The Indian government has taken a significant step to help alcohol and drug abusers by launching a national toll free helpline number - 1800-11-0031. The Social Justice & Empowerment Minister Thaawar Chand Gehlot launched the helpline with the technical support from a public sector enterprise. The ministry works towards reducing drug dependency and enhancing the rehabilitation of victims. The newly launched helpline would provide assistance six days a week between IST 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 pm.

According to a survey by the Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry and UNODC, India has more than 70 million drug addicts, and the major reason seems to be easy availability and cheap rates. The low rates are essential due to the nation’s close proximity with drug areas in countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

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

Indian government launches helpline for drug users

The forthcoming special issue of the International Journal of Drug Policy (IJDP) will have the focus on drug use and Africa. The primary focus of the call is illicit drug use, but we the IJDO will also consider abstracts for papers with a focus on alcohol and tobacco.

The call is initially for outline abstracts, with a deadline of January 15th, 2015.

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

International Journal of Drug Policy calls for papers for special issue focused on Africa 

The past couple of years have been game-changers for harm reduction. The movement to reclaim the health and dignity of people who use drugs has celebrated the rapid passage of overdose prevention and syringe decriminalization laws, expanded access to the life-saving overdose reversal drug naloxone, and welcomed endorsements from such prominent, previously skeptical agencies as the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the American Medical Association and the Centers for Disease Control.

Big Pharma’s new interest in naloxone is a key development to watch this year. When naloxone first debuted on the market in 1961, emergency departments and ambulances scrambled to stock the miracle drug and pharmaceutical companies rushed to make it. But once this very specific demand was met, the drug was no longer considered profitable and interest in manufacturing petered out. By 2008, one company, Hospira, held a monopoly on injectable naloxone, while another, IMS/Amphastar, sold the only form of naloxone that could be adapted for intranasal use.

Why 2015 is a huge year for harm reduction?

The Minister of Health and Quality of Life, Mr A.K. Gayan, announced today during a press conference in Port Louis that as from Saturday 10 January 2015 the methadone substitution therapy programme will be further decentralised in the sense that there will be more than just one site for the distribution of methadone in a particular region.



Taking the example of Beau Bassin -Rose Hill region where some 900 patients are converging to just one site he announced that as from this coming Saturday some seven sites will be used for the distribution of methadone.

Minister Gayan pointed out that this decentralisation has been made possible with the help and support of the police as most of the new sites will be in the yard of some police stations where caravans will be used for the distribution of methadone. He also underlined that henceforth the distibution of methadone henceforth will be from 06 00 hours to 08 00 hours instead of 09 00 hours.

Those who will benefit from this program after recommendation from the Non-Governmental Organisations will be handed over a card containing their details and must bring along their identity card to benefit from the programme said Minister Gayan. He added that the Ministry of Health and Quality of Life reserves the right to remove the card of any patient if that person does not abide to the set of rules under this programme.

Mauritius: Health Minister announces decentralisation of the methadone substitution therapy programme

The Civil Society Forum is a broad platform for a structured dialogue between the Commission and the European civil society which supports policy formulation and implementation through practical advice.

The Directorate General Migration and Home Affairs (DG HOME) of the European Commission invites non- governmental organisations and networks to apply for membership of the EU Civil Society Forum on Drugs (CSF) 2015-2017.

Click here to read more information and download the application form.

Call for the expression of interest to become a member of the EU Civil Society Forum on Drugs

At the national harm reduction conference in Budapest, presenters from Greece, Romania and Hungary reported that there are similar problems and challenges in relation to injecting drug use in Southern-Central Europe, but there are huge differences between government responses. Lack of political leadership is leading to growing HIV and hepatitis C infections among drug users all over the region.

In Budapest, on December 16, at the national harm reduction conference organised by the HCLU, a number of service providers, activists, law enforcement professionals, and researchers gathered to discuss the key challenges lying ahead for harm reduction. The opening speech pointed out that there is a global funding crisis within harm reduction: the UN estimates that 2.3 billion USD are needed to fund HIV prevention programs among injecting drug users, but only 160 million USD are actually being spent. International donors are retreating from middle-income countries, where most IDUs live, and national governments are not providing adequate funding for harm reduction programs. The consequences are obvious: life-saving services are being shut down, access to existing services is restricted, and the risk of blood-born infections is growing.

In Hungary - an EU member state that is not eligible to receive Global Fund money - lack of political and financial support led to the closure of the largest needle and syringe program, and other NSPs are in danger too. This happened in a neighbourhood where eight out of ten IDUs are living with the hepatitis C virus, and new HIV transmissions have been reported as well.

While Hungarian government regulations require NSPs to employ at least 3 full-time and 1 part-time professionals, the annual core grant (appr. 25.000 USD) for these programs is not even enough to pay the salaries of these employees, not to mention growing overhead and equipment costs. Therefore NGOs submitted a proposal for a new progressive funding mechanism for harm reduction programs - suggesting an increase in the core grant, to 50.000 USD, and provision of additional funds for supplementary services, such as drop-in, as well as for supply of good-quality needles and syringes.

Harm reduction in Hungary: Need for political leadership

A decade ago, Myanmar seemed on course to wipe out the opium fields and heroin jungle labs along its eastern border, the notorious Golden Triangle. Today, valley after valley in these mist-shrouded mountains is covered with resplendent opium poppies, tended by farmers who perch on steep hillsides to harvest the plant’s sticky, intoxicating sap.

Poppy cultivation in Myanmar has nearly tripled since 2006, reaching close to 150,000 acres, according to surveys carried out by the United Nations. Yet even that steep rise fails to capture the full extent of Myanmar’s resurgence as a major player in the global heroin business. Over the last few years, an increasing number of farmers here have produced two opium crops a year, experts say; the second crop is not included in the United Nations surveys. Growing opium poppies is illegal in Myanmar, but farmers in this remote and desperately poor region say they have few viable options.

Until the 1980s, Myanmar was the world’s largest supplier of heroin. Afghan production surged around the turn of the century, and supplies from the Golden Triangle plummeted when China pressured Myanmar ethnic groups along its border to stop growing poppy. Instead of disappearing, opium production migrated south, away from the Chinese border, into areas of Myanmar controlled by a patchwork of ethnic groups, some of them allied with the government, some of them hostile. Although the government controls the big towns, upland areas are the fiefs of militias and ethnic armies, and the new center of the opium-growing business.

Myanmar’s return to drug trafficking, which also includes a thriving trade in methamphetamine, comes as the country opens up to the world and sheds the shackles of five decades of isolation and dictatorship. With the government preoccupied with the challenges of a budding democracy, opium money is lining the pockets of officials charged with cracking down on the illegal trade.

Myanmar returns to what sells: Heroin 

Rape has been in the headlines lately. That’s partly thanks to a 

expose last month detailing a gang rape of a first-year student at a frat party at the University of Virginia. The story went viral and sparked campus protests. Then discrepancies emerged in the account the victim told the reporter. Amid a flurry of stories slamming 

for setting back sexual assault victim advocacy efforts, the magazine issued an apology.

Despite this problematic incident, the recent coverage has sparked much-needed discussion. Aside from the UVA story, there have been a number of interesting developments regarding sexual assault and sexual harassment, such as California’s controversial affirmative consent rule, the report by the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault and Senate draft legislation that would create tougher penalties for colleges that mishandle sexual assault cases.

Some talk has focused on the interplay between alcohol and sexual assault (including so-called date rape drugs). Although estimates vary widely, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism suggests that half of all sexual assaults involve alcohol use by one or both parties.

Yet there has been almost no mention at all about (other) drug use. One might easily conclude that drug users are simply never assaulted. I mean, surely we would be talking about it if they were, right?

Of course, people who use drugs are raped every day, but “drug addicts”—and, by implication, any drug users—are a group that few people are willing to defend.

Think about what the narrative would be like if among the other discrepancies in the 

article, it was revealed that the victim had used drugs like heroin, hallucinogens, meth, or even cocaine. Her story would still have been discredited, but instead of criticisms being directed at 

 would bear the brunt (along with a fair number of insults).

People who use drugs are the forgotten victims of rape

On January 17, 2014 the Foundation received an invitation from United Nations office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to form part of a Technical Coordinating Group” known as the National Coordinating Committees (NCC)”. Institutions that are involved in this National Coordinating Committees are:

United Nations office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), secretary to the committees.

Liberia Drugs Enforcement Agency (LDEA), Chair-person.

Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOHWS), Co-hair.

Foundation Against Illicit Drugs and Child Abuse (FADCA), member.

National Aids Commission of Liberia, member.

Research Department, University of Liberia, member.

The Technical Coordinating Group is responsible for the identification of national public policy issues, developing national strategies and initiatives to combat the illicit use of drugs, organized crime and support national efforts, namely the Government on the nature, scope and impact of drugs and substances abuse as well as organized crime in the country. It provides a national forum where the interest and concern of stakeholders can be brought to the attention of people who deal with law, health, and social welfare. In keeping with its mandate, the Group is expected to meet once in every month but has since met three times.

In the spirit of good coordination among national institutions, FADCA presented several copies of the West Africa Commission on Drugs Report to each member of the Group. The report calls on regional governments to develop drug policy reforms.

In furtherance of our drug policy advocacy, FADCA remains in collaborative contact with regional partners, including the West Africa Commission on Drugs (WACD) and the West Africa Civil Society on Drugs Policy Reform to which FADCA’s Executive Director is the focal person. The Foundation (FADCA) is also in contact with Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) n which the Foundation Executive Director is currently serving as a focus on Liberia.

FADCA was asked to steer the formation of local civil society coalition that will advocate for reform on drug policy and other drug related issues in Liberia. At a meeting called January 15, 2014 by OSIWA National Project Coordinator, civil society organizations agreed that FADCA was well placed to lead the coalition formation and steer its affairs. The coalition was formed in May 2014 and named Coalition Against Illicit Drugs Trafficking and Abuse In Liberia (CADTAL). FADCA represented the coalition at the regional coordination meeting in Dakar, Senegal under the auspices of WACD. At a local meeting of Coalition members held in UNODC office on the 4th of July the FADCA presented copies of the West African Commission on Drugs report to members of the coalition.

Presenting the report, FADCA Executive Director told member organizations of the coalition and government agencies represented at the meeting that civil society organizations in the West African region are working along with the Commission to advocate for reform through publication of materials from international partners. “We must join forces to reform our drug laws, taking public health and human rights into consideration,” Mr. Alphonso Quenneh said. He further noted “we should use interdiction rather than criminalization”.

The report was embraced by UNODC Acting Country Representative, Mr. Yilaa Woltis Se. However some participants at the meeting particularly from the Drugs Enforcement Agency (DEA) in Liberia said that reforming the drug law would lay more emphasis on individual rights and set the pace for more farmers to get involve while youth in particular will practice public smoking of narcotics. For its part the National AIDS Commission accepted the fact that repressive laws help to increase HIV/AIDS, and that reforming drug laws with emphasis on public health is in the interest of Liberia.

At the July 4th meeting, members of the Technical Coordinating Group and the Coalition unanimously agreed to suspend meetings due to the intensity of Ebola outbreak in the country and in observance of government’s ban on public gathering. It was agreed that meetings will resume immediately when Liberia is declared Ebola free.
In July 2014 the Open Society Foundation for Global Drugs Policy initiated a program through the University of Legon Faculty of Law to study capacity building on Drug Policy and Human Rights in which two members of the coalition benefited through certification.

FADCA starts advocating for drug policy reform in Liberia

The US hasn't provided any specific details about what a historic new deal with Cuba means in terms of security and counternarcotics policy -- an area where limited collaboration between the two countries already exists -- but the restored relationship is nonetheless promising on many fronts.

According to a fact sheet released by the White House, meant to accompany President Barack Obama's announcement that the United States has re-established relations with Cuba, the United States will now "work with Cuba on matters of mutual concern and that advance US national interests, such as migration, counternarcotics, environmental protection, and trafficking in persons, among other issues."

In the short term, this could simply mean that pre-existing cooperation between the US and Cuba intensifies when it comes to counternarcotics efforts. The two countries already share information with each other about maritime drug trafficking on a case-by-case basis, as detailed by the US State Department.

A more dramatic move would be if the US should actually begin providing anti-drug aid to the island -- something that is not currently done. Cuba presented a draft counternarcotics agreement to the US in 2011, which has remained under review since then.

What the new US-Cuba deal means for organised crime and security 

The rights of women in Argentinian prisons, where gender inequality, violence and exclusion can flourish, are systematically violated. Gender violence behind bars can often result in attacks on a woman's body.

A study done by Procuración Penitenciaria de la Nacion in Argentina found institutional violence is an increasing problem in jail, given that the number of woman in jail has increased. Several studies examining the situation in which they live have shown that not much is being done to protect women's rights there.

Comunicar igualdad is an Argentine civil organization which focuses on expanding gender issues in the media as an strategy to obtain an equitable society. In a post titled “Woman in Jail“, it analyzed different cases of violence against woman deprived on freedom.

According to the blog Women and prison, prison affects women in a different way than men – since the number of woman in prison is much lower than men, prison facilities for them lack amenities such as sports and leisure activities. Women also endure the lack of contact with their families, the abandonment of their partners, and poor health care. At the same time, if they are foreign they face irregularities such as peculium payment due to the fact of taxing situation.

The lack of interpreters is another problem facing foreign women imprisoned in Argentina. Reyna Maraz, a Bolivian citizen living in the country who doesn't speak Spanish, only Quechua, was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of her husband, after three years in jail without being allowed to appear before a judge or having access to an interpreter.

Behind prison walls, violence against women is often ignored in Argentina 

There is no appetite in India for a serious conversation on drugs in India. The prime minister’s recent radio talk on the subject confirms that. Yet, drugs and laws to deal with them engage civil liberties, health and justice in a fundamental way that cannot be ignored. The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (NDPS Act) is one of the harshest laws in the country. The minimum sentence for drug dealing is rigorous imprisonment for 10 years and a fine of Rs 1 lakh. Contrast this with punishment for rape and human trafficking that, even after the recent enhancement, stands at seven years imprisonment. Bail is rejected at the mere mention that the case involves narcotic or psychotropic substances. The law bars suspension, remission or commutation of any sentence passed, foreclosing all relief. In prison, drug convicts are labelled a “dangerous breed” and treated more harshly than rapists and murderers.

The NDPS Act prescribes capital punishment for a repeat offence of drug trafficking, even though it does not involve violence or killing and, consequently, cannot be categorised as a “most serious crime”, for which the death penalty may be used. There is no persuasive evidence that the death penalty is a greater deterrent than other punishments in reducing drug crimes. When a second conviction for murder does not automatically qualify as a “rarest of rare” case deserving capital punishment, how could a subsequent drug crime justify a death sentence?

The government has defended capital punishment by saying that the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) is aware of India’s anti-narcotics programme and has never objected to penalties under the NDPS Act.

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