The decision by California voters in 1996 to legalize medical marijuana produced a wave of similar initiatives around the country. Less than two decades later, over half the states allow at least limited medical use. Now it looks as though recreational use of the drug may follow the same path.

In 2012, Washington State and Colorado legalized recreational marijuana. This November, voters in Alaska, Oregon and the District of Columbia will decide whether to do the same — effectively disregarding the misguided federal ban on a drug that is far less dangerous than alcohol. Decades of arresting people for buying, selling and using marijuana have hurt more than helped society, and minority communities have been disproportionately affected by the harsh criminal penalties of prohibition.

Since Alaska, Oregon and the District of Columbia already allow medical marijuana, taking the next step makes good sense. There are some differences in their proposed initiatives, but they are all worthy of passage.

ALASKA Ballot Measure 2 would make the use and purchase of marijuana legal for those 21 and older, create a marijuana control board and tax the drug at $50 per ounce wholesale. It is already legal for Alaskans to possess small amounts of marijuana in their homes, and surveys indicate that 18 percent of Alaskans smoke marijuana. Ballot Measure 2 would mean that Alaskans could buy it from a store instead of resorting to the black market.

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

Yes to marijuana ballot measures: Alaska, Oregon and the District of Columbia should legalise pot

佩特雷的阿吉欧史芬尼监狱是全国第一个“监狱”美沙酮维持治疗方案的新家。这是这所监狱的骄傲，因为那些在毒瘾在苦苦挣扎的囚犯现在可以边服刑边接受合理的治疗。 英文版本拥有更多信息，请阅读下文。

随时掌握与药物政策发展相关的最新信息。

Agios Stefanos prison in Patras, Greece is the proud new home of the country's very first "prison" methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) program, where inmates struggling with addiction can now be provided with proper treatment, medical care and compassion they so desperately require to treat their addictions while incarcerated.

The issues of substance abuse and addiction among prison inmates in Greece is no secret. A 1999 study of 861 randomly selected inmates from 10 correctional institutions in the country found that 33.6 percent reported injecting drugs, and of those, 60 percent had reported injecting while in prison. Not surprisingly, 54.7 percent of the inmates engaging in intravenous drug use during their stay in prison were incarcerated due to drug-related offenses. With statistics like those, it is abundantly clear that effective treatment options needed to be made available not just to the general public, but to those who are incarcerated in jails or prisons as well.

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

希腊为囚犯推出第一美沙酮维持治疗计划

医疗健康法案于上周再次被议会的健康投资组合委员会提上议程。 英文版本拥有更多信息，请阅读下文。

Late Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) MP Mario Ambrosini’s call to have marijuana legalised in South Africa has received a new boost. The medical innovation bill was once again on the agenda of Parliament’s Health Portfolio Committee last week.

Ambrosini who committed suicide last month was suffering from cancer and had on a number of occasions called for the legalisation of the drug for medicinal purposes. The bill is now being spearheaded by his colleague IFP MP Narend Singh.

南非的大麻合法化需要新的动力

基本权利委员会成员认为布达佩斯关闭最大的针和注射器项目的做法违反了健康权。而市长指责那些人权拥护者“被药物游说者所控制”。 英文版本拥有更多信息，请阅读下文。

The Commissioner for Fundamental Rights, responding to a complaint submitted by the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU), found that the closure of the largest needle and syringe program in Budapest violated the right to health. The mayor is now accusing the ombudsman of “being controlled by the drug lobby”.

In November 2013, the HCLU submitted a complaint to the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights, asking him to investigate political attacks by the mayor of the 8th district of Budapest against the needle and syringe program operated by the Blue Point NGO. The ombudsman produced a comprehensive report on the situation but the report was published only after the needle exchange program closed at the end of August.

In his report, the ombudsman, referring to a previous ruling of the Constitutional Court, defines the violation of the right to the highest attainable standard of health as an “exceptional, extreme shortfall in access to health care”. Closure of an existing harm reduction serivce, in an area where large numbers of marginalised injecting drug users live, and where the risk of infections is high, is precisely such an exceptional case.

人权拥护者遣责针头交换项目在布达佩斯的关闭

墨西哥前总统文森特 福克斯声明毒品合法化的道路是不可逆的。 英文版本拥有更多信息，请阅读下文。

A Mexican state could approve medicinal use of marijuana by the end of this year, paving the way for further steps toward legalizing the drug, former Mexican President Vicente Fox said on Monday.

Political pressure inside Mexico to liberalize its stance on marijuana has been rising since the U.S. states of Washington and Colorado legalized possession and sale of the drug for recreational use in 2012.

In July, opposition lawmakers in the western state of Jalisco put forward a plan to change local drug laws, including permitting the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

To win support for the plan, the lawmakers from the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) organized an ongoing survey to gauge public opinion, which so far has shown a clear majority in favor of allowing medical marijuana.

墨西哥前总统说今年墨西哥可能要改变大麻法  

Next year, if all goes to plan, a dozen patients with clinical depression will be invited to a UK laboratory and given psilocybin – the psychedelic ingredient found in magic mushrooms. Over the next four or five hours, many of these volunteers will experience dream-like euphoria as colours, smells and sounds become more intense, perception of time distorts and their sense of self dissolves. Some may feel a surge of electricity through their bodies, sudden clarity of thought or hilarity. Others may experience anxiety, confusion or paranoia. These hallucinogenic effects will be short-lived, but the impact of the drug on the volunteers could be long-lasting.

There is tentative evidence that psilocybin, along with other psychedelic drugs, can "reset" abnormal functioning of the brain if given in a safe, controlled way as part of therapy. For those raised on the post-1960s dogma that magic mushrooms and LSD unleash mental illness, trigger flashbacks and cause personality changes, the idea that they could actually cure disorders of the brain is mind-blowing.

The pilot study will involve patients who have failed to respond to conventional treatment and is the idea of Professor David Nutt and Dr Robin Carhart-Harris at Imperial College's Neuropsychopharmacology Centre in London. They argue that psychedelic drugs could prove beneficial to millions of people and that it is time to end the 50-year stigma surrounding their therapeutic use. Nutt and Carhart-Harris have already used MRI scanners to study changes in the brain while 15 volunteers took psilocybin. A similar study on 20 volunteers given LSD has just finished.

Healing trip: how psychedelic drugs could help treat depression

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) plans to pursue a crimes against humanity case against ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra in connection with his government's war on drugs 11 years ago, in which more than 2,500 drug suspects were killed.

NHRC member Niran Pitakwatchara said even though Thailand is not a signatory to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), there is still an avenue to pursue the case.

He will lead a delegation to The Hague in the Netherlands by the end of the year to meet the president of the ICC to discuss ways to bring Thaksin to justice.

Mr Niran commented after meeting with those affected by the drug suppression campaign.

The commission will seek ways to press legal action against those responsible for the acts of violence.

Mr Niran commented after meeting with those affected by the drug suppression campaign. The commission will seek ways to press legal action against those responsible for the acts of violence.

Information from the meetings will be used to research how the war on drugs has affected human rights and a report will be presented to agencies to support efforts to rehabilitate victims, Mr Niran said.

National Human Rights Commission to bring Thaksin before ICC for crimes committed during the 2003 Thai war on drugs

Article originally published on the Asia Catalyst Newsletter.

This summer, China declared a “people’s war” on drugs, with increased policing activity aimed at arresting and—in some cases—deporting, people who use drugs. State run news agency Xinhua reports that this latest crackdown has seen a 72 percent rise in drug-related arrests over the past year. Reports now reveal that the Beijing police are offering rewards to people for turning in others who use drugs, with monetary payouts going to ‘whistleblowers’ after arrests of people who use drugs are made. Writing in Substance.com, Asia Catalyst Advocacy Director, Shen Tingting, highlights that such policies also amount to a violation of human rights.

Despite an increasingly common view that the global “war on drugs” has failed and that harm reduction more effectively prevents adverse effects of personal drug use, China continues to implement harsh punishments, public humiliations, and inappropriate treatment to people suspected or convicted of using drugs. The recent crackdown highlights the numerous failings of the Chinese government’s response to personal drug use. Among these failures is the Beijing police policy which monetarily rewards civilians for reporting suspicions of drug-related offenses by other people to police. In practice, this policy creates a hazardous and highly unsafe atmosphere for people who use drugs (PWUD), driving the community away from harm reduction and health services and further underground. As long as individuals are indiscriminately offered compensation to turn in suspected PWUD to law enforcement, public services—including health and HIV prevention services—will remain unsafe for PWUD to openly seek, and a black market will flourish. This will ultimately produce lasting damages to China’s public health record and HIV prevalence.

“Here in China, Our War on Drugs Shows No Sign of Relenting.”

“Beijing police will be rewarded to report on drug-related crime clues masses uncapped.”

“China's Drug Crackdown Targets Celebs And Foreigners.”

“How do people on the streets of Beijing feel about China's new drug crackdown?”

For more information, please visit the website of Asia Catalyst.

The Chinese war on people who use drugs

In Latin America’s latest challenge to Washington’s “war on drugs,” Ecuador has quietly begun releasing thousands of convicted cocaine smugglers.

The move is a result of the country’s new criminal law, which took effect Aug. 10. It treats “drug mules” who commit the low-profit, high-risk offense more as vulnerable people exploited by cartels than as hardened criminals.

The reform retroactively applies heavily reduced jail sentences to those already convicted of attempting to transport relatively small amounts of drugs — often hidden dangerously inside their own bodies — out of the Latin American country.

Around 500 mules have already been freed and at least another 2,000 are expected to follow, says Jorge Paladines, national coordinator of the Public Defender’s Office. The sentence reduction is not automatic and can only happen after a court hearing, which the prisoner has to request.

“There is a policy of seeing mules as victims of the drug trade,” Paladines told GlobalPost. “I don’t like using the term ‘sentence reduction,’ because was their sentence fair to start with? This is really about sentence proportionality.”

Ecuador is freeing thousands of drug mules

Publicado originalmente em inglês em ‘The Conversation’ com coautoria de Luciana Boiteux em 4 de outubro de 2014.

O Brasil tem um grave problema de drogas. O país se encontra ao lado das 

 no mundo, que ficam no Peru e na Colômbia. Uma parte considerável da cocaína consumida na Europa se move através de seu vasto território. As taxas brasileiras de 

 são altíssimas e muito disso tem a ver com o mercado de drogas ilícitas. O tamanho de sua população e o recente processo de despertar econômico transformaram o próprio Brasil em um enorme mercado para o consumo de drogas ilícitas.

Outros países da América Latina enfrentam os mesmos problemas, e estão trazendo novas propostas para lidar com eles. Por exemplo, o Uruguai 

 decidiram em favor da descriminalização da posse de drogas para uso pessoal.

Registe-se para recever as Alertas mensais do IDPC e obter informação sobre questões relacionadas com as políticas de drogas.

Os políticos brasileiros não podem ignorar a reforma das drogas para sempre 

Brazil has a serious drug problem. The country lies beside the largest coca plantations in the world in Peru and Colombia. A sizeable part of the cocaine used in Europe moves through its vast territory. Murder and incarceration rates are very high and much of this is to do with the illicit drug market. The size of its population and the recent process of economic awakening have transformed Brazil into a huge market for illicit drug consumption itself.

Other countries in Latin America face the same problems, and are bringing in new proposals to tackle them. For instance, Uruguay has legalized recreational marijuanaand the courts of Argentina and Colombia have decided in favor of decriminalizing drug possession for personal use.

Brazil's politicians can’t ignore drug reform forever

Commemorating the International Day of Non-Violence (October 2, 2014), Eurasian Harm Reduction Network (EHRN) presents a video where activists and human rights experts call women who use drugs to fight violence against them. By releasing this video, EHRN wants to raise awareness about the widespread problem of police violence against women who use drugs in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (CEECA) as well as to call women who use drugs to join the regional advocacy campaign “Women against Violence“ and to break silence by reporting cases of police violence through this online platform.

Violence against women remains widespread in CEECA. Despite the fact that general violence against women is well-documented, specific groups of women who use drugs and/or live with HIV are missing from the wider picture. Women who use drugs and live with HIV are the most vulnerable group for many reasons, including strong prejudice and stigma against them, which often results in gender-based discrimination and violence. When drug use, HIV status and sex work intersect, discrimination and violence doubles and women become more vulnerable to violence by police. In countries where drug use and sex work are criminalized, access to legal aid and basic health care is limited leaving women who use drugs powerless and unprotected at the hands of police.