The objective of the IDPC statement was to highlight the vulnerability of people who inject drugs to HIV transmission, identify the policy and legal barriers to the scaling up and sustainability of HIV prevention measures, and propose to Member States options for addressing those barriers.
In a northern Cambodian province, eight small communes are making Cambodian history as the first to trial a community-based approach to drug treatment.
Drawing from the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the 2009 Constitution intends to grant greater self-determination to indigenous groups across the country.
In response to the ban on the use of federal funds to support needle and syringe exchange programmes, advocates have drafted a Position Statement condemning the ban, while emphasizing the efficacy and effectiveness of these programmes.
Bolivia has signed an agreement with the US and Brazil to help reduce the production of illegal cocaine. The US and Brazil will provide technical assistance, including satellite monitoring of coca crops.
A drug project plans to set up the country’s first consumption room to allow users inject drugs under medical supervision. Such a facility is currently illegal under Irish law, but the Anna Liffey project wants to open one by the end of 2014.
Ricardo Soberon, the reformist head of DEVIDA, the Peruvian drug agency, has been fired and replaced. Soberon made waves last August when he implemented a temporary ban on forced eradication of coca plants, taking the US Embassy by surprise, but that was soon reversed on the orders of his boss, Interior Minister Oscar Valdes.
In keeping with the regressive turn that the Dutch drug policy has taken under its conservative coalition government, the government said it will ban khat, a plant used by people from the Horn of Africa and the Arabian peninsula for its mild stimulant properties.
For the past few months, the Civil Society Forum on Drugs has been drafting a list of recommendations to guide the European Commission in drafting the new EU Drug Strategy.
Denmark has one of the highest overdose death rates in the European Union. Contrary to common beliefs overdose is a preventable cause of the death and its prevention does not cost a lot of money: you need to provide skills and tools for preventing lives and a safe environment to use drugs.