While the public debate on drug control and regulation of marijuana in Mexico City continues to grow, particularly following the Forum organized by the Legislative Assembly of the Federal District, citizens now expect concrete proposals from legislators.

However, as we await these proposals, reality does not stop and all types of substances, legal or illegal, continue to be used in our society as the lack of institutional resources for drug users increases.

To address this issue, CuPIHD conducted a workshop on risk and harm reduction, with a focus on the chemical analysis of substances. The workshop was supported by the Human Rights Commission of the Federal District and facilitated by the Catalan organization, EnergyControl, which has been a pioneer of these strategies in Europe and throughout the world.

The workshop began with an explanation of the European experience in drug use, but also touched on our own reality, recognizing that, regardless of the moral and legal positions, drugs are consumed and there is a need to act to reduce the risks and harms that consumption can cause in our societies.

The intention of the workshop was not to reduce consumption in and of itself, but rather to inform users, primarily those who use in party environments, on the quality of the drugs and the best strategies to reduce their risks and harms. The goal of conducting chemical analysis is to detect the level of adulteration of illegal substances and thus open a space for dialogue and information with other users with the sole purpose of protecting their health and that of the surrounding community.

For over 15 years, EnergyControl has focused on this issue and realized that 95% of users who use this service, tend to moderate and control their consumption due to reliable and useful information, rather than the judgment which often occurs. By informing and encouraging responsible consumption, rather than the usual repressive policy, users begin to reduce the potential risks and harms.

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Analysing substances: Harm and risk reduction

On September 10th, the first ever U.S. Senate Hearing on marijuana legalization was held to review the growing tensions between state and federal law on marijuana. In the light of U.S. Attorney General Eric Hold’s directives to state prosecutors to them not to interfere with state marijuana laws – as long as a number of situations are adhered to. As the U.S. based Drug Policy Alliance notes, More than 750,000 people were arrested for marijuana in the U.S. in 2011, the last year for which data is available.

Of those arrests, 87% were for mere possession. Polls show that a majority of Americans support legalizing and regulating marijuana like alcohol, and support is rising across the political spectrum. It is likely that more states will legalize marijuana between now and November 2016.

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First Ever U.S. senate hearing on marijuana legalisation

Utrecht city council is pressing ahead with two projects involving cannabis: one based on a private cultivation club and one to supply marijuana to people with psychiatric problems.

The health ministry is to supply medicinal cannabis for an experiment which will deliver hashish to 80 people with psychiatric problems, the council said on Wednesday, that added that this will be given to people who are not responding to treatment for their chronic problems which may be connected to their heavy cannabis use.

Utrecht presses ahead with 'legal' cannabis experiments

The Indonesian parliament is currently drafting new legislation on mental health which proposes defining drug dependence as a mental health issue. As such, people who use drugs will be defined as people with psychiatric illness, for which treatment will be administered in a mental health care facility. This proposal has divided not only the Indonesian public. The argument put forward by proponents of this new law is that classifying addiction as a mental illness is a positive move away from criminalisation, and as such, should be accepted as a progressive step.

However, many of those in the drug using community strongly disagree. The proposed re-definition of 'addiction' has huge potential implications for harm reduction drug treatment services, for the meaningful involvement of the drug-using community in policy processes and programming, and for what's deemed "proper treatment" for addiction (i.e. pharmacological treatment over evidence-based harm reduction programming). Even more worrying is that UNODC Indonesia appears to support for this draft legislation.

New Indonesian legislation to equate drug dependency with mental illness

Developing Country NGO Delegation to the Global Fund Board

 is launching a call for new members to expand our reach into the communities in the Global South comprising Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern Europe and Central Asia and Asia Pacific. The term of office for Delegation members is two years.

The Developing Country NGO Delegation represents the diverse NGO/ CBO response to AIDS, TB and Malaria on the GFATM Board.

Based on the knowledge and experience of NGO’s and CBO’s and their constituencies, this delegation aims to contribute to and influence Global Fund policies and practices to be continually and appropriately responsive to the needs of those affected by AIDS, TB and Malaria and of NGO’s and CBO’s who are themselves implementers of Global Fund grants. One of the defining features of this approach is the unique ability to bring the perspectives of both recipients and implementers to the GFATM processes.

Represent the perspectives of Developing Country NGO’s on the GFATM Board in a strategic and consultative manner.

Inform and positively influence the governance processes of the Global Fund to better integrate non-governmental and community based efforts to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria into national and international responses.

A Board Member, along with an Alternate Board Member and a Communications Focal Point, leads the delegation. Members of the Delegation can be appointed to serve on standing committees of the Board. Appointments are made based on individual disease expertise, regional and gender representation and balance. An annual retreat is held once per year to which all members are invited. The most important role of a Delegation member is to be responsive to the needs of the communities their region and in so doing bring the objectives of the Delegation to fruition. This is an exciting time in the life of the Global Fund as the New Funding Model is being rolled out in countries and the role of civil society is pivotal to its success.

The closing date for nominations is midnight CET 30 September, 2013. It will not be possible to consider applications received past this date.

Please send all applications with all required documents as detailed in the documents below to: gfngoapplication@gmail.com

Call for new members for the developing country NGO delegation to the Global Fund board

The second anniversary of the Supreme Court decision protecting Vancouver's Insite is coming September 30. It's time for more supervised consumption sites!

The Legal Network has collaborated with the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition and Pivot Legal Society on an open letter to The Hon. Rona Ambrose, federal Minister of Health.

To sign on (organisations only, please), contact Connie at CDPC: ccarter@drugpolicy.ca.

Call for endorsements: Support more safe injection sites in Canada!

The NSW Government announced this 10th of September new laws to outlaw synthetic drugs with psychoactive properties.

Minister for Fair Trading Anthony Roberts said the laws will be the most comprehensive and wide-ranging in the country. “There is no silver bullet to protect people from the scourge of psychoactive drugs, but the NSW Government has developed ground breaking laws to tackle the problem,” Mr Roberts said.

“The NSW Government will prohibit the manufacture, supply and advertising of psychoactive substances “NSW will adopt Schedule 9 of the Commonwealth Standard for the Uniform Scheduling of Medicines and Poisons, making it an offence to sell, manufacture, supply and possess any Schedule 9 substance. “These offences will be added to the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act 1985.

New South Wales government to outlaw synthetic drugs

On August 23, an uncharacteristically violent riot occurred in Bolivia's largest prisons; 35 died as a result. The tragedy brought international attention to the extreme overcrowding, judicial delay, and poor living conditions that have plagued the country’s penal system for decades.

Over 84 percent of inmates are still awaiting trial, and have been for years. Most have committed nonviolent crimes, the great majority for low-level drug production or transport, in an effort to feed their families. The extremely high sentences set for drug offenses originate from Law 1008, legislation passed in 1988 under extreme US pressure.

It’s time for Bolivia to reform this external imposition and reform its legislation. The overburdened judicial system can no longer guarantee the rights of these people, nor in such extreme conditions can they supervise the small numbers of violent inmates.

In response to calls from Bolivia's civil society, the Bolivian government has agreed to a judicial pardon as a just solution and key firststep to provide a more humane legal system that focuses on incarceration for those who propose a genuine risk to society. On September 11th, 2013, President Morales released a decree dictating terms of pardon and amnesty for eligible prisoners. Anyone sentenced for nonviolent or non-corruption crimes with a sentence of eight years or less is eligible for a pardon; anyone who has not yet been convicted with a potential maximum sentence of four years is eligible for amnesty, These sentence ceiling will restrict the law’s impact for Bolivian drug war prisoners whose disproportionally high sentences range from 1-4 years (rudimentary cocaine paste production by 

 ); 5-15 years (drug production); 8-12 yrs (drug transport) and 10-25 years (trafficking).

Its up to the Bolivian congress to raise these limits to meaningfully address the prison crisis.

This video was developed in collaboration with Violeta Ayala and Dan Fallshaw of Cocaine Prison.

Daily life of inmates on drug charges in a Bolivian prison 

Italy takes a harsh, punitive approach to drugs: The state now spends €2 billion per year to enforce these laws (enough to make 6,000 kindergartens for 180,000 kids); 800,000 drug-related cases are choking the Italian justice system and approximately one-third of the nation’s prison inmates are there because of drug-related offenses.

Despite the harsh penalties, one in three Italians have smoked cannabis and regular users number more than 3 million. So, it’s clear that the current approach has failed and we need alternatives.

In Italy, the drug debate gets animated

The International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Ukraine has reached an agreement with MSD, one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical producers, to more than halve the cost of a 48 week treatment course for Hepatitis C for its project in Ukraine. Such a substantial price reduction – from $13,200 down to $5000 – will enable Alliance Ukraine to secure Hepatitis C (HCV) treatment for 100 highly vulnerable patients with HIV/HCV co-infection through the procurement of Pegylated Interferon and Ribavirin – two key components of the treatment course.

This important HCV treatment initiative is funded by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and means that the first patients will be enrolled into HCV treatment in Ukraine in early November 2013.

According to Andriy Klepikov, Alliance Ukraine’s Executive Director: “We have managed to overcome the key obstacle when it comes to accessing Hepatitis C treatment – the price. This project should now become a catalyst for change in Ukraine and the wider region.

Alliance Ukraine secures affordable life-saving hepatitis C treatment for people living with HIV

NVO 4 Life has launched a new service for social protection “Service for protection and support to social inclusion of people dependent on drugs”. Within this program, people dependent on drugs who undergo a drug treatment program will be taught the basics of design and production of promotional material through theoretical lectures and practical training in order to enable them to independently produce materials (business cards, flayers, brochures…) on photocopy machine specially made for this purpose.

The main motive for the establishment of this service is that people dependent on drugs will be faced with number of difficulties in employment, even after their recovery process. In this project, in addition to drug treatment program, people dependent on drugs will have theoretical lectures and practical training to become familiar with the basics of design and production of promotional material. They will be able to independently produce materials (business cards, flyers, brochures ...). The program will ensure that people dependent on drugs have a work placement, which will facilitate their reintegration in society.

The provision of these social protection services is part of broader project entitled “Reform of the social and child protection systems – improvement of the social inclusion IPA 2010” that is being conducted by the UNDP office in Montenegro, together with the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare of Montenegro, the Ministry of Education of Montenegro and UNICEF. The project is funded by the European Union through Delegation of European Union in Montenegro.

NGO 4 Life launches social protection service for people dependent on drugs Montenegro

Have you read the 21st Amendment of the United States Constitution lately? With the gaining momentum of efforts to reform drug policies here and around the world, it’s an instructive, interesting, and very quick read.

In 1933, for the twenty-first time, America revised the document that anchors its legal and political systems and expresses the democratic and social aspirations of its people. In this instance, Americans called for an end to the disastrous 14-year experiment with mandatory alcohol prohibition.

When Congress proposed repeal of the 18th Amendment, which banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol, it did two unusual things. For the first and only time, Congress decided 

 to entrust approval of a proposed constitutional amendment to the state legislatures. Instead, Congress chose the alternative method of ratifying a constitutional amendment: state ratifying conventions specially elected for that single purpose by voters in each state.

In other words, Congress was saying to each state: You decide whether you want to keep booze illegal or not within your state; the federal government won’t get involved, except to protect dry states from outside interference.

The U.S. Department of Justice has committed—at least for now—to essentially the same path for marijuana. Late last month, the Obama Administration announced federal law enforcement policy that would permit states to regulate marijuana production and distribution for adults.

In a remarkable memo to United States Attorneys across the country, Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole explained the Obama Administration’s solution to differences in state and federal marijuana laws.

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