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.
As part of a global drive to remove barriers to progress in the AIDS response, policymakers and community advocates have joined experts from the Global Commission on HIV and the Law in Bangkok on 17 February for the first in a series of regional dialogues held across the world.
'Count the Costs' is an OSF-funded global campaign that Transform will launch at CND this March, in collaboration with the Eurasian Harm Reduction Network. If you wish to support the campaign, please send any reports, images or videos that portray the costs of the war to Transform!
On 2 March 2011, more than 5,000 representatives from People Living With HIV in India and the Network of People Who Use Drugs, and 500 health activists from India and across the Asia Pacific region are holding a protest against the India-EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA), to express their concerns that the agreement may hamper access to cheap, life-saving, quality medicines for patients not just in India but many other developing countries around the world.
The EMCDDA is preparing a thematic paper to highlight key issues from the perspective of people who are attempting to reduce their drug, cigarette and alcohol consumption or overcome their dependence, and wishes to learn more about people working in the field and people trying to reduce or quit drug use.
On the 17th February 2011, an international coalition of harm reduction experts — comprised of the International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA), the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, and CACTUS Montréal — were granted intervener status to appear before the Supreme Court of Canada to support Insite, Vancouver’s supervised injection site, against the Canadian government’s attempts to shutter it. The outcome of this decision will carry serious implications for other jurisdictions across Canada.
From 21st to 25th March 2011, the Commission on Narcotic Drugs will gather in Vienna, Austria, to discuss the international drug situation and the implementation of the UN drug control conventions. This webpage is updated regularly to provide updates on the CND.