By Kathryn Ledebur, Linda Farthing and Thomas Grisaffi

Bolivia has seen widespread public protests in recent months against the interim government, led by Jeanine Añez, which has twice postponed elections due to coronavirus. Her government has repeatedly violated its mandate by passing new laws and persecuting its political opponents, including coca growers in the Chapare region east of Cochabamba, who we collaborate with on research projects.

Bolivia is the world’s third largest producer of cocaine, a drug manufactured from coca leaves, which is central to Andean culture. Under the previous government of Evo Morales, coca growers benefited from a programme that allowed them to cultivate a plot of coca up to 2,500 square metres, and actively engaged farmers to self-police to respect these limits.

This policy, which emphasised community participation and respect for human rights, was lauded and funded by the European Union. Internationally recognised in the mainstream press as best practice in this area, Bolivia’s community coca control programme has long served as an example for cooperation in other parts of the world.

But this approach was recently reversed. One former EU official in the country confidentially told us that this represents a “significant setback”. Yet the EU has been helping to make this happen.

Bolivia reverses years of progress with new draconian cocaine policy, supported by the European Union

The following letter was drafted by a coalition of 29 civil society organisations and community networks in the European Union. The letter urges the German Presidency to propose to the EU Horizontal Working Party on Drugs (HDG) that the current draft EU Agenda and Action Plan on Drugs 2021-2025 be rejected, and measures are taken to ensure an appropriate and inclusive strategic development process for the next EU drugs strategy.

We are writing regarding the proposed EU Agenda and Action Plan on Drugs 2021-2025, published by the European Commission on 24 July 2020 (the “2021-25 EU Drugs Agenda”, or the “Agenda”). We have serious concerns regarding both the process for its development as well as with the substance of the document and urge the German Presidency to propose to the EU Horizontal Working Party on Drugs (HDG) that this draft cannot be accepted, and to outline an appropriate and inclusive strategic development process for the next EU drugs strategy.

The formulation of the 2021-25 EU Drugs Agenda through a unilateral Communication of the European Commission without consultation with EU Member States and other relevant EU actors, including civil society is deeply problematic. If the HDG accepts this document as it stands, a worrying procedural precedent will be set. To date, the ‘EU’s drugs strategies and action plans are developed through a rigorous process that allows Member States to work together on the development of strategic approaches. This involves a series of negotiations, evaluations and compromises so that consensus can be reached in the form of a new strategy document.’ The 2021-25 EU Drugs Agenda appears to be the result of a hasty, opaque and non-participatory policy-making process, and represents a drastic departure from agreed EU policies. The lack of appropriate consultation and engagement inevitably means that the different experiences and views of EU Member States and other relevant EU actors have less weight in the new document. It fails to adopt a balanced, integrated, and multidisciplinary approach to drug matters; it is not rooted on human rights, public health, and the key international drug policy documents; and it envisages a diminished role for civil society and affected communities.

The European Union has been a global leader in advancing a balanced, integrated, and multidisciplinary approach to drug policies. The 2005 and 2013 EU Drugs Strategies established a consolidated framework that has become a ‘central guiding model’ for national-level drug strategies across the EU. However, the 2021-25 EU Drugs Agenda proposes -in its own words- a ‘paradigm-shift’. It disproportionately focuses EU policy on law enforcement and supply control, to the detriment of the priority previously given to public health, human rights, international cooperation, and scientific research and evaluation. If implemented, it will signal a diminished support for evidence-based drug treatment and harm reduction services, and it will weaken the voice of the EU in international drugs fora, where it has been a key global actor in defending the balanced, rights-based approach adopted by the 2016 UNGASS Outcome Document.

In spite of the EU’s commitment to seek the ‘active and meaningful participation and involvement of civil society’ in the ‘development and implementation of drug policies’, the participation of civil society in the preparation of the 2021-25 Drugs Agenda has been deeply flawed. European NGOs were only allowed to provide input to the Agenda with the publication of the Road Map, on 10 June 2020, with no other opportunity to feed in the process, besides a call between the Commission and certain CSFD members in April. It should be borne in mind that the Road Map is a document of just over two pages that does not allow for a genuine understanding of, or feedback on, the Agenda. No draft of the Agenda was ever shared.

Furthermore, the European Commission disregarded the overwhelming majority of the 27 submissions sent by European NGOs, which urged the EU to retain the balanced and multidisciplinary approach that characterized the 2005 and 2013 EU Drugs Strategies. The fact that the deadline for submitting feedback was 15 July 2020, a mere nine days before the publication of the Communication, suggests that the consultation was not undertaken in the spirit of genuine inquiry, and that the Agenda was at least near completion when the Road Map was published.

Crucially, although the external evaluation of the 2013 EU Drugs Strategy was finalised in April 2020, the evaluation was not published or otherwise shared with civil society until three months later, on 24 July 2020, thus depriving stakeholders of crucial information when providing feedback to the Road Map. This is important, as there would appear to be a significant disconnect between the Agenda and the external evaluation. For instance, the evaluation consistently found that the 2013 Strategy had ‘sparked a considerable amount of progress’ in the cross-cutting areas of coordination, international cooperation, and monitoring, research and evaluation, which are precisely the areas now removed from the Agenda.

In addition to the grave concerns regarding the process and procedure, we felt it is important to bring your attention the key flaws in the draft Agenda:

. Although the Agenda explicitly claims to seek an ‘integrated, balanced, and multidisciplinary approach’ to drug policies, the draft is not balanced, as over half of its eight priority areas concern security and supply control interventions, with the rest distributed between prisons, prevention, treatment, and harm reduction. Public health measures aimed at reducing the harms that can be associated to drug use have been relegated from the first priority of the 2013 Drugs Strategy to the end of the new Agenda. The cross-cutting themes of coordination, international cooperation, and information and research, which have been successfully developed since 2013 to materialise the multidisciplinary and integrated approach, have been dropped. The many references to the balanced approach across the operative parts of the 2013 Strategy, for instance as the basis for increased coordination across all actors, interventions at the CND, and international cooperation, have also disappeared.

Deprioritising human rights and public health.

 Human rights have practically disappeared from the draft Agenda, which contains no reference to the relevant international or regional human rights instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Furthermore, there is no mention of the International Guidelines on Human Rights and Drug Policy, a critical document developed with the leading support of Germany that lays down, for the first time, a set of clear and comprehensive international standards for articulating rights-based responses to illegal drug economies. In contrast, the 2013 EU Drugs Strategy explicitly referred to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention of Human Rights, amongst others, and human rights were mentioned several times in the section on international cooperation. Public health has been relegated from the first policy field in the 2013 Strategy to the last priority areas of the Agenda, and has been replaced by ‘drug-related security’ as the first goal of the document.

Dropping support for key international documents.

 Equally surprising is the little attention paid to the 2016 UNGASS Outcome Document - only a footnote in the preambular part of the Agenda, and a mention in the Action Plan, outside its priority areas -, even though it has been consistently described by the EU as ‘the most comprehensive policy agreement of the international community and a milestone in the discussions on international drug policy’. It is also inexplicable that the Agenda would completely fail to reference the 2018 UN System Common Position on Drugs, a watershed document championed by the EU and EU Member States, as it establishes for the first time a coherent position across all UN entities on key topics like decriminalisation and harm reduction.

Reducing the space for civil society and people who use drugs.

 Whereas the 2013 EU Drugs Strategy contained a commitment to promote and encourage ‘the active and meaningful participation and involvement of civil society’, the EU Drugs Agenda only mentions ‘engagement’ with the CSFD. Involvement with civil society beyond the CSFD has been omitted, and there is no reference to engaging with people who use drugs and clients of drug services, which the 2013 Strategy did.

Weakening the external dimensions of drug policy.

 The 2021-25 Drugs Agenda risks weakening the external action of the EU in bilateral and multilateral drugs fora, as it does not set clear guidelines for EU coordinated intervention, and it does not provide strong support for the key international documents that the EU has been forcefully defending and promoting in the last years. For instance, the Agenda does not provide any concrete principle or guideline for intervening at the CND, even though it is arguably the centre of the international drug control system, and the role of the EU there is more important than ever. This contrasts greatly with the 2013 Drugs Strategy, which committed the EU to a ‘strong voice’ in the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, with the aim of promoting the balanced approach. Another case in point is the only reference to alternative development in the whole Agenda, which can be found under the heading ‘dismantling drug production’, and is not deemed to warrant even one of the 24 priority areas set in the document. This is especially surprising considering that the 2018 Council Conclusions adopted exclusively on this topic committed the EU to a ‘leading role (…) in the funding and implementation of alternative development’, and stated clearly that the success of alternative development goes ‘beyond an exclusive focus on illicit drug crop monitoring’.

 In spite of the EU’s leading role in fostering scientific knowledge and research on drug markets and drug use through the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), the 2021-25 EU Drugs Agenda has dropped the cross-cutting theme on monitoring, research and evaluation, and science-based drug policies are scarcely mentioned in the operative parts of the document. Again, this makes a striking contrast with the 2013 Drugs Strategy, which featured a whole theme on research and evaluation for ‘a better understanding of all aspects of the drug phenomenon’, and provided a role for the EMCDDA in supply reduction, international cooperation, and the overall implementation of the document, among others.

 Although the 2021-25 Drugs Agenda explicitly seeks to reduce drug-related stigma, the European Commission press release accompanying the publication of the proposed Agenda was deeply stigmatising, as it puts drug policies at the same level as child abuse and firearms trafficking. Furthermore, the Agenda contains some instances of stigmatising language (‘substance abuse’ and ‘substance misuse’) that did not exist in the 2013 Drugs Strategy.

In light of the above and following established practices for the development of previous EU drugs strategies, we urge you, as the Council Presidency, to take political leadership and encourage the HDG to reject the draft proposed by the European Commission. A new process for strategy development should ensure that the new document reflects in a balanced manner the existing EU and the latest international commitments (in particular the 2016 UNGASS Outcome Document), the views of the EU Member States and all the relevant actors within the EU institutions, and engages meaningfully with civil society.

We would also be grateful if you could share this letter with your HDG colleagues before the 9 September meeting.
We remain at your disposal for any further discussion on this matter, and look forward to our continued cooperation on this and other topics during the German Presidency.

Drug policy experts raise concerns regarding the draft EU Agenda and Action Plan on Drugs 2021-2025 - Open Letter

Afghans pushed out of work by the coronavirus pandemic after businesses and schools were shuttered have turned to opium cultivation for cash during this year's poppy harvest.

Afghanistan has long been the world's top grower of opium, producing more than 80 percent of the global supply and providing hundreds of thousands of jobs in the perennially cash-strapped economy.

A coronavirus lockdown and travel restrictions saw trade grind to a halt and many businesses were forced to lay off staff, in a conflict-riven country where stable jobs are already rare.

Farmers usually rely on a seasonal labour force for the spring and summer harvesting months but the coronavirus pandemic meant many were unwilling or unable to travel for the work.

More than 38,000 cases of coronavirus have been declared in Afghanistan and more than 1,400 deaths, though the health ministry estimated earlier this month that a third of the population has likely contracted the disease. A months-long lockdown, which has mainly affected cities, has slowly been lifted since the beginning of August, with some schools, wedding halls and markets reopening. Despite myriad eradication programs over the years, Afghan farmers continue to grow poppies with near impunity, as both government officials and the Taliban often profit from the lucrative trade.

Crushed by virus and war, jobless Afghans turn to opium for cash

By Wulan Kusuma Wardhani / Coconuts Jakarta

Bambang Yulistyo Dwi Mulyanto aka Tedjo, 48, has dealt with the judicial system more times than he would’ve liked as a drug user. It started when he was a senior high school student in his hometown of Solo, Central Java.

“I was arrested for using marijuana in 1991, but the case was closed because cops accepted bribe money from my family. I was only detained for 16 days,” Tedjo said.

Eighteen years later, he was caught with a gram of heroin and sentenced to one year and three months in Semarang. In 2013, he was arrested for marijuana use and jailed for one year and four months at Wirogunan prison, Yogyakarta.

Rosma Karlina, 42, was also a repeat drug offender. In 2005, she was charged with heroin abuse and trafficking. At the time, she said law enforcement officers extorted her family over her arrest.

“My family was told to pay a certain amount of money so that I wouldn’t be jailed for more than five years,” Rosma said.

She was eventually sentenced to three years in prison, yet only served 20 months at Paledang correctional institution in Bogor after she was granted conditional release and a sentence remission.

As a former female drug offender, Rosma was doubly stigmatized by society, given that she didn’t only break the law but was also perceived as having failed to behave responsibly as a woman.

Drug decriminalization in Indonesia is not easy, but necessary

VANCOUVER — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Ottawa is moving forward “aggressively” on ensuring a safe drug supply amid an ongoing overdose crisis that’s claimed more than 900 lives in B.C. alone this year.

Speaking on CBC Radio in Vancouver, he says his government is basing its approach on science and evidence, looking at the crisis through the lens of health rather than justice.

Trudeau says the government is heeding the advice of top public health officials, including B.C.’s provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, and Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam.

Both doctors have called for increased access to a safe supply of illicit drugs to prevent deaths from toxic substances and extreme concentrations of powerful opioids, such as fentanyl.

Henry continues to call for the decriminalization of small amounts of drugs for personal use and last month Tam made the same suggestion.

Safe drug supply key to fighting overdoses in Canada: Trudeau

By Louise Vincent & Matthew Bonn / FilterMag

very year we come together to remember the lives that have been lost due to overdose. International Overdose Awareness Day is recognized and marked around the world, and has been happening since 2001 in Australia. We’re grateful for that.

But what about every other day of the year? Every day 190 overdose deaths happen in the US and 11 a day in Canada. Where is the fucking daily outrage? Can anyone really think that commemorating the millions of lives lost worldwide to this systematic drug war just once or twice a year is adequate?

One thing we can tell you is that it is not drug-user communities that need to be made aware of overdose deaths. How can we 

be aware of the misery this brutal, racist, repressive international governmental structure imposes? We have constantly experienced the harms done to ourselves, to the loved ones we have lost, to our friends who are forced, every day, into environments and practices that put their lives on the line.

Policymakers urgently need to be stripped of their often-deliberate ignorance.

 (like those in so many other countries) who urgently need to be stripped of their often-deliberate ignorance of what is happening on the streets amid multiple public health emergencies.

“Pandemic” has been one of this year’s most-used words. But a better one to apply to people who use drugs is “syndemic,” which refers to the presence of two or more diseases that adversely interact with each other.

Overdose awareness day: Drug users are aware—What about governments?

It was dark when the plane touched down in Hong Kong from Phnom Penh. Noor Yuni swiftly cleared immigration and collected her luggage. But as she approached the "nothing to declare" lane, a customs officer pulled her aside, she says.

The 21-year-old Indonesian's bag was put into the security scanner and she remembers agreeing to be searched.

By the time officers had slashed open the lining of her backpack and dislodged the white crystals concealed inside, Yuni said she knew she'd been tricked.

Yuni is not her real name. CNN is using an alias because the former accused drug trafficker, now aged 23, wants to move on with her life.

Back in 2018, hours before her flight, her new boss had given her a padlocked bag in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. She says the middle-aged Nigerian man, who she knew only as Peter, claimed it was "just clothes" and promised to pay her $1,000 if she took it to Hong Kong.

But she never saw Peter again. The crystals turned out to be 2kg of methamphetamine, worth $140,000 when the haul was seized.

Asia's prisons are filling up with women. Many are victims of the war on drugs

"Aren't you involved?" said an unidentified voice.

A few seconds later, a gunshot rang out followed by the groaning of a man.

As it continued for a few seconds, Ekramul Haque’s wife and two daughters were screaming and begging for his life.

“My husband has not done anything … Why are you killing him?” the Teknaf municipality councillor’s wife Ayesha Begum kept screaming repeating these words.

These were heard in an unverified audio clip reportedly detailing the last conversation between Ekram and his family, moments before he was killed on May 26, 2018 in what the law enforcers described as a ‘gunfight’.

The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) said that he was killed in a shootout between their members and drug smugglers at the bordering town of Teknaf in Cox’s Bazar.

Soon after the killing, the government said that an inquiry led by a judicial magistrate would be opened.

“We'll look into the matter," Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said then before adding accountability and punishment would follow for anyone found guilty.

Extrajudicial killings in Bangladesh: When will they stop?

VIENNA, 3 September (United Nations Information Service) - How to ensure the availability of internationally controlled substances for medical and scientific purposes while preventing illicit cultivation and production, diversion, trafficking and abuse, including during the COVID-19 pandemic is being discussed this week in Vienna at the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) 128th session. Postponed from May 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is being held in a hybrid format to enable Members to participate virtually from around the world. At elections held yesterday, the Board renewed the mandate of its President, Cornelis P. de Joncheere, and elected a new Bureau for a one-year term.

During the session, which is taking place from 31 August to 4 September 2020, the Board is reviewing the compliance of Member States with the three international drug control conventions and the functioning of the international drug control system.

The session opened with a meeting of the Board's Standing Committee on Estimates, which looked at national estimates of requirements for narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances for medical and scientific purposes and reviewed annual legitimate requirements of precursors for licit industrial use submitted by governments for those chemicals that are frequently subject to diversion to the illicit manufacture of drugs.

In plenary, the Board is working on the preparation of its annual report for 2020, which will include a thematic chapter on drug use among older persons and is considering civil society perspectives on the topic in the form of written submissions provided by the Vienna Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) Committee on Drugs. During the session, the Board will meet with the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Ghada Waly.

At the opening of the session, the Board welcomed three new Members, who had been elected by the Economic and Social Council in 2019: César T. Arce Rivas, Viviana Manrique Zuluaga and Zukiswa Zingela.

The composition of the INCB Bureau following the 2 September elections:

Cornelis P. de Joncheere - President of the Board

Luis A. Otárola Peñaranda - First Vice-President

Jagjit Pavadia - Second Vice-President and Chair of the Standing Committee on Estimates, and Member, Committee on Finance and Administration

The International Narcotics Control Board holds postponed 128th session, renews President's mandate and elects new Bureau Members

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are dying from drug overdoses at three times the rate of non-Indigenous Australians, according to Australia's Annual Overdose report.

The report, published by drug and alcohol research centre, the Pennington Institute, showed that 473 Indigenous people died of unintentional overdoses between 2014 to 2018.

In 2018, there were 17.3 unintentional overdose deaths per 100,000 Indigenous Australians.

This rate had almost doubled since 2009 and compared to 6.0 unintentional overdose deaths per 100,000 among non-Indigenous Australians in 2018.

Drug overdoses killing Indigenous people at three times the rate of other Australians

Ahead of the UNAIDS Multi-Stakeholder Consultation on 16 September, 33 civil society and community-led organisations working on drug policy and harm reduction are urging the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board (UNAIDS PCB) to uphold the rights of people who use drugs and harm reduction in the new UNAIDS Strategy.

This letter includes six key recommendations from our community and sector and we asking UNAIDS PCB to advocate for these at the upcoming Consultation.

Now, more than ever, we need their leadership to be strong, bold and unrelenting in ensuring that key populations, including people who inject drugs, are prioritised in the new UNAIDS Strategy; harm reduction services are available, scaled-up and fully funded to meet the HIV prevention and health needs of people who use drugs wherever needed; communities, including community-led services, and civil society are at the front and centre of the HIV response; and barriers to services, including criminalisation, stigma, discrimination, punitive laws and policies, are removed.

The new UNAIDS strategy will have profound implications - either by compounding or alleviating the political invisibility of people who use drugs. We need them to show a commitment to people who use drugs in your engagement in the Strategy process.

We will not end AIDS if we keep leaving people who inject drugs behind.

Call to uphold the rights of people who use drugs and harm reduction in the new UNAIDS Strategy

We are in a "war" - a war with drugs and with people. And we need to know that in this world, far or near, there are few strong in spirit and firm in word who will not betray or disappoint. The characters and the characters must be real. This is a tuning fork that you use to check the clear sound. This is our compass.

The ENPUD video `Flowers growing through the asphalt` tells about such people.

Today human rights activists from ENPUD are fighting for the lives and wellbeing of people who use drugs. That includes people who are in prisons and those who have been released. They support those who were refused help, who lost all hope and prepared to expire. It doesn’t matter who the person is. If their rights were violated it means that they requires support. Their goal is to increase access to medical services and respect for human rights for all people without exception. They protect our right to be ourselves every day.

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