By John Walsh / Advocacy for Human Rights in the Americas

The first week of December 2020 will witness two of the most consequential sets of votes on cannabis policy since the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs marked the advent of the prohibitionist global drug control regime, which allows for only medical and scientific uses of hundreds of psychoactive substances. Unfolding over the span of just a few days, the voting set to take place at the United Nations and in the U.S. House of Representatives may reverberate for years to come, setting the course of cannabis policy in the United States and globally.

On December 2 in Vienna, Austria, the 53 Member States of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) will vote on a package of six recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO) regarding the scheduling of cannabis in the UN drug control treaties. Cannabis was originally placed—and remains still—in the strictest control schedules (I and IV) of the 1961 Convention, with even medical uses discouraged.

Later in the week, nearly 4,500 miles away in Washington, DC, the U.S. House of Representatives will take up the Marijuana Opportunities, Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act. The most comprehensive cannabis reform legislation to ever reach the floor of the House, the MORE Act would decriminalize cannabis under federal law. The federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) of 1970—enacted as the implementing legislation of U.S. obligations under the 1961 Convention—classifies cannabis (“marihuana”) in Schedule I, the most stringent level of federal control. Beyond removing cannabis from the CSA, the MORE Act would expunge prior federal marijuana convictions and impose a federal tax on cannabis sales, with the revenue to be invested in communities most affected by the “war on drugs”.

A tale of two cannabis votes

Spurred by media panic around a so-called “chemsex crimewave,” the United Kingdom’s independent drug policy advisors are recommending that people involved with the highly stigmatized depressant gamma-hydroxybutyrate and related substances (GHB-RS) be subject to harsher criminal penalties.

But the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) did not make its recommendation to escalate punitive responses unanimously. An unspecified number of ACMD experts on the Technical Committee, which deliberated GHB-RS’s change in classification under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, objected. They warned that intensifying criminalization will only inflict, not reduce, harm—particularly for queer and trans people.

The ACMD was commissioned by UK Home Secretary Priti Patel to investigate GHB-RS at the beginning of 2020—shortly after the conviction of, and ensuing media fixation on, a gay man of color for committing large-scale sexual violence that was allegedly facilitated by GHB-RS. On November 20, the ACMD published its assessment of the harms of GHB-RS and its recommendations in response.

UK Drug Council knows GHB crackdown targets queer people, recommends it anyway

It was "out of curiosity" that Mohammad Limon (not his real name) first took marijuana with his friends nearly two decades ago. But soon he started taking the substance regularly and got addicted.

A few years of dabbling in weed, then heroin and finally yaba, Limon became heavily reliant on drugs. His desperate parents got him admitted to rehabilitation centres in Dhaka and Gazipur several times.

But what he experienced in the centres left a deep scar on his mind. In his own words, he was treated "like a criminal" without any compassion or understanding.

With no proper monitoring by DNC, the responsible government department, the centres are virtually run by unskilled professionals, resulting in many patients relapsing even after getting treatment, they added.

More worryingly, there are reports of deaths at the rehabilitation centres. In the last three years, at least 17 bodies have been recovered from rehabilitation centres across the country, according to police data.

Rehabs in need for revamps

In 2020, according to media reports, five persons were killed in ‘shootouts’ with the police, one while allegedly trying to flee police custody, two when allegedly trying to wrestle weapons from the police when they were taken to retrieve drugs or weapons, and two men died while in police custody at the police station.

The phrase ‘new normal’ is commonly used to refer to the post-COVID-19 context, but even in this new normal there exists a permanent normal we cannot escape, i.e. State violence. State violence against persons thought to be a threat to the State, such as dissenters, human rights defenders, journalists and those arrested for drug offences, has been the permanent normal in Sri Lanka for decades.

I refer to it as the ‘permanent normal’ because deaths in custody and persons being killed in encounters with the police are not unique to a particular political regime, but instead are systemic.

For instance, in October 2016, during the Yahapalana regime, two Jaffna University students were killed when they reportedly failed to stop at a police checkpoint. The police initially denied responsibility and claimed that they had died due to an accident that was caused when they lost control of the motorbike because they were speeding while under the influence of alcohol. The post-mortem report however, discovered bullets lodged in the body of one of the victims and did not find any trace of alcohol in their blood. To date, no one has been held accountable for their deaths.

Connecting the dots: The death of a drug trafficker and the state of democracy in Sri Lanka

The days of small drug busts in Thailand are long over.

Since at least 2017 seizures of illicit narcotics have involved shipments of multiple millions of “yaba” speed tablets and truckloads of high-purity crystal methamphetamine weighing hundreds of kilograms and often over a tonne.

But even by the standards of the kingdom’s new normal, the size of the latest bust was a jaw-dropper that stunned even seasoned cops and counter-narcotics officials.

The unprecedented seizure threw into stark relief two overarching realities of a narcotics crisis that governments across the region are already well aware of but can never afford to publicly admit.

Why Asia is losing its war on drugs

By Oludare Richards, Abuja / The Guardian

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has canvassed strong drug laws in Central and West Africa owing to the effects of hard substances on both regions.

Obasanjo, who is also chair of the West Africa Commission on Drugs (WACD) and member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, said if the counsel is unheeded, drug cartels could undermine democracy and the rule of law in “our countries.”

He spoke during a virtual town hall meeting co-hosted by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, WACD, and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).

“It is the poor and vulnerable who suffer the most from harsh drug laws. The rich have the means to defend themselves,” he said. Obasanjo added that harsh laws were needed to deter drug abuse.”

In addition, the ex-leader called for the adoption of the WACD Model Drug Law by member states, noting that it balances the use of drugs between criminal justice and health by recommending soft punishments. Hence, he called on Members of Parliaments (MPs) to adopt a more progressive discussion on drug use in their countries.

Obasanjo fears for democracy, seeks strong drug laws in Central, West Africa

The Mexican Senate approved a landmark cannabis legalization bill last week, bringing the country one step closer to creating the largest legal cannabis market in the world. The measure now heads to Mexico’s lower legislative chamber, as activists assert that the bill is flawed.

Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that laws prohibiting recreational cannabis are unconstitutional and ordered legislative reform. The nation’s lawmakers are now working to codify that decision before the current legislative session ends in December. Under the bill approved by senators last week, adults would be permitted to possess up to 28 grams of cannabis and cultivate a limited number of cannabis plants for personal use.

However, some activists, including Julio Salazar, a senior lawyer and legalization advocate with the nonprofit group Mexico United Against Crime, have said that the bill is flawed, favoring large corporations over small businesses and family farms. The measure also does little to strip the cannabis trade from the cartels in Mexico, where more than 100,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in recent years.

Mexican senate votes to legalize cannabis… but activists criticize the measure

To: Ms Ghada Waly, Executive Director, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

Subject: Open letter on UNODC statement on International Human Rights Day

On 10 December 2020, we urge you to mark International Human Rights Day by calling on Member States to change drug policies and practices that violate human rights, and entrench exclusion and discrimination.

We are writing to you concerning the forthcoming International Human Rights Day, which will take place on 10 December 2020 amidst the devastating global COVID-19 pandemic that has compounded the exclusion and discrimination faced by people and communities affected by drug policies worldwide. As your first International Human Rights Day as Executive Director of UNODC, this occasion is an important opportunity to issue a strong statement that underlines UNODC’s commitment to rights-based drug policies, and calls for change in the laws and practices that threaten health and human rights.

For decades, punitive drug policies have driven widespread human rights violations, as has been amply documented by the UN.1 These include: the death penalty for drug offences; extrajudicial killings; arbitrary detention, often masquerading as ‘rehabilitation’; the denial of access to life-saving harm reduction services; widespread barriers to accessing controlled medicines for pain relief; the criminalisation of people who use drugs, subsistence farmers and others groups in situations of vulnerability; corporal punishment; and mass incarceration. Furthermore, draconian drug policies have disproportionately affected people who live in situations of exclusion on the basis gender, race, ethnicity, and economic status, amongst others.

In the past years, an increasing number of UN bodies have called on Member States to align their drug policies with human rights standards. The 2018 Chief Executives Board’s UN System Common Position on drug-related matters makes clear that ‘National drug control programmes (…) should be designed and implemented by States in accordance with their human rights obligations’, and commits all UN agencies, including UNODC, to support drug policies ‘that put people, health, and human rights at the centre’.2 In 2019, a number of UN agencies, including UNDP, OHCHR and WHO, published the ‘International Guidelines on Human Rights and Drug Policy’,3 which provide the first comprehensive international human rights standards on drug-related matters. IDPC called on UNODC to follow this trend in our Advocacy Note ‘Recommendations for the new UNODC Executive Director’,4 which is attached to IDPC’s correspondence to you dated 24 February 2020.

The 2020 International Human Rights Day, which will be held under the title ‘Recover better: Stand Up for Human Rights’, includes a thematic focus on the need ‘to apply human rights standards to tackle entrenched, systematic, and intergenerational inequalities, exclusion and discrimination’. As such, it presents a key opportunity for UNODC to highlight its commitment to the promotion of drug policies that respect, protect, and fulfil human rights, in line with the UN System Common Position.

In that regard, we urge you to issue a strong statement on International Human Rights Day, calling on states to change the drug laws, policies and practices that violate health and human rights. To be credible, such a statement should explicitly name the major human rights violations committed in the name of drug control, and urge member states to:

1. Abolish the death penalty in all circumstances. Imposing capital punishment for drug offences has been found to be contrary to international human rights law by the Human Rights Committee6, and the Human Rights Council.

2. Put an immediate end to extrajudicial killings committed in the name of drug control, as has been repeatedly called for by the Human Rights Council8 and UN human rights experts.

3. Permanently close compulsory drug detention centres, including those that masquerade as ‘rehabilitation’, and implement voluntary, evidence-informed, and rights-based health and social services, as recently called for by sixteen UN agencies, including UNODC.

4. Stress the urgent need to provide accessible, affordable, and adequately funded harm reduction services in community and closed settings, to fulfil the right to health and the right to life of people who use drugs, as demanded by several UN human rights bodies and experts. This is also central to UNODC’s core, funded role as lead UNAIDS co-sponsor regarding prisons and HIV amongst people who use drugs.

5. Take immediate measures to address prison overcrowding, as already recommended by UNODC and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, by promoting alternatives to incarceration, and ensuring proportionate sentencing for all drug offences, including by taking into account mitigating factors – in line with the basic principle that prisons should only be used as a last resort in all circumstances.

6. Ensure that people who use drugs are not subject to arbitrary detention, torture, or ill-treatment – whether in state custody or public or private drug services. While under detention, people with a drug dependence or other problems associated with their drug use must be offered evidence-based treatment, harm reduction and other drug services on a strictly voluntary basis.

7. Promote the end of all punishment for drug use, and drug possession and cultivation for personal use, as permitted within the three drug control conventions. Such policy shifts will help to end the stigma, criminalisation, and exclusion faced by people who use drugs, and to facilitate access to health and social services, as called for by the UN System Common Position, UNAIDS, and UN human rights bodies.

8. Make sure that drug policies incorporate a gender-sensitive perspective. This should be done by tailoring drug services to the specific needs of women, and by ensuring that criminal laws take into account the circumstances of women involved in drug offences, as most of them come from backgrounds of poverty, marginalisation, and oppression.

9. Clearly outline the ways in which UNODC will work to achieve these changes, and the measures being taken to ensure that human rights are effectively embedded as a core strand for all of the Office’s work.

As the lead UN agency in drug-related matters, UNODC has the responsibility to promote drug policies that respect, protect, and fulfil human rights, in a way that is consistent with the standards developed by the UN system, and in line with the commitments set in the UN System Common Position. A strong statement for your first International Human Rights Day as Executive Director would be an important and welcome step that signals UNODC’s unequivocal commitment to human rights.

We look forward to discussing these concerns and recommendations with you.

+100 NGOs sign open letter to Ms. Ghada Waly calling for strong UNODC statement on International Human Rights Day

Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart says he will ask the federal government to approve a plan to decriminalize simple possession of illicit drugs in the city.

The move comes as the overdose crisis shows no sign of slowing, with 2020 tracking to be the worst year on record with 328 overdose deaths in the city so far.

"Personal possession and use of drugs is not a criminal justice issue; it is a health issue," said Stewart. "It is time to end the stigma around substance use, help connect more of our neighbours to health care, and save lives."

If successful, Vancouver will become the first jurisdiction in Canada to decriminalize simple possession.

More than 1,500 lives have been lost to the overdose crisis in Vancouver since British Columbia declared it a provincial public health emergency in April 2016.

Vancouver to seek federal approval to decriminalize simple possession of illicit drugs

By Winnie Byanyima & Matthew Kavanagh / The Guardian

In a pandemic, when policy falls short, people die. Amid the growing Covid-19 pandemic and the continuing HIV pandemic, this is clearer today than ever before. From rules on access to testing to the distribution of new medical technologies or the use of criminal law in public health, policymaking is fraught. This World Aids Day, the global Aids response stands on a precipice.

Actions in the next few years will either tip us towards halting HIV, making deaths and new infections rare, or towards a resurgent virus thriving on social faultlines.

However, science means little when laws and policies drive inequality and stop the benefits being reaped.

A new report from the HIV Policy Lab shows the disconnect between what we know and how that is translated into policy. The 2020 Global HIV Policy Report shows that only a handful of countries have aligned even 80% of policies with international standards. Only a third make HIV prevention medicines available to everyone who is at substantial risk. Without that, they cannot put the new evidence on long-acting drugs to work.

This World Aids Day the global response to HIV stands on a precipice

By Andrew Little, New Zealand Minister of Health

The Government will pass time limited legislation to give legal certainty to drug checking services, so they can carry out their work to keep New Zealanders safer this summer at festivals without fear of prosecution, Health Minister Andrew Little says.

Next year the Government will develop and consult on regulations to provide a long-term solution.

Until today, drug checking services such as Know Your Stuff, who test festival goers’ drugs for high risk substances and dangerous impurities and offer safety advice, have effectively been operating illegally.

Govt moves on drug checking to keep young New Zealanders safer this summer

By Alexei Koseff / San Francisco Chronicle

State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, plans to introduce a decriminalization bill in the Legislature next year. He was working on it with Assembly members Evan Low, D-Campbell, and Sydney Kamlager, D-Los Angeles.

“Any substance can be harmful, so I’m not suggesting that anything is like nirvana,” Wiener — who said he doesn’t personally take psychedelics — told the San Francisco Chronicle. “But we know that psychedelics can be used safely. We know they appear to have significant medicinal uses.”

Magic mushrooms, touted as a consciousness-expanding drug in the 1960s, have been used in religious or spiritual practices in some cultures for centuries and possibly thousands of years. The mushrooms contain psilocybin, which is responsible for their psychedelic effect. Some researchers believe psilocybin and other drugs show promise in treating depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.

“The war on drugs has been a disaster, in terms of bloating law enforcement, tearing apart communities, criminalizing addiction and spending enormous amounts of money on prisons,” Wiener said. “We need to end the war on drugs. Possession of drugs should just not be a crime.”

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