This World Aids Day, December 1st 2011, we will echo the urgent voices of Russian drug users who are living and dying in the grip of an HIV and TB pandemic with almost no recourse or chance to engage in or promote an effective response.
Many policies and practices have already been proven failed but we prefer to continue embracing them and reinvent the same old cycle time and again. AHRN's key message to the world is: 'it is time now to accept the facts and act on them before your decisions and our actions can no longer make any differences, leading us to ZERO goal, mission and vision'.
The EMCDDA and the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) pledged to scale up their cooperation today in a joint statement adopted at the 2011 ESPAD project meeting. The event, hosted by the EMCDDA in Lisbon (27–29 November), brings together participants from 39 European countries.
Five years ago, Felipe Calderón took office as Mexico’s president and launched a crackdown against organised crime. Since then there has been a horrible predictability about the country’s drug war: each year the number of deaths has risen, most of them concentrated in a handful of cities. But this year both those tendencies look as if they have started to change. The annual death toll seems to have plateaued at around 12,000. Hotspots have cooled, only for violence to invade places previously considered safe.
Many civil society organisations working on HIV, AIDS and human rights express grave concern about the manner in which the KORUS Free Trade agreement was passed in the South Korean Parliament in November. The South Korean government has reportedly pushed its parliament to ratify the agreement without transparent and open public debate. This act of secrecy and lack of accountability to the public was demonstrated by the chaos that prevailed in the South Korean Parliament on Tuesday.
The Portuguese drug decriminalisation and harm reduction model has been in place for a decade and is a proven success, but austerity measures may threaten drug treatment.
On Tuesday 6th December, IDPC, in collaboration with Harm Reduction International and the Kenya AIDS NGOs Consortium (KANCO), will organise a satellite session entitled "Putting health and human rights at the centre of drug policy: Recommendations from the Global Commission on Drug Policy".
The Global Drug Survey is an anonymous online survey that addresses how people are using illegal drugs as well as alcohol, tobacco and prescription medications. It combines basic information on what drugs people use, how often they take them, and the medical, social and legal consequences of drug use.
With the astonishing admission of the Colombian president that the war on drugs is not working, the time is right for the international development community to add its voice.
On November 17, Bolivia, Brazil and the United States planned to ratify agreements on a trilateral coca monitoring effort. Officials delayed signing the accord until Friday, and then postponed it indefinitely.
The Case Study Database promotes a debate among legal professionals about the absence of basic constitutional principles in Brazil’s Drug Laws such as the right to health care, limits on the punitive power of the State and, above all, the democratic spirit of the rule of law.
After Berlusconi’s government resignation, Italian NGOs appeal to the newly appointed Prime Minister, Mario Monti, for a change in drug policies and for the dismissal of the drug czar, Carlo Giovanardi, and of the Head of the Drug Department, Giovanni Serpelloni. This appeal was signed by 300 professionals.