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.
Following a thorough review of its old structure and operations, AHRN has developed a new set of objectives that will guide its work over the coming years.
The Mexican government updated its drug war death toll on Wednesday, reporting that 47,515 people had been killed in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderón began a military assault on criminal cartels in late 2006.
Australia’s first overdose management programme that provides naloxone on prescription to potential overdose victims has been developed and will be implemented in the Australian Capital Territory.