The Communications Assistant will be employed full-time based in Geneva. The position is fixed term for 6 months from April to September 2013. The Communications Assistant will be required to travel to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, as part of the IAS secretariat on occasion on the 7th IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention (IAS 2013) in June/July 2013. The position might be extended depending on budget and needs.

The incumbent will be responsible for assisting with the coordination of various Communications projects. The Communications Assistant will ultimately report to the Communications Senior Manager but on a day to day basis will take direction from the Communications and Media Officer and the Web Officer.

Read more details about the offered position below.

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The International AIDS Society (IAS) recruits communications assistant 

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guatemala, Luis Fernando Carrera Castro, presented the issue "Alternative Strategies for Combating Drugs" as his country’s proposal for the central theme of the upcoming 43rd OAS General Assembly, to be held in Antigua, Guatemala from June 4-6.

The Secretary General of the OAS, José Miguel Insulza, welcomed this proposal and highlighted the assignment received during the Sixth Summit of the Americas in 2012, which urged the OAS to analyze the results of drug policies in the Americas and to explore new approaches to strengthen these efforts and make them more effective.

Guatemala proposes "alternative strategies for combating drugs" as the central theme of the 43rd OAS general assembly

Honduras has been militarized for over half a century, allowing the country's infamous "10 families" to carry out national business with impunity since the Cold War. However, recently, the global pressure for agricultural land, the drug wars and the Honduran coup of 2009 have increased the human rights abuses in Honduras.

Indigenous and peasant people are caught between the land grabbers and the War on Drugs. On May 11, 2012, four indigenous villagers, including a 14-year-old boy, were killed during the course of a drug interdiction raid in Ahuas (Moskitia), Honduras. Three others were seriously wounded. At least ten U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents participated in the mission as members of a Foreign-Deployed Advisory Support Team (FAST), a DEA unit first created in 2005 in Afghanistan. According to the 

, Honduran police agents that were part of the May 11 operation told government investigators that they took their orders from the D.E.A.

Honduras: The war on peasants

The New Zealand Drug Foundation welcomes the introduction of the Psychoactive Substances Bill.

“The bill is a comprehensive and thoughtful response to what is proving to be one of the biggest challenges to drug policy makers around the world,” the foundation executive director, Ross Bell, said today.

The New Zealand drug foundation welcomes the psychoactive substances bill

Maine and Maryland became the latest states to see marijuana legalization bills filed this year, with lawmakers in those two states rolling out measures this week.

They join Hawaii, Maine, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, with Pennsylvania, Nevada and Vermont expected to add to the list shortly.

The bill would remove criminal penalties for possession and cultivation of small amounts of marijuana, direct a state agency to license and regulate marijuana commerce, including industrial hemp, create a $50 an ounce excise tax on wholesale sales, and allow localities to not allow marijuana commerce.

Maine and Maryland marijuana legalization bills filed 

Drug law and drug policy reforms are coming because the “war on drugs” is being won by the powerful criminal gangs who deal with drugs. Since 1998, when the UN held an event entitled “A drug-free world: we can do it”, consumption of cannabis and cocaine has risen by about 50% and so for opiates. I f efforts to stem demand have been futile, trying to control supply has been disastrous. Latin American leaders are tiring of this. Guatemala, Uruguay, Colombia or Mexico are making statements against the war on drugs or promoting legalization of regulated markets. In Bolivia, cultivation and use of coca leaves as a traditional right was regulated and negotiate as a partial opt-out from the Single Convention.

In United Estates, changes are also happening. In November voters in Colorado and Washington backed proposals to legalise, tax and regulate cannabis for recreational use. In 18 states plus Washington, DC. the medical marijuana is legal and plenty of states have decriminalised cannabis possession. However, cannabis remains illegal under America’s Controlled Substances Act, the 1970 law that implemented the Single Convention in the United States.

Cannabis policy is changing in Europe, too. In Spain, selling is illegal, buying is not. In Portugal, drug use is treated as a health issue, not a crime. Europe has been to drop punitive policies in dealing with heroin and cocaine addiction, in favour of harm reduction.

Winding down the war on drugs: Towards a ceasefire

In this article, the Economist explores the experiment of legalising consumption in Colorado and Washington and remarks that this would allow regulated markets and drug use or dependence to be treated as public-health issue, through the principle of harm reduction.

The Economist underlines, however, that production and distribution also need to be legalised to break the grip of gangsters over the drug business.

It notes that with this policy the United States will be in breach of the UN drugs convention. So, the country should join Latin American governments- that are questioning the effects of prohibition of drugs and the war it implies- in an effort to reform the document.

Illegal drugs: The great experiment of legalization

Youth RISE project coordinator for Nigeria and West Africa has recently been invited to join the West Africa Commission on Drugs. The commission is spearheaded by Kofi Annan and was inaugurated on 31 January 2013. It consists of eminent personalities in the region and is chaired by former president of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo. The Commission was formed in response to the escalating drug trafficking and consumption issues in the region, and is expected to mobilise pulbic and political commitments to ensure development and implementation of evidence informed drug policy.

Youth RISE joins the West Africa commission on drug policy 

Colombian NGO as the association of women pineapple growers and the action board of community of Orocayo in Putumayo, Colombia, denounce the destruction of legitimate food crops produced by the aerial spraying of coca. They underline that aerial fumigations are more of a sickness than a cure.

Aerial spraying of coca routinely destroys legitimate food crops in Colombia 

Despite hopes that the 2006 Brazilian Drug Law would lead to a more rational drug enforcement strategy, it has led to a dramatic increase in incarceration for drug-related offenses. Now, state governments are increasing efforts to fight drug use and drug trafficking in a way that is once again blurring the lines between a public health focus and a law enforcement focus on the issue.

The most visible example of the “public health” approach to fighting drug use in Brazil is the federal campaign against crack called “

” (Crack, It Can Be Overcome). By 2014, the federal government will have spent around US$2 billion on the campaign, which is managed by the Ministry of Health, in conjunction with the Ministries of Justice, Education, and Social Development. The implementation of the program at the state level has run into several problems and received harsh criticism for treating drug use as a security threat, heavily using law enforcement to confront drug use as well as drug trafficking.

Of particular concern, in the states of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, the state governments have approved forced treatment for users of crack. In both states, police go into areas of the cities with high levels of crack use, known as 

Public health approach takes back seat to law enforcement as Brazil cracks down on drug use 

The War on Drugs began in the early 1970s when President of the United States of America Richard Nixon proclaimed illicit drug abuse “public enemy number one.” Multiple United Nations conventions in 1961, 1971, and 1988 also tried to address the problem by criminalizing the possession, use and manufacture of illicit drugs. Policy makers argued that harsh law enforcement action against those involved in producing, distributing and using illegal drugs would decrease supply and demand of drugs.

However, an increasing number of policy makers from around the world are now declaring that the existing approach has failed to prevent illicit drug use and supply, or curtail the wider socio-economic and health issues associated with taking them. It is argued that a change to the current paradigm is therefore needed sooner rather than later.

The war on drugs: Moving towards a public health approach

The Ugandan internal Affairs Ministry has expressed concern over the rise in illicit drug use among youth in the country. The government now intends to pass a concerning Narcotic Drug Bill with the objective of declaring a “war on drug trafficking and usage”.

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