott-Cooper discusses the history of stop and search, a policy he believes has always been racist, while Mike Shiner examines its efficacy. There is little evidence he says, to support the use of stop and search in combating violent crime.

Stop and search is discriminatory, so why is it on the rise in the UK?

Cannabis has long been part of traditional medicine in Asia. In Japan, the earliest traces can be found as far back as 8,000 BC – this may be the earliest ever recorded.

It is only since the mid-twentieth century that usage has become heavily restricted, due to changing western opinions and the enforcement of UN drug treaties. As a result, attitudes across Asia have now become some of the most conservative in the world.

However, that stance is beginning to soften. Thailand’s recent legalisation of medical cannabis represents a watershed moment for the continent as they followed the lead of South Korea, who surprised many to become the first east Asian country to legalise medical cannabis in November 2018.

Experts now predict that other countries in the region will follow suit and legalise the plant for medicinal purposes. Prohibition Partners estimates that by 2024 the legal cannabis market in Asia – which is home to more than half the world’s population – could be worth upwards of $8.5bn.

And it’s estimated that Japan and China could share 90 per cent of this market – even though conservative attitudes in the two countries have become predominant, with laws that are still far stricter than in Europe or the US. This is evidenced by comparing recreational usage, where only 1.4 per cent of people aged between 15 and 64 in Japan have ever tried cannabis, compared to 29 per cent in the UK and 40 per cent in the US and Canada.

So why is the Japanese government now looking to heed the World Health Organisation’s proposal that cannabis be reclassified to reflect the mounting evidence of its medical benefits? It is not because of any change in Japan’s conservative values – it is instead an economic imperative.

Japan’s conservative attitude to cannabis is softening

In the face of a repressive government, Russian harm reduction and legal aid organizations are working to end HIV in one of the world’s few countries where new infections are actually increasing.

, profiles service providers who are working with—and often are themselves—people who use drugs, do sex work, are HIV positive, and are queer or trans. People who share these experiences are targeted by state policies through policies like the ban on opioid substitution medications, drug user and HIV registries, and “gay propaganda” laws.

, as its title conveys, simultaneously invokes pessimism and optimism. The police show indifference to harassment and abuse of sex workers, and injection drug users face hostile medical providers at seemingly every turn. Prevention campaigns feature posters calling for the end of HIV—yet proven methods for decreasing transmission risk, like sterile syringes, and care for people who are positive, like antiretroviral therapy, continue to be inaccessible.

Watch: #NonExistentWeExist—Inside Russian HIV Activism

At his inauguration ceremony a year ago, Colombian President Ivan Duque promised a forceful crackdown on drug trafficking, especially cocaine, through “the eradication and substitution of illegal crops.” Under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, he is now pushing to restart aerial spraying of coca plantations using the herbicide glyphosate, which is “probably carcinogenic to humans,” according to the World Health Organization.

Meanwhile, in nearby Bolivia, President Evo Morales has taken a different route, expanding legal coca cultivation while relying only on domestic law enforcement agencies to tackle drug trafficking. This coca policy will be one of many issues on voters’ minds when they go to the polls this fall to decide whether Morales should be reelected for an unprecedented fourth term.

Eradication vs. legal coca: Colombia and Bolivia’s disparate drug policies

While thousands of drug convicts sit on death row in prisons across South-East Asia, the local trade in methamphetamine and other illicit drugs is flourishing.

Just last month, two Australian men were arrested in Bali for possession of cocaine and could be jailed for up to 12 years.

If they're found guilty of trafficking, they face up to 20 years in prison or death.

Out of 14 countries identified as actively applying the death penalty for drug crimes by watchdog Harm Reduction International (HRI), nearly half are in South-East Asia: Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.

But despite the hard-line approach, a July 2019 report by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found that South-East Asia was producing methamphetamine in "quantities unimaginable a decade ago" — much of which is making its way to Australian shores.

A high proportion of those given the death penalty by South-East Asian states are foreigners.

Indonesia's President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo — generally presented as a moderate — has been an enthusiastic advocate of the death penalty for drug-related crimes.

It was under his watch that Bali Nine members Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were killed by firing squad in 2015.

"Just shoot them," Mr Widodo said of drug traffickers at a meeting of Indonesian mayors in 2017.

With record meth busts and thriving transnational crime, has South-East Asia's 'war on drugs' failed?

There has been a rise in reports about the escalating use of the prescription drug Tramadol, a synthetic opioid roughly one tenth as strong as morphine, in Africa. Much of the rhetoric echoes the situation in the United States – blaming an incipient ‘African opioid crisis’ for everything from psychosis to the rise of Boko Haram.

There is certainly some kind of crisis in Africa. While the world’s attention has been focused on the epidemic in the US, UN figures indicate that opioid seizures in Africa now actually account for 87 percent of the global total – with annual seizures in sub-Saharan Africa soaring from 300kg to three tons between 2013 and 2017.

African nations now stand at a pivotal crossroads in how to deal with this issue. In late 2018, Egypt formally moved to place Tramadol under international controls – with the same restrictions as morphine and other medical opioids. It is a move being considered by the UN.

Africa is going through an opioid crisis, but it's not what you think

Nurses are the unsung heroes of Canada’s health-care system. They know their patients well and often play vital roles communicating their needs and advocating for their care. When nurses speak, we should listen.

Today (August 8), B.C. nurses collectively raised their voice to urge B.C. to stop arresting people for the personal possession of illicit narcotics, including hard drugs like cocaine and heroin.

“[We] call on the B.C. government to take immediate steps to move toward the decriminalization of people who use drugs,” reads a statement issued by the Nurses and Nurse Practitioners of British Columbia (NNPBC), a professional organization with more than 3,800 members, and the Harm Reduction Nurses Association (HRNA), a national organization with members across Canada.

“As nurses who work in B.C. and provide frontline care in the midst of this public health emergency, we see firsthand the impact of criminalization on our clients, on their families, on our practice and our communities,” it continues.

“As nurses, we see decriminalization as an essential step to remove barriers to care and support, reduce stigma and discrimination, improve health and socioeconomic outcomes, and work toward a more just and compassionate society.”

Thousands of B.C. nurses call for the province to save lives by decriminalising drugs

This movie follows Sithu Min Than, a young man from Kachin State in Myanmar, struggling to recover with the help of opiate substitution treatment.

Sithu Min Than, a young man from Kachin State in Myanmar, began using heroin in college. After five unsuccessful attempts to quit, finally with the support of his family and methadone maintenance therapy, he is managing his habit. Now, he supports other people who use drugs, letting them know about services that are available and how to reduce their risk of harm.

Click here to see the video on DrugReporter.hu

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