Following a UN conference on drugs last month, countries in the region are being accused of sticking with ineffective and harmful anti-drug policies

Last month in New York, governments and civil society attended the UN’s General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) to discuss the global drug problem. There were high hopes, particularly as Latin American countries most affected by the so-called “War on Drugs” had strongly pushed for the session, that there could be a revolution in drug policy. What resulted was, at best, a small evolution in thinking.

It may lead to more flexibility from the UN on drug treaties, increased acceptance that harsh drug laws are not working and a change in the language used around drug users. But for Southeast Asian governments, and in particular Asean as a whole, it seems a revolution is still some way off.

“The UNGASS event itself clearly marked a shift in thinking and a widening gap between reform-minded countries and those that want to retain the status quo,” said Tom Blickman, programme coordinator for policy group Transnational Institute. “Unfortunately, most Southeast Asian countries and China belong to latter category and Asean is still committed to the unrealistic goal of a drug-free society.”

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Region’s harsh drug policies slammed by experts

It takes a little getting used to: bringing an illicit substance to an official booth at a rave to have its contents analyzed before you ingest it. At first people tend to be skeptical. Is this some sort of trap? Will I be arrested and thrown into jail? This is Mexico, after all—a country firmly entrenched in the war on drugs.

Ending this war is the main objective of our youth drug policy organization ReverdeSer Colectivo [site in Spanish]. And a key part of that effort are the services we offer at raves and festivals, where you can find us handing out information about drugs, helping patrons having physical or psychedelic problems, and analyzing their pills before they take them to make sure they’re safe to ingest.

This is the essence of harm reduction—an approach that accepts drug use as a fact of life, and works to minimize the risks of such usage. In that spirit, ReverdeSer Colectivo is working with other organizations like Espolea and CUPIHD to implement a substance analysis project in Mexico City. We are engaging with the local addictions institute and human rights commission to establish a lab that could not only analyze substances but also serve as a key place for harm reduction programs for people who use drugs.

Our work doing substance analysis at festivals and raves gives us an opportunity to talk about safer ways to use drugs and to hand out information to people about the drugs they’ll be using.

Why “harm reduction” means something different in Mexico

Government Calls for Reforms at UNGASS, but Backtracks at Home.

On April 18, the Colombian government restarted use of the harmful and ineffective herbicide glyphosate to destroy coca crops, months after the governmentsuspended aerial spraying because the chemical was found to likely be carcinogenic. While spraying will continue on the ground instead of from the air, the move will still harm the health and welfare of rural Colombian farmers involved in the cultivation of illicit crops. The new practice also undercuts President Juan Manuel Santos’ calls for drug policy reform—most recently, at the April United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on drug policy in New York.

Last year, the Colombian Ministry of Health accepted the evaluation from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an arm of the World Health Organization, that found sufficient evidence to state that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans.” This finding comes after more than 30 years of aerial spraying of coca, cannabis, and poppy crops, during which local communities repeatedly denounced the negative effects the chemical had on humans and animals alike. In addition to the health effects, the practice puts local food security in jeopardy due to the fact that spraying campaigns have destroyed licit and illicit crops alike. Following the IARC’s announcement, the Colombian Health Ministry called on the National Drugs Council (

, CNE), to suspend fumigation. The CNE ordered a stop to fumigation in August 2015, and the practice ultimately ended in October.

Meanwhile, however, Colombia’s counter-narcotics police began to explore alternative chemicals and techniques to continue forced coca eradication—a policy long-supported and funded by the U.S. Department of State.

Thumbnail: Flickr Policía Nacional de los colombianos

Colombia’s contradictory return to coca fumigation

Survivors and victims of the War on Drugs are travelling from Honduras in a caravan for peace, life and justice to present their case to UNGASS 11 next week.

I first smoked marijuana when I was thirty years old. I found it to be more fun than alcohol. And more spiritual. It reminded me why I became a Quaker. It helped me see the inner light in people.

The next realization was that it was insane to make this simple plant illegal. In reading books on the subject I learned a surprising fact: the legal prohibition of cannabis, coca and poppy plants is determined at the highest level, not by God, since after all it is reported that Jesus used a cannabis extract in healing, but by the UN’s Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961. In 1970, Richard Nixon signed the legislation implementing national prohibition in compliance with the Convention: the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act.

So just to make that clear, US drug policy is determined by a United Nations Convention.

A potentially momentous reconsideration of that Convention will take place next week in New York City at the second United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Drugs (UNGASS).

Olmyra Morales, secretary to the Small Coca Farmers Cooperative, Colombia - Open Democracy

Thumbnail: Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)

Women and the war on drugs

Lieutenant governor called the Adult Use of Marijuana Act a ‘game changer’ and an antidote to what he described as the failed and racist war on drugs.

Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Wednesday that the first of more than a dozen initiatives proposed to legalize recreational marijuana inCalifornia, the biggest pot producer in the US, has collected enough signatures to appear on the ballot in November.

Flanked by sober-suited supporters, a doctor in a white coat, the head of the state NAACP and one very conservative Republican congressman, Newsom called the Adult Use of Marijuana Act – which was bankrolled by Napster founder Sean Parker – “a game changer”, an antidote to what he described as the failed and racist war on drugs.

“It’s unlikely that any others will qualify,” Newsom said of the competing measures. “We have qualified. We are north of 600,000 signatures. That is beyond what is needed. We need a little less than 400,000. You can rest assured this will be on the November ballot.”

California recreational marijuana initiative will be on the November ballot

A regional meeting in Kiev marks the beginning of a discussion on drug policy reforms in EECA countries.

In most countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (CEECA), people who use drugs often become targets of repressive drug policies which were originally aimed at combating organized crime that controls the illegal drug market. The current practice in these countries allows arresting and imprisoning people who possess a single dose of a drug. In some countries, the mere presence of a drug in one’s blood can serve as the basis for a criminal case. In these circumstances, the use or possession of drugs results in prison terms that are comparable with those for serious crimes, including murder.

These practices are not only extremely costly and inefficient in combating organized crime, but also lead to a deteriorating situation with HIV, tuberculosis and lethal overdoses, as well as to further social exclusion of people who use drugs. At the same time, the world and some CEECA countries provide examples of efficient and cost-effective drug policies that enable people who use drugs to maintain their health and work and live a full life.

Is there an alternative to repressive drug policies?

After decades of implementing—and exporting—“tough on crime” policies that prioritize arrest and incarceration for even minor drug offenses, the United States is reconsidering its criminal justice system. These reforms should be noted in Latin America, a new report released today argues, as the region faces surging prison populations driven in part by draconian U.S.-sponsored policies.

From 1973 to 2009, the total U.S. prison population increased over seven-fold as more low-level offenders were incarcerated—instead of receiving non-prison punishments—and a range of offenses garnered significantly longer sentences. Much of the change came as part of the “War on Drugs,” and arrest and incarceration rates for drug offenses saw a particularly marked rise. From 1980 to 2010, the imprisonment rate for drug crimes grew from 15 per 100,000 to 143 per 100,000; a nearly ten-fold increase.

Between rhetoric and reform: criminal justice reform in the United States

Berlin (AFP) - Germany is to legalise cannabis for medicinal purposes early next year, the health minister said on Tuesday.

"Our goal is that seriously ill patients are treated in the best possible way," said Hermann Groehe, who will present draft legislation to the German cabinet on Wednesday.

The draft bill comes as many parts of the world are relaxing laws on cannabis use and medicinal marijuana is gaining popularity to ease suffering from cancer, glaucoma, HIV or AIDS, Hepatitis C, Parkinson's disease and other serious conditions.

However, the issue of recreational and medical cannabis use is controversial in many countries, as opponents fear crime connected to drug abuse and addiction. Some argue pot use could lead to dependence on harder drugs.

Germany is about to legalise medical marijuana

It was a surreal exercise that unfolded at the UN in New York last week — a pretend consensus, and a terrible dereliction of duty by some of the world’s governments. And yet, paradoxically, I left the event at the end of the week feeling profoundly encouraged.

On April 19, the assembly president opened the UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on “the world drug problem.” It had been hoped the UNGASS process could be an opportunity for a wide-ranging and open debate about what is and isn’t working around the world in responding to drugs. Indeed, more than 1000 leaders from around the world had called on the UN not to squander this historic opportunity to end the failed drug war that has wasted so many resources, led to gross and systemic violations of human rights, and done terrible damage to public health, including fuelling the HIV and hepatitis C epidemics. Yet moments later, the General Assembly adopted by consensus the text of aresolution negotiated, with considerable acrimony, a month before at the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in Vienna.

And what a resounding failure that formal outcome document is in 2016 — as civil society organizations and theGlobal Commission on Drug Policy have pointed out. It fails to acknowledge the harm done by decades of punitive prohibition, and the mounting evidence of much more effective, humane approaches. Of course, this outcome is not particularly surprising, given the active and successful efforts of a number of countries to block or significantly weaken any language committing countries to harm reduction approaches or to respecting human rights. (We’re looking at you, Russia — one of the leading offenders.)

Consensus crumbling: report from the UN general assembly special session on drugs

By Juan Gabriel Tokatlian - Open Democacy

The Summit represented a big opportunity to end the "war on drugs", but defenders of the status quo were able to abort aspirations of an effective transformation of the field.

According to the Real Academia Española dictionary, opportunity is understood as the existence of "appropriate circumstances" while opportunism refers to taking advantage of such circumstances to obtain "the greatest possible benefit". The recent (April 19-21) third United Nations General Assembly Special Session on drugs (UNGASS) promised to be a propicious opportunity to rethink and reorientate the issue of illicit psychoactive substances, towards a different track from the current prohibitionist approach. However, a preliminary assessment shows that this was an opportunist summit in which defenders of the status quo were able to abort aspirations of an effective transformation of the field.

Prior to the conference, a combination of factors had called into question the international regime of illicit drugs (IRID). In 1990 and 1998 the first and second United Nations General Assembly Special Sessions on drugs were held. The first UNGASS took place in the final days of the Cold War - with the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe - and the deepening of the "war on drugs" - especially in terms of the US anti-narcotics policy with respect to Latin America.

The emphasis was placed on punitive measures centred on controlling supply: a focus was placed on drugs as a security issue. Briefly, UNGASS 1990 concerned the imposition of a coercive rationality: alternative and/or dissenting voices were few and were ignored; the United States (accompanied by many Eastern countries) seemed to depend on the ability to advance their version of prohibitionism against a Europe and a Latin America with limited will to coordinate a common perspective distinct from the former.

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

UNGASS 2016: from opportunity to opportunism

A global meeting on drugs failed to deliver a highly anticipated shift from a punitive approach to narcotics, disappointing Myanmar advocacy groups.

The outcome of the UN General Assembly Special Session on drugs held last week in New York instead resulted in a draft resolution that brings little new to the table, experts said.

Nang Pann Ei, a coordinator of the Drug Policy Advocacy Groups, called the UNGASS meeting significant because Myanmar civil society was able to speak up for opium farmers facing the constant threat of crop eradication. But she voiced disappointment about the resulting policy document, saying it has “some serious gaps”.

“It did not mention harm reduction specifically, and decriminalisation of drug use and abolishing the death penalty for drug-related offenses was not mentioned,” she said. “This will impact Myanmar drug policies, which will still stick to repressive drug laws and not change to 100 percent human rights-based drug policies for the affected communities.”

“We hoped UNGASS would help change these outdated and repressive policies, but this unfortunately did not happen,” she added.

New agreement brings no end to war on drugs in ASEAN

From time to time, DrugWise will be featuring guest blogs. Our first one is from

 from Kent University and Editor of Drugs and Alcohol Today.

Consensus on Outcome Documents and centrality of drug convention is reached, but big split between reformers and conservative states

Legalisation schemes continue to be rolled out across different countries in clear contravention of treaty stipulations

Increasing number of countries adopt death penalty and corporate punishment

US position puts unprecedented emphasis on treatment and alternative punishment

Detailed list of operational recommendations likely to result in funding proposals submitted to European Union

Role of international agencies like INCB and UNODC strengthened

Detailed critique of human rights violations, adverse impact on public health and development objectives remains unaddressed

Next meeting in 2019 likely to be more acrimonious

“The drug problem and its related evils transcend borders and affect citizens worldwide. Hence international cooperation towards an integrated and balanced strategy is required in order to counter them”, said Archbishop Bernadido Auza of the Holy See when addressing the UN General Assembly on Thursday, 21 of April.