Naomi Burke-Shyne became executive director of Harm Reduction International in September 2018 – a few months before she had to oversee the organising of the largest harm reduction conference on earth. Read our interview below!

I am sure you have attended many harm reduction conferences before but this was the first one you attended as the lead organiser. How was this experience for you? Any lessons learnt?

: The conference (HR19) was a reminder of how inspiring and resilient the global movements for harm reduction, human rights, and drug policy reform are. It is unique to be able to bring together community leaders, healthcare providers, scientists, human rights lawyers, researchers, and activists from around the world.
Our community faces ongoing – and significant – opposition to their everyday work for rights-based, health-based approaches to drug use. The conference is a useful space to remind us of both the pockets of success and the urgency of our work.
We learned plenty of lessons at HR19, and will always strive to improve and ensure the Harm Reduction International Conference is impactful for attendees and local advocacy. Our conference partner this year, APDES, was successful in securing increased national and local political support for harm reduction, particularly with the Mayor of Porto committing in his opening ceremony speech to opening a drug consumption room.
Outside of the domestic, the Portuguese government announced an increase in their pledge to the Global Fund at HR19. We hope that future conferences are able to provide moments like this and bring together years of hard work for harm reduction.

 a decade of growth, funding and support for harm reduction seems to be stagnating or declining in most parts of the world. Why do you think people with power still resist harm reduction so much?

I was shocked by our research findings last year, that there is a nearly 90% gap in funding for harm reduction in low- and middle-income countries. The fact that this funding has stagnated over the past decade, when there is overwhelming evidence of the public health and societal benefits of investing in harm reduction, is nothing short of disgraceful.
I can only hypothesise why political leaders remain resistant to supporting health and social services for people who use drugs, and it certainly varies between countries. An overarching reason is likely to be that harm reduction is still incorrectly seen as controversial. Few leaders are willing to be bold and admit past policy failures, even when faced with evidence that investing in harm reduction would bring innumerable benefits to their communities. It remains politically expedient to continue demonising and criminalising people who use drugs.

“It is politically expedient to demonise drug users” – An interview with Naomi Burke-Shyne

Billions are spent by governments to curb the spread of drugs around the world.

The Global Commission on Drug Policy (GCDP) report, illegal drugs including cocaine, heroin and cannabis should be reclassified to reflect a scientific assessment of harm.

The GCDP has condemned the way in which drugs are scheduled is criminalising the poor.

To discuss the report, Bongani Bingwa chats to United Nations Vienna NGO Committee on Narcotic Drugs deputy-secretary Shaun Shelly.

"The classification of illegal drugs is based on politics"

LONDON [27 JUNE 2019] – Harm Reduction International and almost 120 human rights organisations from around the world – including Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists – published open letters today calling on the United Nations’ major drug control bodies to intervene and help stop Sri Lanka’s move to resume executions after 43 years.

President Maithripala Sirisena signed the execution warrants this week for four people convicted of drug-related offences.

The letters – sent to the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) and UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) – underscore that the death penalty for drug offences violates international human rights law. The signatories state that “Remaining silent as Sri Lanka puts an end to a 43-year de facto moratorium on executions would strike a blow to the INCB’s and UNODC’s commitments to human rights compliance as a core principle of international drug policy.”

Giada Girelli, human rights analyst at Harm Reduction International, said: “There is simply no evidence that the death penalty is an effective deterrent against the drug trade. President Sirisena’s move is a gross violation of human rights – UN bodies must urge authorities in Sri Lanka to reverse this and work to consign the death penalty to the history books.”

Harm Reduction International’s latest research shows that global executions for drug offences fell by almost 90% from 2015-18, in large part because of judicial reforms in Iran. Of the 35 countries that retain the death penalty for drug offences, only four carried out executions in 2018 (China, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Singapore).

Over 100 human rights groups urge UN to demand Sri Lanka halt executions of drug offenders

The Swiss government aims to make it easier for patients to get medical marijuana, proposing on Wednesday to allow prescriptions for cannabis to treat people suffering from cancer or other serious conditions.

The proposal, separate from a Swiss government push to allow some cities to experiment with recreational marijuana, would replace the current system, in which those seeking medical cannabis must apply for an exception from the Federal Health Office to get what is otherwise an illegal drug.

Marijuana is sometimes used to help cancer patients manage chronic pain, to help boost their appetites, and to reduce spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis.

“The proposal makes it possible for doctors to directly prescribe cannabis as part of their treatment,” the Swiss cabinet said in a statement.

“Growing and processing medical cannabis as well as its sale would then be possible under a system regulated” by Swissmedic, the country’s drug regulatory agency.

Switzerland aims to legalise medical marijuana

Colombia’s President Ivan Duque has said security forces will resume the aerial fumigation of coca “within weeks”, with the defense minister adding that the banned substance glyphosate will probably be used.

Whether the plans announced by the president and Defense Minister Guillermo Botero are legal is disputable; the Constitutional Court suspended the practice of aerial fumigation using glyphosate until the government could convince the court otherwise.

So far, this has not happened, but Duque is under pressure from the US, whose President Donald Trump has threatened to decertify Colombia as a cooperative country in the US war on drugs.

Both the US government and the Duque administration have been reluctant to execute a crop substitution and rural development program that was agreed as part of a peace process with some 100,000 coca farmers and is widely considered more effective.

The president told the Guardian that he was considering tougher measures against coca cultivation, not to please any other countries, but it was his country’s “moral responsibility to act.”

Colombia to resume aerial fumigation of coca, says Duque. With glyphosate, defence minister adds

UN human rights experts called on the United Nations to establish an independent investigation into human rights violations in the Philippines, citing a sharp deterioration in the situation of human rights across the country, including sustained attacks on people and institutions defending human rights.

“Given the scale and seriousness of the reported human rights violations we call on the Human Rights Council to establish an independent investigation into the human rights violations in the Philippines,” said the independent experts, referring to the body made up of 47 UN Member States elected by the UN General Assembly.

“We have recorded a staggering number of unlawful deaths and police killings in the context of the so-called war on drugs, as well as killings of human rights defenders. Very few independent and effective investigations have taken place, independent media and journalists are threatened, the law has been weaponised to undermine press freedom, and the independence of the judiciary is undermined,” the experts said.

“We are extremely concerned over the high number of killings which are being carried out across the country in an apparent climate of official, institutional impunity.

“In the past three years, we have repeatedly brought to the attention of the Government cases alleging a range of gross human rights violations, such as extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, including of children, persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, trade union and land right activists. Those cases also included allegations of arbitrary detention, torture or inhuman or degrading treatment, gender-based violence against women human rights defenders, attacks against the independence of judges and lawyers, freedoms of expression and of assembly, as well as people’s right to food and health. Sadly these cases are just the tip of the iceberg with many more cases being reported regularly.

“It is time for the Human Rights Council to take action against these sustained attacks on human rights defenders and independent watchdog institutions,” the experts said.

UN human rights experts call for independent probe into Philippines violations

Canada needs a safe drug supply to reduce the number of overdose deaths, drug policy experts told a public forum Wednesday night in Vancouver that centred on whether Ottawa should legally regulate the use of illicit drugs.

Zara Snapp, who is the co-founder of Instituto RIA in Mexico, researches solutions to drug policy issues including how to curb the number of opioid overdose-related deaths.

"Now we're falling behind because we are using techniques that we had from 20 years ago and we need to advance," Snapp said.

She said the Canadian government could take control of the illicit drug supply.

"That's where really the conversation around safe supply is so important and how the government could provide the policy interventions that organizations, and local and provincial governments need in order to open up safe supply sites."

Snapp said medical-grade heroin is already being produced in Europe and suggests Mexico could be a source of opium for legal use in other countries in the future once policies are changed.

'Safe supply' at heart of regulating illicit drug use, say experts in Canada

Although President Rodrigo Duterte's name was not on the ballot in the May 13 midterm elections in the Philippines, the vote served as a referendum on his disruptive and unorthodox leadership.

Over the past three years, the controversial Filipino leader has defied practically every political convention and general public decorum. To the utter shock of even his closest aides, he has insulted the Catholic faith, cussed at American leaders, openly embraced China as a "friend", and unleashed a scorched-earth drug war that has claimed the lives of thousands of people.

The democratic opposition sought to leverage the elections to check Duterte's worst instincts. Instead, they suffered their greatest electoral defeat in recent history, setting the stage for an imperial presidency with potentially dire consequences for Philippine democracy.

Duterte's allies won a significant part of the 18,000 elected offices up for grabs in municipal, city, provincial and legislative races across the country. Most crucially, they secured a supermajority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The Philippines' Duterte: In pursuit of an imperial presidency

Ministers in Luxembourg have outlined proposals for the country’s upcoming legalisation of “recreational” cannabis.

The justice minister Félix Braz and health minister Etienne Schneider have elaborated on the government’s plans to legalise the production, sale, and use of cannabis for recreational purposes – after the move was announced last November.

After returning from a research trip to Canada - where cannabis has been legal since October 2018 – the ministers stated that Luxembourg will permit adults aged 18 and over to possess up to 30 grams of cannabis while in public. Minors aged between 12 and 17 will not be criminalised for possessing up to five grams of the drug, they said, but the ministers did not specify what consequences they may face.

The government also intends to introduce strict regulations on the sale of cannabis. The THC content of cannabis will have an upper limit, which has yet to be fixed, and people who sell cannabis outside of the legal framework will face harsh punishments - "even harsher penalties than now", according to reports.

Luxembourg unveils proposals for cannabis legalisation law

Ask any Cambodian about the key issues facing their country and chances are that crime will be near the top of the list. But on nearly all counts, the country’s justice system is failing.

According to the National Police, 2,969 crimes were committed last year, up from 2,817 in 2017. The number stands in contrast to the nation’s bulging prison population, however.

In November, Interior Minister Sar Kheng revealed that there were 31,008 inmates in Cambodia’s 28 prisons, of which almost 72% were being held in pre-trial detention.

That means there are roughly 190 prisoners per every 100,000 people, a bigger proportion than in most other Southeast Asian nations, and higher as a percentage than even authoritarian China.

The prison population has ballooned in recent years after the government launched in 2017 an anti-drug crackdown, similar in tone but not atrocity to the one Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has championed. As a result, the number of inmates rose by 30% in 2017 alone, mostly for drug-related offenses.

The injustice of Cambodian justice

Earlier this month US and Afghan forces bombed 68 drugs labs in South-western Afghanistan, claiming that they caused the Taliban losses of over $1 million per day. 

write that not only have the effects of these strikes been exaggerated, their promotion obscures a new reality on the ground: a dramatic growth in the methamphetamine industry in Afghanistan, fuelled by a ready supply of a home grown ephedra crop.

It’s an old saying that the definition of madness is to do the same thing again and again and expect a different result. Yet this is what the United States Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A) and their counterpart the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces (ANDSF) did on 6 May 2019 when they bombed 68 drugs labs in Southwestern Afghanistan. They even repeated the madness of grossly exaggerating the scale of financial losses these raids caused the Taliban, claiming losses of $1 million per day.

This latest raid on drugs labs in Afghanistan follows a year-long campaign that USFOR-A claimed destroyed 200 labs and denied $46 million to the Taliban in revenue. The campaign all but ceased in September 2018 after being subject to considerable criticism for its exaggerated estimates of the amount of drugs destroyed and the values denied to both drug traffickers and the Taliban. In striking inactive labs and misunderstanding the taxation system that operates in these areas, the campaign had a negligible effect on revenues and proved a poor use of resources.

New US airstrikes obscure a dramatic development in the Afghan drugs industry – the proliferation of low cost methamphetamine 

Bree Cassell first injected heroin when she was 15 years old. Despite wanting to do so, she was so scared of the needle that it took two men to hold her thrashing body down, and a third to inject the drug into her vein.

Now 26, Cassell frequents a syringe exchange program in Wilmington, North Carolina, for sterile injection equipment, overdose prevention supplies, and friendly faces.

The small exchange—just a whitewashed room in an aging strip mall—doesn’t boast much. But the two women who run the exchange, Becca Lilly and Bernadette Calicchio, have done their best to make it welcoming and comfortable to people who seek refuge there.

Bright Christmas lights deck the walls and old tables are draped in cheerfully-patterned cloths. The exchange offers free clothing, food and toiletries. On one desk a collection of greeting cards is marked, “Write a card to someone you love. We’ll provide the stamp and mail it.”

In late April I visited the exchange for its inaugural Women’s Day, a Friday afternoon where only women could visit the program. The ladies had decked a long table with snacks and party favors, wrapped in pink crepe paper, to welcome their guests.

While we waited for people to show up, I sat down with Cassell and Lilly to learn about their experiences with drug use. Both were introduced to IV heroin, at 15 and 16 years old respectively, by male friends. Both have engaged in sex work to buy drugs at the request of male partners. Both have experienced the difficulty of finding affordable drug treatment programs for women.

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