During the 22nd International Harm Reduction Association’s Annual International Conference in Beirut, Lebanon, activists will unite to show to the world that all human rights must be respected and protected. Participants will stand on one foot on a small square — unable to put down the other foot for fear of prosecution, punishment and death — demonstrating just how little room there is to manoeuvre for those who use illicit drugs.
The war on drugs creates massive costs, resulting from the enforcement-led approach that puts organised crime in control of the trade. It is time to count these costs and explore the alternatives, using the best evidence available, to deliver a safer, healthier and more just world.
Mexican drug cartels now operate virtually uninhibited in their Central American backyard. U.S.-supported crackdowns in Mexico and Colombia have only pushed traffickers into a region where corruption is rampant, borders lack even minimal immigration control and local gangs provide a ready-made infrastructure for organized crime.
Bolivian president Evo Morales has accused the United States and the United Nations of conspiring to defame his government in two drug reports. He said criticism over Bolivia's handling of the war on drugs were part of a strategy to falsely link his government to drug trafficking.
Mexico’s youngest police chief, Marisol Valles Garcia, has fled to the US after apparently receiving death threats, US immigration officials have confirmed.
The South East European Drug Policy Network held its third meeting in Thessaloniki, Greece in March 2011, to share knowledge and experiences from across the region, and identify common problems and key priorities for drug policy advocacy.
Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain are the traditional routes for the drug’s entry to the EU, but the International Narcotics Control Board said there had been a recent surge in cases of the UK being used as point of entry.
In November 2010, Ricardo Soberon, the director of CIDDH, was invited to participate to the Government Plan of one of the Peruvian presidential candidate, in order to design a proposal on drugs and drug trafficking. The evidence and human rights based approach promoted by CIDDH was well received in Peruvian media.
The Obama administration has designated intravenous needle exchanges as a drug treatment program, allowing federal money set aside to treat addictions to be used to distribute syringes to narcotics users.
With the help of the American government, the first methadone maintenance programme in sub-Saharan Africa opened this month in a hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
The final count after closure of the January 31 deadline to file objections to the Bolivian amendment to remove the ban on coca leaf chewing in the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, comes to 17 objections.