Although broadening drug control cooperation beyond the traditional top-down bilateral focus is often viable and preferable, ironically, the current trilateral draft agreement overlooks existing successful multilateral collaboration and could provoke and deepen divisions.
In an unprecedented decision, the Bombay High Court struck down the mandatory death penalty for drug offences, becoming the first Court in the world to do so.
Over 200 leading international NGOs have backed the Beirut Declaration on HIV and Injecting Drug Use calling on world leaders to scale up harm reduction programmes that address the role of injecting drug use in the AIDS epidemic.
In this statement, the Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions assesses how the possible introduction of the Weed Card will affect inbound tourism.
Sinaloa and Juarez cartels are fighting for the city and the access it provides to the multi-billion dollar US drug market only a few hundred metres away. On this episode of Fault Lines, Josh Rushing travels to Ciudad Juarez, and asks how human life there came to be worth so much less than the drugs being trafficked through.
The Philippines is well-known for exporting domestic workers across the world, but as low-income jobs disappear in the global recession, increasing numbers of desperate Filipinos are resorting to something much more dangerous – smuggling drugs as mules.
On 14th June 2011, the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Yury Fedotov, met with the President and several key leaders in Kazakhstan to discuss the country's and region's ongoing efforts in curbing drug use, illicit trafficking, and organized and financial crime.
The global call for decriminalisation by a number of politicians has led to strong oppositions between the French government and a number of civil society organisations.
Under legislation promoted by the ruling United Russia party and now being reviewed in parliament, dependent drug users will be forced into treatment or jailed, and dealers will be handed heftier custodial sentences. "The barons of narco-business must be put on a par with serial killers with the appropriate punishment in the form of a life sentence," said Gryzlov, chairman of the party. This decision was largely criticised by a number of Russian civil society organisations.
The Italian government has announced last month that it would submit a proposal to the UNGASS meeting on HIV/AIDS to cancel te term "harm reduction", with the purpose to substitute it with a watered down "risk reduction". This proposal was met with much criticism among Italian civil society organisations working in the drug policy field.
The head of the 2011 United Nations High Level Meeting on AIDS, the Reference Group to the United Nations on HIV and Injecting Drug Use has issued a statement calling for Member States to focus on HIV transmission among people who inject drugs. The statement details eight key priorities for Member States as they negotiate the outcome document for June’s General Assembly meeting.