Each year HIT hold the Hot Topics Conference in Liverpool, UK. Full of great speakers talking about the most important topics, this conference has become one of the most important and popular drug use related events in the UK.

On the 27th of November 2015, the fifth annual Hot Topics Conference was held. The venue of Lutyens Crypt in the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral acted as a fantastic backdrop for a range of international speakers. The presentations from the day including video footage are now available so even if you didn't get to attend you can benefit from the knowledge shared.

Watch the IDPC's Jamie Bridge hold a presentation on using photo based campaigns now.

Click here to view the rest of the videos.

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

HIT Conference 2015 presentations now available

Held on 18th December 2015, this informal meeting of the plenary aimed to brief UN Member States on the preparations for the Special Session of the General Assembly on the World Drug Problem (UNGASS).

To view the transcript of the meeting visit the CND blog.

Watch the videorecording of the meeting here.

UN briefing on the preparations for the UNGASS

The United Nations General Assembly unanimously updated the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, now known as the Mandela Rules. This revision, which was the result of four years of work, incorporated significant improvements into the international standards on the rights of persons deprived of their liberty.

The update to the Rules aims to provide greater protection to persons deprived of their liberty by limiting the use of solitary confinement, searches, coercive measures and disciplinary sanctions; requiring exhaustive and independent inspections of places of detention; and demanding the investigation of all deaths and all possible cases of torture or ill treatment during confinement. They also specify standards on health care and the rights of persons with disabilities, among other issues.

The Standard Minimum Rules are a parameter for detention conditions worldwide. In Argentina, the Supreme Court of Justice, in its 2005 ruling on the Verbitsky case, established that all detentions should respect the guidelines set forth in the Rules, since they make up the standard for decent treatment required by Article 18 of the National Constitution.

Inhumane detention conditions persist in prisons and police precincts in Buenos Aires province due to overcrowding, high rates of violence and periodic complaints of ill treatment, illegal pressure and torture. A similar scenario exists in the Federal Penitentiary Service and in other provinces of Argentina.

In psychiatric asylum institutions, situations of abandonment, social exclusion and stigmatization are prevalent. The use of solitary confinement measures, overmedication as a means of social control, abuse, and deaths that go uninvestigated continue to characterize places of confinement established for mental health reasons.

The update to the Standard Minimum Rules should fuel the adoption of policies for the prevention and sanction of violence that ensure the rights of detained persons. More specifically, Argentine officials should put into motion the National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture, a body to oversee monitoring and compliance with human rights standards like the Mandela Rules throughout the country.

CELS along with organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, Conectas Direitos Humanos, Corporación Humanas and Penal Reform International, participated in this revision process starting in 2011, attending meetings of experts and sessions of the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice. The standards have been improved. However, we regret that only some of the Rules’ thematic areas were revised and other important discussions, such as the use of force in places of confinement, were not included.

Mandela Rules update the international standards for guaranteeing rights of people deprived of their liberty 

Alaska is about to become the first state to have pot cafes where people can buy and consume marijuana, similar to Amsterdam.

Right now, that's not legal in other states that have recreational marijuana.

Brothers James and Giono Barrett, who own a marijuana business, Rainforest Farms, in Juneau, also plan to produce a line of chocolate bars infused with pot. They'll be an alternative to the sugary, processed edibles Giono says he has eaten recently in Colorado.

Unlike Colorado, Rainforest Farms can have a cafe for its customers to eat their pot-infused treats. In November, the Alaska state marijuana control board approved on-site consumption at retail stores. Those businesses could start popping up as early as summer. Each municipality has to give the ultimate OK.

Alaska's pot cafes will give patrons a taste of cannabis

One hundred years ago this March, the Harrison Narcotics Act came into force, heralding the onset of American drug prohibition. It promptly spread across the globe. 2015, however, may well be remembered as the year that the cure for criminalization broke the drug war fever.

If nothing else, there have been an awful lot of encouraging signs since January.

For starters, 2015 was marked by a hastening of the end of the national war on pot. Two new states—Oregon and Alaska—joined Colorado and Washington in implementing recreational marijuana legalization, as did Washington, DC, (albeit in a bizarre fashion that doesn't actually provide a reliable source of legal pot other than growing your own.)

Gallup polling in favor of complete national legalization also matched an all-time high of 58 percent, with support having roughly doubled since the 1990s, and more than a dozen states could vote on pot legalization either through ballot initiatives or legislatures in 2016.

The top two contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, have both expressed some openness to allowing states to legalize, with Sanders going further and suggesting that marijuana be removed from federal drug prohibition laws, as well. And even Republican candidates Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, and Ted Cruz are in favor of letting the states decide—an unprecedented level of mainstream political support for what as recently as the 1990s seen as a fringe position.

Even the cops began taking steps towards drug decriminalization in 2015. A formal initiative, started in 2011 in Seattle and known as Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD), showed stunning results in an outcomes evaluation published this year. The idea of LEAD is to bring the concept of "harm reduction" into policing: Rather than trying to force drug users to quit by arresting and incarcerating them, the program aims to cut harm by attracting users into recovery, or at least less-harmful use instead.

A hundred years after the war on drugs began, is it finally winding down?

The Open Society Global Drug Policy Program and a panel of international experts hosted an event on Wednesday, December 9 from 6-9pm including a discussion and cocktail reception on the topic of: 

The Impact of Drug Policy on the Environment. 

The podcast for this event is now available online.

In the lead up to the UNGASS in April 2016, OSF is hosting a series of public events and producing reports designed to inform the New York-based missions and the wider public on some of the important issues addressed at this meeting.

While the Climate Change Conference was being held in Paris, an international panel of experts, moderated by Brian Winters, editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly, discussed the role of drug crop cultivation in environmental devastation. The event also launched a brief report outlining key recommendations on the topic for UN member states to consider leading up to the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session on drugs.

The panel discussed how drug crop cultivation has played a disproportionately large role in deforesting and degrading some of the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems, including those in national parks and indigenous territories. Additionally, the speakers examined why environmental devastation is proliferating in drug trafficking regions despite sustained investments in drug interdiction and other anti-trafficking measures.

The impact of drug policy on the environment podcast

The Drug Enforcement Administration has a vested interest in the War on Drugs, the federal government's decades-long mission to eradicate drug use in the U.S. Not only does it support the federal agency's core goal — to "enforce the controlled substances laws and regulations of the United States" — but it also serves the criminal justice system on a financial level, allowing the agency to profit off enforcement through budget requests and a civil asset forfeiture program.

Tough drug laws demand greater financial resources, a larger slice of the federal budget from the U.S. government. That's one theory as to why the DEA continues to enforce federal marijuana laws in legal states, despite public condemnation: It pays to criminalize pot.

The DEA has an entire department, the Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program, dedicated to the enforcement of marijuana laws under the Controlled Substances Act, which strictly prohibits the use, cultivation, and sale of cannabis in the U.S. Federal law regards marijuana as a Schedule I drug — as addictive and dangerous as heroin. Schedule 1 drugs are considered the most dangerous drugs and to have no “accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse,” according to the DEA.

So it makes sense that the DEA would resist changes in public opinion and state marijuana laws. Without weed, the agency would have to rely on demand for the enforcement of other drugs to justify their tall budget requests. And as it notes on its website, marijuana is the "only major drug of abuse grown within the U.S. borders." It's also the most commonly abused illegal drug in the country, according to National Institutes of Health.

But the War on Drugs doesn't just help the agency bolster its budget. Another controversial program allows the agency to seize the money and "assets" of people and businesses it suspects of violating federal drug laws.

In 2014, the Department of Justice took in about $3.9 billion worth of civil asset forfeitures, more than doubling what the agency seized in 2005, The Wall Street Journal reported. The DEA contributes to those funds by seizing assets in suspected drug-related cases. A statistical report from the DEA's 2014 fiscal year shows that it seized more than $27 million is assets through the cannabis enforcement program alone.

Under the "asset forfeiture program," the DEA can take your money even if you haven't been charged or convicted of a drug-related crime. Sure, you can try to fight the forfeiture in court if you feel you've been wronged, but that can be a costly legal battle.

How the DEA profits off the war on drugs

By Professor Irwanto, Department of Psychology, Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia

Indonesia’s “war on drugs” is jeopardising years of hard work by civil society and public health sector to provide harm-reduction interventions. These have successfully reduced rates of HIV prevalence and other blood-borne illnesses among injecting drug users.

If Indonesia does not shift from its criminalisation and punitive approach to a public health approach in tackling the problem of drug abuse, it may face a larger health crisis in coming years.

Last year, Indonesian President Joko Widodo declared a drug emergency and carried out executions of convicted drug dealers, including reformed Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.

The National Narcotics Agency (BNN) has since continued the “war against drugs”, targeting not only drug producers, dealers and couriers but also users.

Newly appointed BNN chief Budi Waseso recently announced that drug users have until January to turn themselves into government-run rehabilitation centres. They face prosecution if caught next year, although the centres are not ready to provide necessary services.

BNN’s strategy is expensive and does not work. The annual budget of over IDR1.3 trillion is mostly allocated to supply reduction, which involves police arrests and seizure of narcotics.

BNN’s own estimates suggest it will only be able to seize 10% of the estimated supply of illegal drugs in the market.

The demand-reduction strategy has been marginalised and underfunded. In any case, forced rehabilitation is not effective in reducing demand for illegal drugs. It reinforces stigma and discrimination against drug users, destroying their chance to live a productive future life.

Indonesia’s ‘war on drugs’ may bring health crisis

By Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Peter Baker

President Obama ended a tumultuous year in the nation’s capital by commuting the sentences of 95 federal prisoners and granting two pardons on Friday, building on his push to reorient the nation’s criminal justice system with a holiday season stroke of his pen.

The set of commutations was the largest of Mr. Obama’s presidency, and it more than doubled the number he has granted since taking office. Most of those who will be freed are nonviolent drug offenders given long sentences during an earlier crackdown on crime. Forty of them will be spared life terms.

The move came as the president is pressing for an overhaul of criminal justice laws to reverse decades of steep penalties that have packed the nation’s prisons and jails, disproportionately affecting African-American and Hispanic men. The vast majority of Friday’s commutations were given to criminals who have been imprisoned for more than a decade, behaved well in prison and would have been sentenced to fewer years under current rules.

In ‘fairness,’ Obama commutes sentences for 95, mostly drug offenders

As New Year’s Eve rolls around, music festivals are the hottest tickets in town to help partygoers usher in 2016.

From the Falls Festivals’ three locations down the east coast, to Field Day and Lost Paradise in NSW, Beyond The Valley in Victoria and Southbound in WA, tens of thousands of revellers will celebrate the new year with friends, music, late nights and alcohol - and, for many, illicit drugs.

In 2015, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s National Drug Strategy Household Survey reported 27 percent of Australians aged 20-29 had used illicit drugs in the preceding 12 months, with eight percent having used ecstasy in that period. The 2014 United Nations World Drug Report found Australians had the highest rate of ecstasy consumption on Earth.

Sadly in recent times, the combination of music festivals, alcohol and drugs has had devastating and tragic consequences. The deaths of Georgina Bartter, Sylvia Choi and Stefan Woodward in the last year have become the tragic shorthand for the consequences of illicit drug use, among several other music festival deaths believed to be related to drugs.

Music festivals, drugs and pill testing

He started growing marijuana as a teenager and for four decades earned a modest living from his tiny plot tucked at the base of these rugged mountains of western Mexico.

He proudly shows off his illegal plants, waist-high and fragrant, strategically hidden from view by rows of corn and nearly ready to be harvested.

"I've always liked this business, producing marijuana," the 50-year-old farmer said wistfully. He had decided that this season's crop would be his last.

The loosening of marijuana laws across much of the United States has increased competition from growers north of the border, apparently enough to drive down prices paid to Mexican farmers. Small-scale growers here in the state of Sinaloa, one of the country's biggest production areas, said that over the last four years the amount they receive per kilogram has fallen from $100 to $30.

The price decline appears to have led to reduced marijuana production in Mexico and a drop in trafficking to the U.S., according to officials on both sides of the border and available data.

Mexican marijuana farmers see profits tumble as U.S. loosens laws

The tremendous costs of the current drug control regime are by now obvious. The past few decades have seen hundreds of thousands of atrocities committed in the name of the prohibitionist policies - people being kidnapped and disappeared, marginalized, forcefully relocated and killed. Millions more are infected with blood-borne diseases such as HIV and HCV because they don't have access to clean needles or substitution treatment, or suffer unnecessarily because bureaucracies withhold cheap, effective opioid pain medications. Clearly, existing drug control policies are failing.

There is reason to hope, however. Over the past several years, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Portugal, Catalonia, Bolivia and the Czech Republic have responded to local needs with local innovative drug policy solutions and provided much needed global leadership. In 2015, the global drug policy reform movement has made great strides and expanded the number of reformist voices, including countries of the Global South.

I am hopeful that momentum will continue as we head into the UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on the world drug problem in 2016 and well beyond--until there is a consensus for a more sensible global approach.

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