The Italian government has postponed a vote on cannabis legalisation to September after a right-wing parliamentary group purposefully derailed it, but public support for reform remains high.

On Monday July 25, a bill was introduced in the Italian Chamber of Deputies to legalise and regulate the cannabis trade. Currently, the cultivation or sale of cannabis may result in a prison sentence, while possession is likely to garner a fine.

Inter-gruppo Parlamentare Cannabis Legale 

(IPCL), a cross-party group of parliamentarians, was postponed after opposing politicians introduced hundreds of amendments. Over three-quarters of the amendments – around 1,300 of 1,700 – were introduced by the 

 (Popular Alliance), a right-wing splinter group of Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party.

Marco Perduca, former Italian senator and coordinator of the 

 (Let’s Legalise) campaign, claims that many of the proposed amendments were spurious and deliberately time-consuming. Requests to “delete paragraphs or move words around” were made with “the intent of delaying or derailing the process”, Perduca told TalkingDrugs.

The derailing attempt was somewhat successful, as mere hours after its introduction to parliament, the vote on the bill was postponed until September.

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Italian cannabis legalisation vote delayed but reform potential remains 

It’s an image straight out of Dante’s “Purgatory”: hundreds of half-naked men sprawled on the pavement in the sweltering heat, desperately trying to sleep amid the cramped chaos. But this is no etching of a medieval horror scene. It’s an actual snapshot of horrific overcrowding in the Philippines’ jails and detention centers fueled by the government’s war on drugs.

It’s creating serious health and safety risksfor detainees.

Police statistics indicate more than 125,000suspected drug dealers and users have surrendered to authorities since President Rodrigo Duterte’s May 10 electoral victory. An estimated 10,000 alleged drug dealers and drug users surrendered in Pampanga province on July 21 alone. The motivations of those who surrender are clear, say authorities: Fear of Duterte’s “war on drugs,” which is linked to hundreds of police killings of suspected drug dealers and users as well as summary murders by unidentified vigilante-style killers.

Dispatches: Philippines’ ‘war on drugs’ worsens jail miseries 

Rizki Mulyadi sits half-submerged in a steaming herbal bath, hands folded in his lap and head down.

The 26-year-old hopes the concoction he is bathing in - and the Islamic teacher who makes it - will help him overcome a six-year addiction to the drug of choice for many in Indonesia: crystal methamphetamine, or "meth".

The traditional rehabilitation centre in Purbalingga village on Java island says it has treated hundreds of addicts, such as Mulyadi, with herbal teas and baths, prayer and counselling.

"There is an urgent need to have a more nuanced conversation about what effective, human rights-compliant treatment entails in Indonesia, and to clearly differentiate between cmpulsory or mandatory forms of treatment, and truly voluntary, community-based options," Rick Lines, executive director at UK-based Harm Reduction International, told Al Jazeera.

Crackdowns and cutbacks: Indonesia's drug policy 

On July 3 the electronic music festival La Terraza hosted a mobile laboratory where festival-goers could take their drugs to be tested. The Uruguayan human rights organisation ProDerechos teamed up with the Spanish harm reduction group Energy Control to provide the service.

A total of 135 tests were carried out on ecstasy, LSD, ketamine and cocaine. Five of these tests revealed substances containing potentially dangerous adulterants, three of which were pills found to contain MDMA mixed with caffeine, MCPP (a new ecstasy-like substance which can seriously affect the digestive system), and other unknown substances. A sample of LSD contained NBOM and a sample of cocaine had been cut with the dangerous anti-parasitic Levamisol.

ProDerechos declared the pill testing initiative to be “an historic day against hypocrisy.”

Uruguay carries out its first ever drug testing initiative at festival

Earlier this month Durban, South Africa hosted the 21st International AIDS Conference, bringing together thousands of people working to end AIDS globally. Held every two years, the conference is critical for keeping the fight against HIV on the world’s agenda, and for working towards the Sustainable Development Goal of ending AIDS by 2030. Yet despite the high visibility that the conference generates, those working on HIV and injecting drug use were sorely disappointed by the lack of attention given to drug use issues, including harm reduction. More worryingly, this omission from the AIDS conference programme reflects the increasingly invisibility of drug use issues within the wider global HIV response.

People who inject drugs are considered a ‘key population’ in the global HIV response - meaning that ending AIDS among them is vital to ending AIDS everywhere. Harm reduction, which includes interventions such as needle and syringe exchange and opioid substitution therapy, is the most cost effective way to achieve this. Research recently conducted by Harm Reduction International and the Burnet Institute found that an annual investment of USD 2.5 billion until 2030 - amounting to just 2.5% of the USD 100 billion that is spent each year in the largely ineffective “war on drugs” - could cut new HIV infections among people who inject drugs by a phenomenal 80%. An investment of USD 7.5 billion would go even further - effectively ending AIDS among people who inject drugs.

But harm reduction remains grossly underfunded. In fact, if its scale-up continues at the current pace, it will be 2026 before every country which reports injecting drug use has even one programme in place. It is therefore no surprise that the UN target to halve transmission of HIV among people who inject drugs by 2015 was not only missed, but missed by a staggering 80%. Meanwhile, the new UN Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS, adopted just two months ago in New York, has no target at all for people who inject drugs.

Left behind: why the global HIV response is failing people who use drugs

Today, Indonesia took several people convicted of drug offenses, lined them up before a firing squad, and shot them dead. They were the latest victims of the draconian drug policies implemented by President Jokowi, who resurrected capital punishment when he took office in 2014, and who had 14 people executed for drug crimes last year.

Indonesia’s turn towards the death penalty for drug offenses speaks to a disturbing trend that is perhaps most starkly illustrated by the country’s island neighbor to the north, the Philippines. In April, while speaking on a UN panel about drugs and capital punishment, I sat alongside the Philippines ambassador as she explained why her government had abolished the death penalty in 2006.

With her words still fresh in my mind, it was with profound sadness that I watched the ascension of Rodrigo Duterte to the Philippines presidency some weeks later. Duterte is a hard-line strongman who came to power on a platform that reinstates capital punishment and actively encourages police officers, 

, to go out and kill people involved in the drug trade.

President Duterte was inaugurated on June 30, and in his first month in office, we have witnessed what can only be described as state-sanctioned criminality on a mass scale. Reports detail up to 300 people murdered in the streets this month alone, a figure thought to be conservative as it reflects only those killed in police operations, and not those perpetrated by armed vigilante groups egged on by the president himself.

A local newspaper even maintains a regularly updated kill list, providing an ongoing, gruesome catalogue of the slaughter. Such open brutality in the name of “fighting drugs” has not been seen since 2003, when the government of Thailand murdered 2,000 alleged drug dealers in a three-month killing spree widely condemned by human rights organizations and UN bodies.

Indonesia executes several for drug crimes in an ominous sign of a trend 

June 26 is the United Nations’ International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, a day when many governments celebrate their contributions to the global “war on drugs.” In the past, some countries have commemorated this day by holding public executions or beatings of drug offenders. Around the world, poorly designed drug laws that seek to punish production, possession, use, and even dependence have fueled violence, instability, and health crises. It’s time for a new approach.

This event, featuring talks and performances by artists working in various mediums, celebrated the unveiling of a series of murals in New York City that further illustrate how prohibitionist drug policies impact marginalized communities in the United States and abroad.

Sebastiano Vitale is a film producer and musician looking at the production and trafficking of cocaine.

Incarceration Nations: A Journey to Justice in Prisons Around the World

Andre Trenier and WERC are visual artists painting murals in New York this week to draw attention to drug policy reform.

Click here to read the full article and to watch the video.

Artists for change: a showcase from creatives for global drug policy reform

LEAVING vacuum-sealed bags, digital scales and stashes of marijuana lying around was a mistake. So was getting T-shirts and hoodies emblazoned with “Cali Connect”, under which name drugs were dealt online. Selling pot to an undercover officer was a further slip-up. All this is part of the prosecution evidence in an ongoing case against David Burchard in California. But the crucial piece of evidence, according to the police who arrested him in March, was that he had trademarked Cali Connect to protect his brand.

Mr Burchard is awaiting trial; the charges against him may be demolished in court. But even if the police officers’ story does not hold up, in its outline it is typical of recent developments in the drug trade. Though online markets still account for a small share of illicit drug sales, they are growing fast—and changing drug-dealing as they grow. Sellers are competing on price and quality, and seeking to build reputable brands. Turnover has risen from an estimated $15m-17m in 2012 to $150m-180m in 2015. And the share of American drug-takers who have got high with the help of a website jumped from 8% in 2014 to 15% this year, according to the Global Drug Survey, an online study.

Online drug markets are part of the “dark web”: sites only accessible through browsers such as Tor, which route communications via several computers and layers of encryption, making them almost impossible for law enforcement to track. Buyers and sellers make contact using e-mail providers such as Sigaint, a secure dark-web service, and encryption software such as Pretty Good Privacy (PGP). They settle up in bitcoin, a digital currency that can be exchanged for the old-fashioned sort and that offers near-anonymity during a deal.

Thumbnail: Flickr CC Tim Franklin Photography

Shedding light on the dark web

Canberra's adult jail may get a medically supervised injecting room, after it was chosen as the preferred model for a prison needle and syringe program (PNSP).

A working group believes a supervised injecting room was the "most viable model" for the environment at the Alexander Maconochie Centre, Corrections Minister Shane Rattenbury said on Friday.

The working group's decision comes after a year of consideration and signals a PNSP may now finally be a step closer.

The working party was established after the government deferred controversial plans for a PNSP in Canberra jail in April 2015 due to protracted opposition by prison staff.

Mr Rattenbury said the working group would consult with staff and stakeholders in coming weeks to nut out the detail of the model, before being put to staff for a vote.
"Our primary focus in developing a needle and syringe program is to reduce the spread of serious blood-borne viruses among detainees," he said.

Canberra jail may get supervised injecting room under prison syringe scheme

The New York NGO Committee on Drugs (“NYNGOC”), a committee operating under the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (“CoNGO”), announces the election of the following new members to the Executive Committee at its Annual General Meeting held June 23, 2016:

 New York City Bar Association Committee on Drugs & the Law (Chair)

The Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS) (Vice Chair)

Amnesty International (Treasurer) Farah Diaz-Tello, National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) (Secretary)

Zimbabwe Civil Liberties and Drug Network

Ganja Growers and Producers Association / St. Catherine Ganja Growers and Producers Association

Since its formation in 1984, the NYNGOC has grown to represent over 120 civil society organizations from around the world. The NYNGOC provides a platform for discussion of drugs and drug-related issues and serves as an interface with the United Nations for collaborating on solutions to global drug issues. Aiming to support civil society organizations as they engage with the UN system, the NYNGOC, in partnership with the Vienna NGO Committee on drugs (VNGOC), created and launched a formally recognized Civil Society Task Force (CSTF) for the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on Drugs. The CSTF facilitated meaningful engagement of the global community of NGOs, Civil Society Organizations and people and communities impacted by drugs and drug-related issues at the 2016 UNGASS.

For more information on the New York NGO Committee on Drugs, please contact: NewYorkNGOC@gmail.com or visit www.nyngoc.org.

New York NGO Committee on Drugs elects new Executive Committee members

Following a unanimous decision by the Steering Committee of EHRN, Anna Dovbakh, currently Program Director, is taking over the leadership of EHRN Secretariat from Sergey Votyagov on the 1st of August 2016.

Sergey Votyagov is stepping down as Executive Director of EHRN Secretariat due to moving on to become the Director of the Robert Carr civil society Networks Fund. 

“I am proud that In the last 5 years under my leadership of the Secretariat as the Executive Director, our Network took its programmatic work up to the next level and expanded the portfolio and scope of our regional projects that advance EHRN’s mission and serve the interests of our region, harm reduction sector and people who use drugs,”

 commented Sergey on EHRN’s achievements.

The high level and effect of EHRN’s programmatic work is proven by such examples of regional activities as Regional Forum on Healthcare and Human Rights of People who Use Drugs, held in Chisinau, Moldova, in May 2014 and Regional High Level Dialogue on Successful Transition to Domestic Funding of HIV and TB Response in EECA, organized in Tbilisi, Georgia, in September 2015 as well as small grants program “Through Peers Efforts” for drug user groups.

Thumbnail: Flickr CC 23rd International Harm Reduction Conference

EHRN announces leadership change

The War on Drugs, mass incarceration of drug users, and the failure to provide proven harm reduction and treatment strategies has led to high levels of HIV, tuberculosis, and hepatitis B and C infection among prisoners—far higher than in the general population. With an estimated 30 million people passing in and out of prisons every year, prisoners will be key to controlling HIV and tuberculosis epidemics worldwide, according to a major six-part Series on HIV and related infections in prisoners, published in The Lancet and being presented at the International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa.

“Prisons can act as incubators of tuberculosis, hepatitis C, and HIV and the high level of mobility between prison and the community means that the health of prisoners should be a major public-health concern. Yet, screening and treatment for infectious diseases are rarely made available to inmates, and only around 10% of people who use drugs worldwide are being reached by treatment programmes”, says lead author of the Series and President of the International AIDS Society Professor Chris Beyrer, John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA. “The most effective way of controlling infection in prisoners and the wider community is to reduce mass imprisonment of injecting drug users.”

Worldwide, between 56% and 90% of people who inject drugs will be incarcerated at some point. In parts of Europe, over a third of inmates inject drugs (38%), in Australia (55%) it is more than half. This is in stark contrast with injecting drug use the general population (0.3% in EU and 0.2% in Australia).

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