In 2014, the debilitating effects of punitive drug laws across West Africa triggered an urgent need for reforms grounded on human rights and public health. This call for reform was timely as the precarious situation threatened good governance, peace and stability, economic growth and public health in West Africa, a region that is still emerging from decades of violent conflict and economic instability.

The West Africa Commission on Drugs (WACD), in its 2014 report titled, 

Not Just in Transit: Drugs, the State and Society in West Africa

, openly called for the decriminalisation of drug use and possession for personal use. The report provided evidence to show that criminalisation of drug use worsens health and social problems, puts undue pressure on the criminal justice system and fosters corruption.

The 2016 United Nations General Assemblies Session (UNGASS) provided an opportunity for various stakeholders to evaluate and adjust their current drug policies to ensure that it responds to national and regional realities. Before the UNGASS, the West Africa Drug Policy Network (WADPN) supported by the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI) and Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) organised national and regional multi-sectoral forums to facilitate a candid discourse on drug policy in West Africa.

Keep up-to-date with drug policy developments by subscribing to the IDPC Monthly Alert.

West Africa reform agenda looks to decriminalise drug use

China and the United States rarely agree. Whereas the U.S. has threatened to bomb North Korea, China considers the hermit kingdom a troublesome but worthwhile ally. The U.S. has tried to outmaneuverChinese warships in the East and South China Seas to thwart the expansionist ambitions of East Asia’s largest country; China has launched countless cyberattacks on the U.S., which has long armed Taiwan, the Chinese province turned sovereign state. When the U.S. criticized China for abusing human rights, China rebranded the War on Terror as a way to extinguish activism and secessionism among Muslims in Xinjiang. Tibetans, who inhabit another province with a secessionist history, have many friends in the United States. It may surprise many observers of the Sino–American relations to read, then, that China and the U.S. have a mutual interests in pursuing the War on Drugs, a controversial American enterprise.

“The competition between the U.S. and China doesn’t mean there can’t be cooperation on combating opiates and opioids,” noted Jeffrey Higgins, a former supervisory special agent in the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

“China has a growing drug problem, despite its draconian drug laws. This gives China a compelling interest in collaborating with any country to combat drugs.”

China-US cooperation and the new opium war

The Upper House has approved a bill to amend the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law of 1993 that would effectively decriminalise drug use in Burma.

According to the legislation as amended, drug users would no longer be punished with often-lengthy jail sentences and would be required to perform community service instead. The Ministry of Home Affairs has said it will tackle issues of narcotics use and addiction in accordance with whatever terms the amended law ultimately stipulates, should it see passage through both houses of Parliament.

“It has been approved [by the Upper House] that offences under the law have been changed to community service. The amended law is the most suitable one, since MPs and experts have contributed to the comprehensiveness of it,” said Major-General Aung Soe, the deputy minister for Home Affairs. “In the implementation of every law, there may be both strengths and weaknesses. We [the Ministry of Home Affairs] will undertake enforcement measures as stipulated by the law.”

Upper House moves to decriminalise some drug offences in Myanmar

Malaysia is set to repeal legislation that imposes a mandatory death penalty for people who sell drugs, despite most of its neighbouring countries implementing increasingly brutal drug policies.

On August 8, Minister Azalina Othman Said tweeted to corroborate a story in the press: Malaysia’s cabinet had "agreed to amend the colonial-era Dangerous Drugs Act of 1952 to give courts a choice in sentencing". Under current legislation, anyone found guilty of trafficking drugs faces a mandatory death penalty; the planned reform would give judges discretion in sentencing. While the proposed amendment has support from the cabinet, it must first be tabled in the parliament, which is expected to pass it in October, The Australian reports.

As TalkingDrugs reported in 2016, Malaysia seems to have placed a “secret moratorium” on the execution of people for drug offences for several years. Despite executing 229 people for drug offences between 1983 and 2013, Malaysia is not believed to have executed anyone for such an offence since then. Numerous people have, however, been 

to death for drug trafficking, but the executions have not taken place.

Malaysia’s planned drug reform highlights divide in SE Asia's drug war approach

On Friday 14th July, the Government published its new Drug Strategy: ‘2017 Drug Strategy’. The previous drug strategy, published in 2010, was heavily criticised for its almost exclusive focus on abstinence, and total de-prioritisation of harm reduction initiatives.

This briefing, endorsed by eight of the UK’s leading harm reduction and drug treatment organisations, looks at whether the focus on harm reduction has improved under the new strategy, and discusses challenges in the funding environment which will have a disproportionate impact on harm reduction services.

Still no harm reduction? A critical review of the UK government’s new drug strategy

One of the main targets in the war on drugs could well become a drug to treat the scars of war. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has designated 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), better known as the illegal drug ecstasy, a "breakthrough therapy" for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a status that may lead to faster approval.

The agency has also approved the design for two phase III studies of MDMA for PTSD that would be funded by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), a nonprofit in Santa Cruz, California. MAPS announced the "breakthrough therapy" designation, made by FDA on 16 August, on its website today; if the group can find the money for the trials, which together could cost an estimated $25 million, they may start next spring and finish by 2021.

That an illegal dancefloor drug could become a promising pharmaceutical is another indication that the efforts of a dedicated group of researchers interested in the medicinal properties of mind-altering drugs is paying dividends. Stringent drug laws have stymied research on these compounds for decades. "This is not a big scientific step," says David Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacologist at Imperial College London. "It’s been obvious for 40 years that these drugs are medicines. But it’s a huge step in acceptance."

All clear for the decisive trial of ecstasy in PTSD patients

This was the stark message written across dozens of protest signs held aloft by drug users and their allies at the opening ceremony of Harm Reduction International’s 25th Conference in Montreal in May. The target for the message was Canadian Minister of Heath, Dr Jane Philpott, who was a keynote speaker at our event. With almost 2,500 recorded deaths in Canada in 2016 linked to overdose - afigure thought to be conservative given existing gaps in data - the protesters called on the Minister to declare a national public health emergency that would enable swift action to save lives. Indeed the Canadian overdose crisis is escalating in intensity, with estimates that the province of British Columbia alone might see 1,400 overdose deaths in 2017. Nationwide, overdose deaths have jumped 327% since 2008. With the memories and pain of lost friends and loved ones so close to the surface, the outpouring of grief, anger and demand for action at our conference opening was understandable, and set the tone for the following three days.

The overdose crisis is not solely a Canadian phenomenon. In the United States, the rate of fatal drug overdose has increased by 137% since 2000, with more people now dying from drug overdoses than from road traffic accidents or - shockingly - firearms incidents. Here in the UK the alarm bells are also sounding. Deaths involving heroin and morphine increased by 109% in the England and Wales between 2012 and 2016. Last year, there were 3,744 drug-related deaths in the UK, the highest since records began in 1993.

International Overdose Awareness Day reminds us that silence still equals death

The following video provides a quick overview of the 2017 S

A Drug Policy Week: Human Rights, Health & Reducing Harm

, an international drug policy forum held on 31 July - 4 August in Cape Town.

Jamie Bridge (IDPC) gave a presentation on "International Drug Policy: The Next Steps and Why Africa Needs to Engage".

To access all videoed presentations, please click here.

Keep up-to-date with drug policy developments by subscribing to the IDPC Monthly Alert.

SA Drug Policy Week 2017

Amnesty International has condemned what it described as an alarming number of police killings of suspected drug dealers in Indonesia.

The rights group said on Wednesday that police had killed at least 60 suspects this year, compared to 18 in all of 2016.

The group warned that Indonesian authorities could be looking to emulate the "war on drugs" in the Philippines, in which thousands have been killed.

"This shocking escalation in unlawful killings by the police sounds serious alarms bells," said Usman Hamid, Amnesty's Indonesia director.

Amnesty sounds alarm as Indonesia slays drug suspects

The crisis over the US addiction to painkillers - opioids - is a national emergency, says President Donald Trump.

"It's an emergency, it's a national emergency. We are going to spend a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money on the opioid crisis," he said.

The number of deaths from the drugs - prescribed to a third of Americans in 2015 - has quadrupled in 20 years.

Declaring a national emergency means the issue can get prioritised funding and resources from Washington.

Trump declares US opioid pain drugs national emergency

In the framework of the COPOLAD Programme, the Costa Rican authorities from the Instituto Costarricense sobre Drogas (ICD) and the Judiciary, together with the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies (FIIAPP) and the Executive Secretary of Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD/OAS), hold the 1st Bi-regional Meeting for the exchange of best practices. “Drugs Policy and Criminal Justice Reforms: Alternatives to prison for drug-related offences” in San Jose, Costa Rica, from June 27th to 29th.

The second phase of the Cooperation Programme between Latin America, the Caribbean and the European Union on Drugs Policies (COPOLAD II), financed by the European Commission, has among its priority objectives to carry out bi-regional exchanges of best practices that enrich the institutional relations between the participating countries and contribute to a greater dialogue and harmonization of drugs policies between the countries of the European Union (EU), Latin America and the Caribbean (CELAC).

Under this general objective, the 1st Bi-regional Meeting for the exchange of best practices aims to:

Review the available evidence in the area of criminal reforms related to drug offences,

Identify encouraging experiences and to share lessons learned in both regions (EU and CELAC).

120 representatives from 40 countries (9 from the European Union, 17 from Latin-America and 14 from the Caribbean), one European Agency (EMCDDA), two multilateral agencies (CICAD-OAS and UNDCP) and three bi-regional networks (AIAMP, IDPC and RIOD) will contribute to defining the main progress achieved and the challenges that remain to be faced in the short and medium term.

Thumbnail Flickr CC José Eugenio Gómez Rodríguez

Costa Rica hosts meeting about best practices on alternatives to prison for drug-related offences

One-fifth of Hong Kong’s prison population is female, the highest proportion of any major country in the world. Activists say local laws are stacked against women, in particular foreign women.

The gleaming skyscrapers of Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour hide a troubling statistic. A little over 20 percent of the Hong Kong’s prison population are women – a higher proportion than any major nation in the world, according to the latest data compiled by the Institute Centre for Prison Studies (ICPR).

“The numbers are staggering,” said Sharron Fast, a lecturer at Hong Kong University’s Faculty of Law.

“As special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau enjoy relatively greater freedom than mainland China – including a supposedly better justice system. But here lies one of the least-known public secrets.”

The high proportion of female prisoners in Hong Kong is emblematic of the situation in Asia. Four jurisdictions in Asia – Hong Kong, Laos, Myanmar and Macau – are ranked in the top five in terms of percentage of women in the prison system. The median of female prisoners in Asia sits at 6% of the continent’s total prison population, well above the global median of 4.4%.

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