People who work to keep drug users in Ottawa safe are harshly criticizing the Ontario government's decision to halt approvals of overdose prevention sites.

In a letter sent late Friday to local health integration networks and health units across the province, Roselle Martino, assistant deputy minister of the population and public health division, said the halting of the approval process was effective immediately.

The decision means that for now, the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care will not give the green light to new overdose prevention sites and is officially pausing the process for sites that are not open yet.

Overdose prevention sites (OPS) are temporary harm-reduction sites where the injection of drugs is supervised. They also allow drug users to access harm reduction supplies and dispose of used needles and other drug paraphenalia.

Some sites also offer supervised oral and intranasal drug consumption, as well as provide test strips to check drugs for fentanyl.

Decision to halt overdose prevention sites in Ontario 'horrifying,' advocates say

It’s Monday morning, a few days before the famously bacchanalian Pride weekend kicks off in the Netherlands' biggest city.

Thys Roes and his friends are planning to party, and to that end they have purchased a bag of ecstasy pills.

At least they think the little pink Hello Kitty-shaped pills are ecstasy.

So the filmmaker has made his way to Jellinek Preventie, a rehab centre in central Amsterdam that, among other things, operates a drug-checking service.

A counsellor scrapes a bit of the pill into a test tube and adds a liquid. It turns black.

Mr. Roes smiles, because it means the drug is, in fact, ecstasy (chemical name 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA).

The counsellor also examines the pill closely and searches a computer database for a match.

In Amsterdam, drug-checking centres make sure illegal substances are safe for users. Should Canada do it?

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.

Cannabis use can no longer be punished in Georgia, court rules

More than 17 countries permit the medicinal use of cannabis, but the UK is not one of them. Cases of children with severe epilepsy who have seen benefit with cannabinoid derivatives from the cannabis plant but cannot access the medication have reignited the debate over medicinal cannabis. The UK's legislative polices and intense bureaucracy over individual licensing are a source of inertia for clinicians and distress for patients. Part of the problem is the confusion between medicinal cannabis using the whole cannabis plant and cannabinoid derivatives, of which there are over 100.

Cannabinoids: just like any other medication?

A senior minister in Bermuda has said the territory could legally regulate the production and sale of cannabis for “recreational”, non-medical purposes. Michael Weeks, the Minister of Social Development in the North Atlantic island territory of Bermuda, said: “[Cannabis] legalisation is something that’s going to have to be talked about and may have to be sooner rather than later. There’s an almost worldwide trend. Right now, here, it is medical use, but some countries have legalised for recreational purposes.” Weeks added that the government was devising a report with various drug policy proposals. He said the Cabinet would consider the document in the coming weeks, and that it would be published by the end of the year.

Months after decriminalising cannabis, Bermuda mulls full legalisation

The Czech national drug coordinator, Jindřich Vobořil, recently made a series of striking proposals for the new Czech 2019-2027 drug strategy - including the legalisation and regulation of drugs as part of a wider pragmatic strategy for reducing drug related harms.

READ THE PRESS RELEASE FROM THE OFFICE ON THE NATIONAL DRUG COORDINATOR HERE

Vobořil’s proposals for the new strategy, still to be agreed by Government, seek to include responsible market regulation of drugs within a broader ‘harm reduction’ approach that emphasises public health, prevention and treatment. The proposals, include both addressing the harms of legal - but over commercialised - alcohol and tobacco markets, as well as addressing the harms of criminal drug markets under prohibition through an exploration of responsible legalisation and regulation.

Czech Drug Tsar calls for legalisation and regulation of drugs

This video is the result of the partnership between Dejusticia and Fensuagro with the support of the Coordination of Amazonian Andean Women and the Amazon Perla Peasant Reserve Zone. For more than a year and a half the groups worked on a joint investigation that would amplify the voices of women cultivating coca in this region, make visible the triple workday that they carry out every day, the responsibilities at home, the cultivation, and the community organization. This work collects the trajectories and personal experiences of the women, recognizes their leadership and community participation and above all the evidence that despite the difficult conditions they have built a territory where the Colombian State has been absent. This video is based on the book Voices from the Cocal.

Voices from the cocal - Women who build territory

A new study conducted in France reveals that those living with HIV and Hepatitis C co-infection who have a history of homelessness or injecting drug use, are often given less effective HCV medication.

This study is the first to assess the characteristics of people co-infected with HIV/HCV to examine who is being offered direct-acting antivirals (DAA) and who is being offered first-generation HCV treatment, composed of pegylated interferon (PEG-IFN) and ribavirin, which is less effective, takes longer to act and has significantly more side effects. As pharmaceutical companies continue to charge high prices for DAAs, many governments limit access to this medication.

Researchers enrolled 580 people living with HIV/HCV beginning HCV treatment between 2005 and 2016. During the study, health policy in France dictated that people with HCV were assessed for treatment on a case-by-case basis, although in May 2016 the government shifted its position to guarantee universal access to the medication.

Researchers found that, although the majority of people who use drugs received some form of HCV medication, only 40% were given DAA.

Overall, 45% on PEG-IFN had a history of drug use, compared to 30% of people on DAA. Those with a history of injecting drug use were significantly more likely to be given PEG-IFN than DAA, with 69% of people on PEG-IFN having injected drugs, compared to 39% of people on DAA.

Those who regularly used cannabis, something that is linked to relieving both opioid withdrawal symptoms and HIV/HCV-related symptoms, were also more likely to be offered PEG-IFN than DAA (24% versus 16%).

Homelessness and temporary living arrangements were also found to be associated with a lack of access to DAA, with the proportion of people living in unstable housing on PEG-IFN double that of the proportion on DAA (21% compared to 11%).

France: People who inject drugs often given cheaper, less effective, hepatitis C medication

The Asian Network of People who Use Drugs (ANPUD) launches a regional level short films competition to celebrate 10 years of it’s journey. The year 2018 marks the 10th anniversary of ANPUD. The film competition is first of its kind in the history of ANPUD.

The aim of the film competition is to advocate for and humanize the issues of people who use and inject drugs in the region through collaboration with innovative filmmakers, thereby creating enabling environment for them to enjoy equal rights, opportunities and access to life saving HIV prevention and harm reduction services.

This competition will create a platform for innovative filmmakers who wish to tell the stories of ground realities of systematically marginalized populations and serve the wider audience with truth and evidence.

The competition will accept applications from the filmmakers (including ANPUD members) around the world until 31 August 2018. However, the story of the short films has to reflect the realities of one of the Asian countries eligible for the event. The eligible countries are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. The competition has attractive awards and cash prizes. The best short film will receive US $2500 as cash prize. The competition is expected to end in December 2018

Asian countries have been experiencing a major regress with regards to the human rights of people who use and inject drugs. Since the declaration of a nation-wide war on drugs in the Philippines that has already resulted in over 20,000 killings of people suspected of using or selling drugs, other countries like Cambodia, Indonesia, Bangladesh and more recently Sri Lanka have commenced similar strategies. Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, China and other Southeast Asian continue to practice arrest and compulsory detention leading to ill treatment of people who use drugs.

“ANPUD believes that there is no way forward in the HIV and harm reduction movement without speaking up about the root of the problems – drug laws and policies that are unscientific, unjust and that contradict with human rights principles.” said Anand, the Regional Coordinator of ANPUD.

Therefore, in order to address the dire situation inflicted upon the lives of people who use drugs in the Asian region, ANPUD is calling filmmakers to submit their concept note focusing on one of the following three themes:

Negative impacts of war on drugs in your country.

Different forms of Human rights violations faced by people who use drugs.

Harm Reduction programs and policies save lives.

ANPUD Short Films Competition 2018 - #ChangePerspectives

The transition from the repressive alternative development initiatives conditioned on forced eradication of coca to a model grounded in the principles of inclusive citizenship and sustainable development has been a revolutionary process in Bolivia.

For the past 20 years, AIN’s Kathryn Ledebur has been studying the impact of coca cultivation and development efforts aimed at limiting coca cultivation in Bolivia. She has witnessed the change from the repressive and ineffectual alternative development initiatives conditioned on forced eradication to a model grounded in the principles of inclusive citizenship and sustainable development.

This past April, Ledebur participated in the Illicit Economies & Development Colloquium held in London, where she discussed the benefits of the Bolivian model for crop regulation and sustainable development.

Ledebur highlights the following points in a video published by IED :

Illicit crop cultivation is about poverty and people needing to feed their families.

Famers can diversify their sources of income once their basic needs are met and when they aren't under the threat of military intervention or losing their source of livelihood.

Famers need to be at the center of these policies and engaged and treated as citizens in a productive role with the state and international institutions.

Addressing the development implications of illicit economies

Southeast Asian authorities are not shy about doling out the death penalty to punish drug traffickers, and yet narcotics abuse has not abated. If anything, it is on the rise, which begs the question of whether the region’s war on drugs is working. The latest report on global trends from the United Nations shows that while Colombia remains the world’s top source of cocaine, Asia is now emerging as a hub for both transportation and consumption of the drug. In 2016 cocaine seizures tripled across the continent in the span of just a year, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said in its June report. But methamphetamine is making even bigger leaps in Southeast Asia because it is not as geographically restricted as cocaine, which depends on cultivation of the coca plant. Officials in countries around the Mekong region seized 65 tons of methamphetamine in tablet and crystalline form in 2017, the UNODC said in a separate report -- that is nearly 600 percent more than the amount seized a decade earlier.

Southeast Asia drug use persists despite death penalty

Austria has always had a unique role in international drug policy, being the host and the defender of the multilateral organizations that define drug control measures. This role is further enhanced as the country assumes the EU Council Presidency for the next six months, and thus bears the responsibility for coordinating and strengthening a single EU voice on this issue.

This is particularly important in light of the United Nations’ high-level meeting in March 2019 on drug policy, when the international community will convene in Vienna to review how every country has fought drugs in the past ten years, to examine what has worked and what has been a failure. With the steadily increasing prevalence of drug use, production and trafficking, we know that the international drug control system has failed to achieve any of its objectives. Many governments around the world know it as well, and are starting to introduce different drug policies, including the decriminalization of drug consumption, the provision of maintenance therapies to those heavily dependent on drugs, and as far as legally regulating some substances such as in Uruguay and Canada.

The meeting next March is a major milestone and offers a unique opportunity to change course. Rarely do the UN member states discuss in any depth the flaws of prohibition – not only its failure to curb supply and demand, but also its negative consequences on public health such as HIV and hepatitis transmission, on the lack of enjoyment of human rights due to police abuse and traffickers’ violence, and on the rule of law, with regard to the arbitrary nature of drug interventions, which mainly target the already vulnerable communities.

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