Vienna, Austria – Today, a key working group of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) announced the release of groundbreaking recommendations discouraging criminal sanctions for drug use. The Scientific Consultation Working Group on Drug Policy, Health and Human Rights of the UNODC – which includes Nora Volkow, head of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) – is releasing the recommendations at the High-Level Segment of the 57th UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs. The working group recommendations say “criminal sanctions are not beneficial” in addressing the spectrum of drug use and misuse.

More than 1.5 million drug arrests are made every year in the U.S. – the overwhelming majority for possession only. Roughly two dozen countries, and dozens of U.S. cities and states, have taken steps toward decriminalization.

Drug decriminalisation is rapidly emerging as consensus goal of both drug policy, public safety and health stakeholders.

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

United Nations: Criminal sanctions for drug use are "not beneficial"

The cultivation of illicit drug crops goes hand in hand with poverty and food insecurity. Weaning poor farmers off illicit crop cultivation requires sustainable alternative livelihoods, without which they will fall back on lucrative cash crops - coca leaf, opium poppy or cannabis - to survive. UNODC alternative development programmes therefore focus on providing economic and employment opportunities to communities subsisting on illicit crops.

The 2009 'Political Declaration and Plan of Action on International Cooperation Towards an Integrated and Balanced Strategy to Counter the World Drug Problem', being reviewed in Vienna this year, highlighted the need to address the supply side of the drug trade. UNODC helps States to implement poverty reduction and rural development strategies, carrying out projects in Afghanistan, the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Colombia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Myanmar and Peru.

At the High Level Review, Member States will consider the impact of alternative development activities and commit to measures to step up alternative livelihood programmes.

Supporting legal livelihoods for illicit crop farmers

Inspired by Sir Richard Branson and the Nekker Island Retreat for the Heads of Government of the 15 independent countries of the Commonwealth Caribbean, Representatives of the Latin American Network of People Who Use Drugs (LANPUD) and the Caribbean Network of People Who Use Drugs (CARIPUD) met in retreat in Castries, Saint Lucia to discuss the state of affairs among people who use drugs in Latin America and the Caribbean. Hosted by the Caribbean Drug and Alcohol Research Institute, the retreat was guided by Chatham House Rules and further the identities of the individuals attending is kept confidential given the oppression some participants live under.

The consensus of the retreat that there is a general lack of concern for the health and social consequences of people who use drugs in the Americas and especially those particularly vulnerable persons using coca based stimulants in an environment of racism, repression and a hyper-criminality encouraged by the perpetuation of the War on Drugs in the Americas.

HIV rates among people who smoke crack cocaine are often 3 to 5 times the national prevalence rates, yet, despite the evidence showing that certain populations of coca based stimulant smokers have elevated rates of HIV, the UN Family continues to ignore the needs of this population.

Where is the Technical Guidance promised by UNODC when experts and community met in San Paulo in 2011. Why aren’t our brothers and sisters of the International Network of People Who Use Drugs championing the HIV prevention needs of people who use crack cocaine, the large majority of them smokers? UN Women: Where are your programmes for women who smoke crack?

LANPUD and CARIPUD join together to call for the UNODC to acknowledge the HIV and other health risks for people who use coca based stimulants and to engage with PAHO and the community of people who use drugs and are affected by HIV to adopt the CDARI Technical Guide to HIV Prevention, Treatment and Care for Stimulant Users to address the issues of HIV among people who use coca based stimulants in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The suppression of the natural herbal substances of cannabis, coca and poppy that resulted from the enforcement of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs has resulted in the proliferation of other substances, many more harmful, to be used as alternatives. Research has confirmed what community has always known, that natural herbal forms of psychotropic substances are benign at worse and often therapeutic with much less side effects then pharmaceuticals.

LANPUD and CARIPUD call for a public health campaign to make available and encourage the use of natural plant and herbal forms of cannabis, coca and poppy for people who wish an alternative to the derivatives they currently use.

LANPUD and CARIPUD further call on the governments of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean to stop arresting people who use drugs and allow for the legal sale and growth of cannabis, coca and poppy for personal use.


LANPUD and CARIPUD joint statement on drug policy reform

The proposals to strengthen the European Union’s ability to respond to new psychoactive substances used as alternatives to illicit drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy (IP/13/837 and MEMO/13/790) made important progress today. They were backed in the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) (51 in favour, 4 against).The new rules proposed by the Commission will equip the EU with a quicker and smarter system to help protect more than 2 million people in Europe who take pills or powders sold to them as ‘legal’.

"Today's vote is good news. Legal highs are not legal: they are lethal", said Vice-President Viviane Reding, the EU’s Justice Commissioner. "Drugs don't stop at national borders. In a borderless internal market, we need common EU rules to tackle legal highs. More and more young people are put at risk through the growing number of these dangerous substances. We have to be quicker and we have to be cleverer in our reaction. I would like to thank the rapporteurs, Jacek Protasiewicz and Teresa Jiménez-Becerril for their speedy work on this important file. I hope we can make further swift progress in the European Parliament and in the Council now."

New psychoactive substances: European Parliament committee backs Commission proposal 

Polish policemen and prosecutors need drug amount reference tables!

The Poland’s drug law is the second most restrictive in Europe, after the drug law in Belarus. The Act on Counteracting Drug Addiction requires immediate change. Based on the current legal provisions every 3 minutes a person is detained being suspected of illegal drug possession. Annually this number exceeds 30,000 people.

Polish prosecutors will apply the Article 62 of the Act on Counteracting Drug Addiction more often.This declaration was heard by representatives of the Polish Drug Policy Network after a meeting in two Polish cities - Rzeszowand Bialystok. “This is a great success of our organization”- Agnieszka Sieniawska, the Polish Drug Policy Network Chairperson, commented.

The Polish Drug Policy Network (PDPN) organized a number of training courses for the Polish police and prosecutors to encourage for the use of the new drug law, as well as to identify the obstacles to their use.

Polish Drug Policy Network trains law enforcement officers to better tackle drug offenders

In country after country a vast array of new psychoactive substances, rapidly spread via online sources, is causing havoc for law and policy makers. Attempts to arrest their harms almost routinely fail, and many are now looking to the example of recent New Zealand legislation. Max Daly asks whether we have got it right, or does regulation just lead to further problems?

The proliferation of new psychoactive substances (NPS) and legal highs has changed the drug world forever and thrown a spanner into the Drug War machinery.

This armoury of chemicals, and the way they are produced and sold, has left policy makers dazed and confused amid a hail of chemical formulae, brands, legal loopholes, underground chemistry labs, virtual currencies and online encryption.

At the start of the Drug War, the enemies were more honest, simply made from plants. Later came LSD, speed and ecstasy, which were made in labs, but everyone knew what they were. Then the NPS revolution happened in the 2000s, and the enemy had changed.

Synthetic solutions: The global response to ‘legal’ highs

The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) is a great innovation of the Treaty of Lisbon, enabling EU citizens to call directly on the European Commission to propose a legal act, if they can obtain the support of one million of their fellow citizens. The "Weed like to talk” campaign, launched by three French university students this year, aims to collect one million signatures from at least seven EU countries to call for a common cannabis policy based on a legally regulated market. One of the students, Pierre Balas, a Parisian graduate student of European Affairs, says there is no commercial or political agenda behind the campaign. They are students who are simply fed up with ineffective policies and wish to explore innovative tools of direct democracy. The success of the campaign will not automatically lead to cannabis legalization but the EU Commission will be legally bound to undertake transparent action on cannabis policy.

Europe, it’s time to regulate cannabis!

Follow the journey of a teenage ex-gang member as he heals the wounds of his past and tries to imagine a better future.

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

The effects drug trafficking on young people invovled in gangs in Honduras

Russia faces an alarming situation with its fastest-growing HIV epidemic. Russia is home to the world’s fastest-growing HIV epidemic. Driven by injection drug use, it is now becoming generalized. If you use injection drugs in Russia, you likely have HIV, hepatitis C, and more often than not, tuberculosis.

Although the Russian constitution grants the right to free access to health services in government facilities, it does not provide effective care to those who have these multiple infections. And it bans opioid substitution therapy—the most effective opiate addiction treatment.

In many ways, the story of Max, who you meet in this video, is typical of the hundreds of thousands of Russians who use drugs. As an intravenous drug user, he contracted HIV and hepatitis C.

Fighting an epidemic in Russia from 3,000 miles away

The world’s nations have begun talks ahead of the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Drugs in 2016. This is a time of increasing high-level calls for drug policy reform and a sense that policies long dominated by prohibition and law enforcement in many parts of the world have failed miserably. Countries may be better served with a public health policy approach instead.

Canada has long been a world leader in implementing harm reduction policy when it comes to drug use at home.

So it was almost shocking to see it aligning itself to countries such as Russia and China in vocally opposing the inclusion of “harm reduction” in a new a new set of UN principles that will guide talks at the special session in 2016.Canada is adopting a controversial position towards drug policies by undermining harm reduction interventions.

Canada’s drug policy is in with the wrong crowd

The Lawyers Collective welcomes the passage of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Amendment) Bill, 2014 (“NDPS”) by Parliament late last week. The amendments make important, path breaking changes for medical access to narcotic drugs by removing barriers that date back to 1985, when the Act was first introduced. The amendments also include provisions to improve treatment and care for people dependent on drugs, moving away from abstinence oriented services to treating drug dependence as a chronic, yet manageable condition.

India is one of the leading producers of morphine, yet patients in the country could not access it owing to the stringent licensing requirements under the NDPS Act and Rules framed by State Governments. Statistics reveal that the medical use of morphine declined by 97% after the NDPS Act came into force.

This will now change as Parliament has adopted a new category of “

” in section 2(viiia) of the Act - a list, which the Central Government can notify on the basis of expediency in medical practice. Drugs identified as essential will be subject to Central Rules under section 9(1)(a), which will apply uniformly throughout the country, bringing to an end the unwieldy and inept practice of obtaining multiple State licenses for possession, transport, purchase, sale, distribution, use and consumption.

The amendments broaden the object of the NDPS Act from containing illicit use to also promoting the medical and scientific use of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances. The language incorporated in section 4, which is an overarching provision, reflects the principle of ‘balance’ between control and availability of narcotic drugs, which is at the heart of international drug control but has eluded the NDPS Act so far. This widening of scope, it is hoped, will pave the way for more research on the beneficial use of narcotics, which up till now, remained out of bounds for the medical and scientific community due to the overtly prohibitive nature of the law.

Importantly, medical use has not been specified and could include a variety of medical conditions, besides drug dependence and pain relief.

Health and rights of people who use drugs

Other salutary changes have been introduced in section 71, which significantly impact the health and rights of people who use drugs. The NDPS Act now allows for “

” of drug dependence, thereby legitimizing opioid substitution, maintenance and other harm reduction services. Secondly, it authorizes the Government to “

” treatment centres, which currently operate without license or accreditation, and inflict violence and torture on drug users. The amendments will allow for instituting evidence based and human rights compliant standards for drug treatment facilities, whether public or private.

The latest amendments introduce some changes in penal sentencing for drug offences.

Sentencing under the NDPS Act is dependent on the quantity of the drug found, with the scale of punishment varying from a maximum of 6 months for ‘small quantity’ to 20 years imprisonment for a first offence involving ‘commercial quantity’. The NDPS (Amendment) Bill, 2011 had proposed language that defined ‘small’ and ‘commercial’ quantity on the basis of the total weight of the contraband as opposed to the actual content of the narcotic or psychotropic drug in the seized substance. This would have led more people including persons who use drugs to be sentenced for ‘commercial quantity’, especially since street drugs are heavily ‘cut’ and rarely ever seized in pure forms. These provisions do not form part of the Bill cleared by the Parliament.

Another important change is the Parliament’s decision to recast the death penalty, which, until now, was mandatory for a subsequent offence involving a certain quantity of drugs under section 31A, as an alternative to imprisonment for 30 years under section 31. This is a welcome step but falls short of international human rights standards and constitutional principles that restrict the imposition of the death sentence to the ‘most serious’ and ‘rarest of rare’ crimes. Drug offences do not meet this threshold and should not attract capital punishment at all.

On the flip side, the amendment has increased the punishment for small quantity offences from a maximum of 6 months to 1 year imprisonment. Consumption of drugs continues to be punishable. This is regrettable as Parliament had the opportunity to review and reform punitive provisions against people who use drugs. In the last decade or so, a growing number of countries have moved towards the full decriminalization of use and possession of drugs, with no reported negative consequences on individuals and society. Some are boldly creating legalized markets for the distribution, sale, possession and use of certain drugs. The NDPS amendments seem regressive and out of step, against the grain of international drug policy reform.

The amendment opens the way for private sector involvement in the processing of opium and concentrated poppy straw.

It also offers some protection to persons engaged in licensed drug activities by raising the rank of officers who are authorized under section 42, to search and arrest license holders for alleged NDPS violations.

Parliament has also adopted changes to strengthen the forfeiture of property of persons arraigned on charges of drug trafficking.

The NDPS (Amendment) Bill 2014 was strongly influenced by recommendations of the Standing Committee on Finance, which reviewed the NDPS (Amendment) Bill, 2011 in its 50th report of March 2012. Civil society and sections of the pharmaceutical industry also advocated for change.

The Lawyers Collective made extensive written and oral submissions on the NDPS (Amendment) Bill 2011 to the Standing Committee on Finance and subsequently worked with palliative care activists and the Department of Revenue, especially on medical access to narcotics.

Indian Parliament passes the amendments to the bill on narcotic drugs, 2014: Many gains, some losses

Polish lawmakers are looking at replacing a failed strategy for policing drug offenses with a groundbreaking model pioneered in Seattle.

Legislators in Poland recently hosted James Pugel, former chief of the Seattle Police Department, in order to study the city’s Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program. The program, which was introduced in 2011, involves steering low-level drug and prostitution arrestees into community-based treatment and support services, instead of processing them through traditional criminal justice system avenues.

Unlike drug courts, which require appearances before a judge, the LEAD program directs people to services at the point of arrest without entanglement in the criminal justice system.

Pugel presented to the Polish parliament, met senior law enforcement officials, and addressed national public health advocates to consider what aspects of the LEAD program are applicable to Poland.

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