Malaysia's cabinet has agreed to abolish the death penalty and halt pending executions, a move that has been hailed by international human rights groups and foreign diplomats.

A proposed bill on abolishing capital punishment is likely to be discussed by the government when the Malaysian parliament meets on Monday.

"All death penalty will be abolished. Full stop," a Channel NewsAsia report cited Law Minister Liew Vui Keong as saying.

Keong called for a halt on all executions until the decision is in effect, saying: "Since we are abolishing the sentence, all executions should not be carried out."

"We will inform the Pardons Board to look into various applications for convicts on the [death penalty] waiting list to either be commuted or released," he said.

Communications and Multimedia Minister Gobind Singh Deo confirmed that the cabinet, which met on Wednesday, had resolved to end the death penalty.

"I hope the law will be amended soon," he told AFP news agency.

More than 1,200 people are on death row in Malaysia, which mandates hanging as punishment for a wide range of crimes including murder, kidnapping, drug trafficking and treason, among others.

Malaysia to abolish death penalty

The Green Party is pushing for drug-checking to be legalised in time for the festival season this summer, following last summer where 21 per cent of pills were not what festival-goers thought they were.

Non-profit group Know Your Stuff NZ has covertly carried out testing of Ecstasy, MDMA and other drugs at music festivals for the last three summers.

The group's data from last summer's festival season found that 21 per cent of tested pills were not what people thought they were, and sometimes contain dangerous substances.

But Know Your Stuff NZ operates in what it calls a legal grey area, and has been lobbying for the Misuse of Drugs Act to be amended to legalise its service.

Section 12 of the Act makes it a criminal offence to knowingly permit a venue to be used for drug consumption; the presence of pill-testing at events effectively means the event organisers know that people use drugs there.

Green Party drug-reform spokeswoman Chloe Swarbrick said Know Your Stuff NZ helped people avoid unnecessary tragedy, "with unknown users ingesting unknown substances, at times costing emergency health sector resources, at worst costing lives".

Making the service legal was common-sense, as festival-goers are unlikely to stop taking drugs, she said.

"When a dangerous or deadly chemical comes up, Know Your Stuff is currently unable to notify the public because of the [Misuse of Drugs Act]. They're also unable to effectively let festival-goers know they are on site."

Health Minister David Clark has asked Government officials for advice on the matter. But even if Labour supported the move, they would need the support of National or New Zealand First to amend the law.

New Zealand's Green party wants drug checking legalised before summer festivals

Are you passionate about global drug policy? IDPC is looking for a dynamic and motivated new volunteer to support our communications work!

The selected candidate will help us enhance IDPC’s visibility by helping our communications work, and providing some research and administrative support to our small team of advocates. Ideally, the volunteer would commit to work at IDPC for a minimum period of three months (either part- or full-time, depending on the person's availability). For more information about the position, have a look at the full description below.

If you are interested in volunteering for us, please 

to Juan Fernandez Ochoa at jfernandez@idpc.net. Please note that we can only welcome volunteers who have the right to volunteer in the UK.

IDPC does not currently have the capacity to pay its volunteers. However, we will reimburse travel costs and lunch expenses incurred during the volunteer’s working days.

IDPC recruits new communications volunteer

Marijuana arrests are rising in the U.S., even as more states legalize cannabis. There is now an average of one marijuana bust roughly every 48 seconds, according to a new FBI report released on Monday.

The increase in marijuana arrests —659,700 in 2017, compared to 653,249 in 2016—is driven by enforcement against people merely possessing the drug as opposed to selling or growing it, the data shows.

Last year, there were 599,282 marijuana possession arrests in the country, up from 587,516 in 2016. Meanwhile, busts for cannabis sales and manufacturing dropped, from 65,734 in 2016 to 60,418 in 2017.

Marijuana arrests are increasing despite legalization, new FBI data shows

In preparation for the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on the world drug problem, the Civil Society Task Force (CSTF) carried out a web-based Global Civil Society Survey in 2015 which was answered by more than 800 organisations from all around the globe. This supplemented a series of regional and thematic consultations held by the CSTF members, and enabled the formation of “CSTF Findings” that were presented to governments and policy makers in New York.

In preparation for the 2019 High-Level Ministerial Segment of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, the CSTF is 

launching an online global civil society consultation

. The consultation takes the form of an online survey and has been

 translated into all six official UN languages

 (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish) for completion by civil society stakeholders around the world.

Participate in the consultation and fill out the survey by 31 October 2018 4 November 2018 (Midnight - EST)

Your input is incredibly valuable to our work and we thank you for your contributions.

Please share the consultation as widely as you can. If you have any questions or need assistance with answering the survey please don't hesitate to contact your regions CSTF representative!

CSTF Global Civil Society Consultation 2018

ANPUD statement CND Intersessional Meeting in September 2018

On behalf of the Asian Network of People who Use Drugs (ANPUD), I would like to thank the Chair of this CND intersessional meeting and everyone present in the room for this opportunity to contribute by presenting the perspectives of people who use drugs – the people who are most affected by the decisions made here.

we call for immediate end of the unlawful war on drugs approach opted by the countries like Philippines, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Indonesia

 that has resulted in brutal killings of thousands of people suspected of using or selling drugs, where a culture of impunity is promoted and tens of thousands of people are being incarcerated without any fair trial. We are also concerned by the fact that 

our community members continue to be detained in the name of “drug treatment” inside compulsory detention centers and private rehabs where their fundamental rights are being violated on a daily basis.


Between 2008 and 2013, numerous UN agencies and community & civil society organizations had called for immediate closure of compulsory detention centers for drug users in the countries in Southeast Asia. In spite of commitments of some country governments to transition these detentions into a voluntary community-based treatment, the number of facilities and detained people continue to remain high in Southeast Asia. The Philippines government pursued building a mega rehab with the capacity to detain 10,000 people, despite their in-country experts calling it an impractical mistake. 

In 2014, over 450,000 people were detained in 948 facilities in only seven countries of the region.

Similarly, numerous private treatment centers commonly known as rehabs continue to operate with little to no supervision by the states in South Asia region. These rehabs are compulsory and labor intensive camps that are mostly run by untrained staffs. 

A study in Nepal found that these rehabs are programmed to torture drug users in the name of “Therapeutic Treatment”. These rehabs were found engaging in illegal activities like organized kidnapping and detention of drug users leading to further corruption and exploitation.

 Every year many people die due to the torture and lack of timely access to health services inside these private rehabs, yet they go unreported.

UNODC estimates that only around 11% of the total number of people who use drugs worldwide experience drug dependence and may need treatment. However, current treatment model seems to generalize that all drug users need treatment. If the treatment was for Alcohol drinkers, then it simply suggests that, “All Alcohol drinkers will be found lying in a gutter”. 

The goal of current treatment model to achieve total abstinence by detaining people under inhumane and degrading conditions is flawed. Such goal incites violation of human rights and has resulted in overdose cases after release.

If someone told you that “You are a weak person”, you would probably respond with aggression or let it go easily. If more people in your life repeatedly described you as weak person for over a period of time, you may start losing your confidence and gradually feel weak. Can you imagine how a person inside the treatment would feel having to deal everyday with the discriminative labels like addict, social evil, mentally ill person and criminal. How do we even expect them to get empowered when they are forced to believe that they are useless junks that deserve hate, torture and punishment? Many studies have evidently shown that labeling a person discriminatively is directly associated with violence and harmful use of substances.

The compulsory detention centers and private rehabs in South and Southeast Asia are detaining drug users because “Treatment” has become a lucrative business in the disguise of noble social work.

We use drugs by our own choice and preferences. We decided to use for many reasons and the decision will be ours if we ever wanted to quit. It must happen organically and never by force. Pitying and humiliating us for our decision to use will never work. It will only delay our decision-making process to either use responsibly or quit organically.

The goal of dependence treatment should be to reduce drug-use related harms by empowering people to make informed decisions about their drug use through methods that respect their human rights and dignity.

It can be safely said that, as a young person or a teenager, almost everyone breaks some rules or does things that are illegal. May it be one puff of cigarette at minor age or a puff of Marijuana or a fight we picked or violating others privacy, all of us have done something that could have put us into trouble. Many of you were lucky enough to get past it without facing any criminal sanctions or were fortunate enough to have a family that supported you in that phase of your life. Because you got lucky, you have a job that has given you the power to decide over the lives of people who were not as lucky. This is how we are different than you. The only fault of our community members – that were not as lucky as many of you here. It could have so easily been one of you suffering inside those detentions and prisons.

Almost 60 years ago, the journey to solve the world drug problem started by abandoning the solution – which is legal regulation of demand and supply of drugs. 

We have a misconception that legal regulation of drugs means drugs would become free for all. What we do not realize is that by prohibition and criminalization governments have voluntarily handed over entire drugs market to the illicit world and ensured that drugs are free for all.

Today, we live in this dark world where thousands of kinds of drugs are widely available more than ever before. We have no idea about who are affiliated, how they operate, which routes are being used, and who are the end-users. Drugs are available for anyone and everyone who wishes to use them. Now, imagine what would happen if we would turn on the lights and end darkness. We would be able to keep track of everything, regulate demand and divert current illicit drug market revenue to the national budget. This act of 

 is legal regulation of drugs. We need to have an independent evaluation of current drug laws and policies and welcome reforms that protect human rights and that are based on evidence.

Governments and policy makers should meaningfully engage people who use drugs and avail the experience and expertise that our communities have to offer. This is no time to name, shame or blame.

We work because the world will always be full of drugs

 and therefore, no one – not even you, your children and grand children, as a result of their drug use – would have to suffer the torture, humiliations, discrimination, social exclusion and preventable deaths that thousands of our community members have endured.



No human and living beings deserve the pain and sufferings inflicted upon us.



People do not lose their human rights simply because they use or sell drugs.

“The real problem in disguise": Drug dependence treatment models

South Africa’s highest court has decriminalised the private possession and cultivation of cannabis for personal use.

The Constitutional Court ruled that prohibiting such activities within an individual's home is a violation of the right to privacy. The Court acknowledged the lack of evidence that criminalisation reduces cannabis use, and accepted data from medical studies demonstrating that alcohol is more dangerous than cannabis, according to local publication 

Public cannabis use, and private or public use by minors, remain illegal.

The Court chose not to define a threshold quantity for possessing or cultivating cannabis for “personal use”, with Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo stating that this is a decision that should be made by Parliament. Until then, Zondo said, individual police officers must make decisions on a case-by-case basis; if the quantity discovered exceeds the officer’s perception of “personal”, the person in possession can be arrested. This potentially creates a loophole through which people may continue to face arrest for cannabis possession despite the ruling.

The Court ruled that existing legislation prohibiting the personal possession, use, and cultivation of cannabis is invalid, effective immediately. The Court issued the government with 24 months to “correct the defect” legislatively, 

South Africa decriminalises personal cannabis use and cultivation

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 : We should review Lukman death penalty for medical marijuana in Malaysia

The presence of sniffer dogs at music festivals is almost completely ineffective at persuading revellers to abstain from drugs and could place them at greater risk of harm, according to new research that comes after the death of two people at a Sydney dance music festival.

While the New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, faces criticism for again ruling out pill testing, instead vowing to ban the Defqon.1 festival, the paper by researchers Jodie Grigg, Monica Barratt and Simon Lenton brings the effectiveness of the government’s hardline stance into question.

In an anonymous survey of nearly 2,000 festival-goers, the researchers found “almost all … surveyed did not report being deterred from drug usage by the expected presence of drug dogs”.

“Of those who expected dogs to be present at their last festival (647 people), only 4% reported that this threat led them to decide not to take drugs,” the researchers said.

Instead, those surveyed were more likely to better conceal their stash (48%), ask someone else to carry their drugs (15%), or buy substances inside the festival (11%).

Defqon.1 deaths: Sniffer dogs don't deter revellers from drug use, researchers find

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."

Overwhelming evidence shows hepatitis C treatment effective for people who inject drugs

There was a time when we expected that the end of aggressive American interventionism would open the gates to drug policy reform. We are now at the dawning of a new multipolar world order, but it is not only the spirit of reform that has been released from the bottle

I remember when I was invited to a meeting organised by the US government in Budapest in 2004, just a few months after I got a job at the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union to lead its drug policy program. The world was different then. A few years after 9/11, at the height of the war on terror and the war on drugs, the Bush administration behaved like the policeman of the world. Its actions were led by an arrogant neoconservative ideology, and a strong belief that American policies must be exported to other parts of the world, including Hungary. The meeting was a weird PR event, promoting the abstinence-based, zero-tolerance, US-style approach to drug policy that was dominating the global arena, including the UN drug forums and agencies. It was an eye-opening experience for me.

I came to believe that the greatest obstacle to drug policy reform was the USA’s dominance in drug policies, including the three UN drug control treaties (1961, 71, 88), forged by American narco-diplomacy. What we needed was more freedom for member states to move away from rigid compliance with these treaties, allowing governments to experiment with new policies and stopping the US from forcing its policies on other countries. People had to take back control from supranational bureaucrats and technocrats to pursue their own drug policies, protecting national sovereignty from international pressure.

Fourteen years later, I am wondering what could have changed more: America or the world around it. The war on drugs, although far from over, has lost its appeal to the American people. More and more US states are deciding to legalise marijuana, a move unimaginable back in 2004. The US is no longer the world’s policeman, on the contrary, it seems to be submerging itself in isolationism. The American hegemony is waning, its strong leadership in international processes, including the UN, is of the past. Multilateralism is decaying and international treaties and mechanisms are losing ground. Many emerging new powers are challenging the old system and the world is becoming a multipolar place, with growing emphasis on national sovereignty

Drug policy reform in the post-American world order

More than 11 Canadians are dying every day on average because of opioids, according to new data from the federal government.

“The crisis is not abating,” Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, said in an interview on Tuesday.

Canada is the world’s second highest per-capita consumer of opioids, after the United States, which has led to widespread misuse, dependence and addiction.

The report released on Tuesday from a special federal advisory committee shows that 1,036 people died from causes related to using opioids, mainly overdoses, from January to March. That brings the total number to more than 8,000 since the start of 2016. Most of the deaths were ruled to be unintentional.

The powerful painkiller fentanyl was involved in more than 70 per cent of the deaths, the report said. The rate of death is up 5 per cent from the same time period last year, and 44 per cent compared with the same time in 2016.

Prescription and illicit fentanyl were linked to 73 per cent of the deaths from January to March, an increase of 16 per cent from the same period last year and double the rate in 2016.