While marijuana, magic mushrooms, and ayahuasca have all found their way into research labs, coca leaf, the mother of cocaine, seems to be off-limits, despite evidence that the plant is a nutritional powerhouse and potential wellspring of medical cures.

This should come as a surprise to no one, says Pien Metaal, a researcher at the Transnational Institute, an Amsterdam-based think tank that advocates for drug policy reform. Policymakers purging the world of its vices, after all, have always been exceptionally thorough — often unnecessarily so.

“In theory, coca would be eligible for medical uses,” Metaal tells 

. “But it has never been seriously recognized because of the stigma it has, caused by its content of the alkaloid cocaine.” Obviously, cocaine the drug is a very legitimate public ill, causing some 5,500 deaths in the U.S. each year and thousands more wherever it’s trafficked and produced. But there are no such statistics to justify the demonization of coca leaf, Metaal points out. In fact, there never were.

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

Why is coca leaf left out of the drug research renaissance

In the past few weeks, a spate of horrific killings have taken place across the Philippines. Murders of people who use drugs, people who sell drugs, and people who have simply been assumed to do either. No trials, no due process, these are state-sanctioned extrajudicial killings encouraged by the new President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte.

Upon assuming presidency, Duterte made a public call for police and citizens alike to execute people who use or sell drugs, promising medals for citizens who comply, and pardons for police if they are charged with human rights violations while carrying out the executions. Since making this harrowing call to action, over 700 people suspected to have been involved with drugs have been murdered.

A further 114,000 people who use drugs have turned themselves in to authorities - undoubtedly out of fear for their lives - and who will now face time in overcrowded prisons and likely be subjected to inhumane and involuntary drug treatment programs.

This sudden outbreak of extrajudicial killings represents grave human rights violations, yet it has been met with silence from the United States. Last week, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with President Duterte and vowed to commit $32 million to support law enforcement training and efforts in the Philippines, making no mention of the unlawful killings currently taking place at the President’s behest.

Why is the U.S. silent on massacre of drug users in the Philippines? 

H17 is a new drug consumption room that was opened yesterday. It is partly funded by the City of Copenhagen. 1000 m2 space for people who use drugs where they can smoke and inject drugs in a sterile, supervised, supportive environment, not disturbing the neighborhood. People can access other services here as well, nurses can take care of their wounds and abscesses, the staff provides psychosocial support and consultation. The drug consumption room works in very close cooperation with a nearest drug treatment centre, so if people feel motivated to quit they can do so quite easily. H17 is the result of many years of advocacy work and it opens a new chapter in the history of drug consumption rooms.

Largest drug consumption room of the world opens in Copenhagen 

The following statement comes as a response to an open letter drafted by IDPC and supported by over 350 civil society organisations that asks the UNODC and the INCB to call upon the Phillipines to take immediate action to stop ongoing extrajudicial killings targeting alleged drug users and dealers.

VIENNA, 3 August (UN Information Service) - The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) remains greatly concerned by the reports of extrajudicial killing of suspected drug dealers and users in the Philippines. I join the United Nations Secretary-General in condemning the apparent endorsement of extrajudicial killing, which is illegal and a breach of fundamental rights and freedoms.

Such responses contravene the provisions of the international drug control conventions, do not serve the cause of justice, and will not help to ensure that "all people can live in health, dignity and peace, with security and prosperity", as agreed by governments in the outcome document approved at the UN General Assembly special session on the world drug problem.

UNODC supports balanced, people-centred, evidence- and rights-based approaches to drug control, rooted in the agreed international conventions and standards.

UNODC stands ready to further engage with the Philippines and all countries to bring drug traffickers to justice with the appropriate legal safeguards in line with international standards and norms, and promote prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and reintegration approaches based in evidence, science, public health and human rights.

Yury Fedotov, Executive Director, UN Office on Drugs and Crime: Statement on the situation in the Philippines

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.

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

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