It is now a year since Canada moved to legally regulate cannabis for recreational use, becoming the second country after Uruguay, and the first major G7 economy, to do so (excluding the 11 US states that have now done so outside of US federal jurisdiction). While legal access to cannabis was already available for medical purposes, this marked a groundbreaking policy shift away from criminalisation of the drug and the people who use it in a country of nearly 40 million people.

The Canadian Government emphasised three key goals of regulation: the protection of public health; the protection of young people; and the reduction in criminality associated with the illegal market.1 The
reforms built on years of evidence demonstrating that the illegal status of cannabis did not prevent rising consumption and was associated with a range of other risks, from increased potency to the empowerment of criminal gangs

Historically, Canadian provinces have developed separate systems for regulating the sale of alcohol, and a similar devolved principle was applied to cannabis. As a result, a ‘patchwork’ of regulatory models has now emerged across the country. Some provinces have been more successful than others and many have experienced ‘teething’ issues during early implementation. Importantly, the Cannabis Act only allowed for herbal cannabis and oils to be sold in the first year. The sale of cannabis ‘edibles’ and concentrates are subject to separate regulations and are due to go on sale later this year in phase 2 of the implementation.2

Establishing an entirely new regulated market – aimed at displacing well-established illegal supply – was a unique challenge. While some have raised concerns that the intensity of cannabis regulation has slowed participation in the new legal market, others remain worried about creeping commercialisation. It will inevitably take time for the new system to bed in and for emerging problems to be addressed. Policy will hopefully evolve as evidence is gathered, and learning is shared across provinces. This briefing reviews the early data since legalisation and considers lessons other countries might draw from the Canadian experience.

Cannabis legalisation in Canada – One year on

The sixty fourth session of the Commission on the Status of Women marks the twenty fifth anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. In parallel, the international community committed to the implementation of the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Drugs outcome document featuring recommendations to advance the rights of women in drug policy. This submission demonstrates how current drug policies undermine key rights and commitments included in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action’s strategic objectives and offers concrete recommendations to address these damaging inconsistencies.

CELS, IDPC, WHRIN and WOLA statement to the 64th session of the Commission on the Status of Women

The Americas are at the forefront of processes and efforts to reform cannabis-related laws and policies. The regulated markets established in Uruguay and Canada will very likely be joined soon by Mexico, where President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has backed a legislative proposal that, at the time of this writing, was being considered in the legislature. In the United States, ten states and the District of Columbia have adopted legal, regulated markets for recreational use. Also at the time this report was being finalized, a bill was being presented before Colombia’s Congress to reform Article 49 of the Constitution with regard to the prohibition of narcotic substances, with a view to paving the legal way for future regulation. In 2018, the Regional Commission on Marijuana of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) concluded that the prohibitionist system “is not fit for purpose” with regard to international drug control treaties, and it called for a paradigm shift.

At the same time, medical marijuana is growing by leaps and bounds. In the United States, 33 of its 50 states along with the District of Columbia permit the medical use of cannabis, while in Canada this use has been legal since 2001. In Latin America, some form of medical marijuana is allowed in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. As this publication was being finalized, Ecuador’s National Assembly was concluding a debate on a legislative proposal that would create the means of access to medical marijuana in that country. However, it is important to note that in the majority of these countries, reforms are quite limited and do not ensure access for all people who could benefit from medical marijuana.

In addition, more tolerant attitudes toward cannabis do not necessarily translate into public support for broader drug policy reform. In the majority of Latin American countries, a change in the discourse has not led to significant domestic policy reforms. At the Organization of American States (OAS) and the United Nations (UN), Latin American countries have spearheaded efforts to promote debate about the failure of the prohibitionist paradigm and the need to explore alternative approaches. However, as tends to happen, this rhetoric has not been matched by concrete actions. In other words, drug policy reforms in the region have been minimal despite the tremendous societal costs of current policies, and governments continue to rely on repression and criminalization.

That is why, for people in countries where there are still no legal markets, the consequences of being caught with any amount of cannabis can be severe. Previous studies by the Research Consortium on Drugs and the Law (Colectivo de Estudios Drogas y Derecho, CEDD) have shown that throughout the region, people who consume cannabis face stigmatization and harassment by police, and they are often detained for growing plants or for simple possession of the substance. In several of the countries studied, people who use cannabis constitute a significant percentage of those impacted by drug laws. Many of them end up being subjected to the criminal justice system and, on occasion, they are referred to compulsory (or semi-compulsory) treatment, even when they do not show signs of a drug dependency. In several countries, “drug court” models are making headway, which repeat the logic of using the criminal justice system to refer people who use drugs to treatment programs. To sum up, harsh and disproportionate cannabis-related laws in the region cause significant harm to people, their families, their communities, and to society in general.

This disconnect between the trend toward regulating cannabis in the Americas, on the one hand, and the continuation of a punitive approach in nearly all Latin American countries, on the other, led CEDD to undertake its current research, which analyzes the way in which punitive drug laws disproportionately affect people who use, grow, and sell small amounts of cannabis.

Cannabis is also the most widely used substance declared to be illicit in Latin America. Its medical uses are beneficial, and its problematic use causes less harm than other drugs, licit or illicit. Therefore, it is the only substance for which there is an impetus for reform. The expansion of legal and regulated marijuana markets would have a significant impact on reducing the damage caused by repressive drug policies, and we hope that this research contributes to that aim.

Cannabis in Latin America: The green wave and challenges for regulation

In September 2019, Transform Drug Policy Foundation and St George’s House convened a meeting of international experts on drug policy to discuss a scenario that many people feel may be edging closer to realisation: a world in which currently illicit drugs are legally regulated. This event provided an opportunity to discuss candidly the challenges and opportunities of this potential reality.

Transform is a leading global advocate for the legal regulation of drugs. However, the participants came from a range of backgrounds and brought different views on the question of drug policy reform. Participation did not imply, or require, agreement on the principle of legal regulation and the input of participants reflected this.

There was agreement that the so-called ‘War on Drugs’ has been waged at a high price in terms of fuelling crime and violence, drug-related health harms and deaths, undermining of institutions through corruption, and the exploitation and abuse of some of the world’s most vulnerable communities. This reflects wider shifts in attitudes towards drug policy. Global consensus on the goal of achieving ‘drug free society’ through the criminalisation of production, supply and possession has decisively fractured, with a growing number of jurisdictions experimenting with both the decriminalisation of possession, and more recently, the legal regulation of cannabis supply (including Canada, Uruguay, Mexico, and 11 US states, including California). Bolivia has also regulated the production of coca.

This consultation sought to grasp that moment and imagine a scenario where the legal regulation of drugs became a more global reality, for different drugs in different regions. The intention was not to anticipate the circumstances through which regulated markets might come to pass, or to rehearse well-trodden arguments for or against prohibition, but rather to imagine what consequences such an eventuality might have for everybody involved in, or impacted by, the global drugs market. It was an opportunity to envision that possible world, and for participants to freely and candidly discuss their responses.

This report summarises the discussions held over the two days of consultation and draws out consensus conclusions which we hope will be useful to advocates, policymakers, researchers and other parties interested in navigating a way forward. It was drafted by the independent rapporteur, Peder Clark, with editorial input from Transform Drug Policy Foundation.

Taking the points of consensus together, we propose seven principles as emerging from the discussion. Rather than focusing on what drug policy should be, these set out some key values on which reform should be based.

Challenges for a world where drugs are legally regulated

The U.S. is in the throes of a deadly overdose crisis that claimed almost 70,000 lives in 2018. Of those, around 30,000 deaths involved synthetic opioids like fentanyl,a Policymakers have responded to the overdose crisis with a rhetorical emphasis on “treatment instead of incarceration,” leading journalists to comment that we are in the midst of a “gentler war on drugs.” However, despite a change in discourse, draconian policies have persisted and in many cases been expanded. This is exemplified by many lawmakers’ reaction to fentanyl and other analog drugs, both on the state and federal level.

Since 2011, 45 states have proposed legislation to increase penalties for fentanyl while 39 states and Washington DC have passed or enacted such legislation. At this moment, some members of Congress are working to codify harsher penalties by placing fentanyl analogs permanently into Schedule 1 in both the Senate and the House with proposed legislation like the Stopping Overdoses of Fentanyl Analogues Act of 2019 (SOFA) and the FIGHT Act. In his annual State of the State 2020 address this month, New York’s Governor Cuomo proposed banning fentanyl analogs and expanding access to medication assisted treatment in the very same sentence. Legislators have dusted off the drug war playbook and proposed a variety of new punitive measures including new mandatory minimum sentences, homicide charges, involuntary commitment, expanded powers for prosecutors and more. These efforts repeat the mistakes that epitomize the failed war on drugs, while undermining efforts to reform our criminal justice system and pursue a public health approach to drug use. Indeed, such proposals risk compounding the overdose crisis.

Punitive approaches to fentanyl are particularly disturbing because they run counter to recent policy shifts that have been largely bipartisan in nature. One recent policy shift is a growing promotion of public health approaches to drug use. There is mounting support for a number of policies and interventions – such as increasing access to voluntary, medication-assisted treatment and naloxoneb – as more effective responses to the current overdose crisis than the revolving door of jail or prison. Another notable policy shift is the long-overdue recognition that decades of harsh and racially-biased drug enforcement have had devastating consequences on individuals and communities, while wasting billions of taxpayer dollars. A recent analysis of federal fentanyl sentencing revealed that 75% of all individuals sentenced for fentanyl trafficking were people of color, suggesting that fentanyl enforcement already mirrors other disparate drug enforcement.

The criminal justice reform movement has made tremendous progress on reducing drug sentences at the local, state and federal levels. The trend toward tougher penalties for fentanyl presents a threat to the reform movement, undercutting initiatives to reduce mass criminalization and incarceration. To date, none of the states that enacted harsher penalties for fentanyl, nor the federal government, have demonstrated a reduction in fentanyl-involved deaths because of these new laws.

In this context, the criminal justice reform movement must do more to combat punitive proposals, putting as much energy into challenging the exceptionalism around fentanyl as other efforts to reduce sentences.

This paper aims to shine a light on the danger that harsh fentanyl penalties present to the criminal justice reform movement and efforts to end the war on drugs:

Harsh penalties for fentanyl are detrimental to public health and exacerbate the overdose crisis.

People who use and sell drugs are often unaware of the composition and potency of their drugs and have little control over the quality of product available.

Fentanyl in heroin is increasingly the “new norm” in many parts of the country.

Lawmakers may believe they are addressing an issue that may pass with time, but fentanyl is no passing trend.

There are already harsh penalties in effect for fentanyl and they disproportionately target communities of color.

Differentiating between people who use and sell drugs is not possible.

The most effective ways to address the fentanyl crisis are evidence-based public health and harm reduction approaches. We recommend that policy makers and advocates focus their efforts to promote the following:

Expand and protect 911 Good Samaritan laws,

Expand community-based naloxone access and distribution,

Improve drug checking, surveillance and data collection and make them more widely accessible,

Authorize supervised consumption sites (SCS)c on the state and local level,

Fund pilot injectable opioid treatment as an option for some people with chronic heroin use disorder.

For lawmakers to respond meaningfully to fentanyl, public health solutions are a much more viable and affordable approach without additional harsh penalties and further criminalization. The criminalization of drug use only drives people who use drugs into more dangerous situations. This makes it less likely that they will seek support; rather it makes it more likely that they will suffer a fatal overdose.

Advocates have made considerable gains in promoting criminal justice reforms to address the many collateral consequences of our failed war on drugs. While the criminal justice reform, treatment and harm reduction movements have many victories to celebrate, there is a real risk that the proliferation of harsh penalties for fentanyl will lead to an increase in the prison population, subverting the fight to end mass incarceration.

Criminal justice reform in the fentanyl era: One step forward, two steps back

Harm Reduction International (HRI), the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), the International Network of People who Use Drugs (INPUD), NoBox Philippines, and the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty welcome the opportunity to submit information to the Human Rights Committee ahead of the adoption of the List of Issues for the review of the Philippines.

This submission will assess the impact of the Philippines’ drug policy on the enjoyment of civil and political rights, with a focus on developments since the intensification of the anti-drug campaign in July 2016; and provide suggestions for issues to be raised with the government of the Philippines. In particular, this submission will provide information on:

Arbitrary deprivation of life in the context of anti-drug operations (Article 6);

Failure to protect the life of people who use drugs (Articles 6 and 26);

Attempts at reinstating the death penalty, specifically for drug offences (Article 6);

Torture and ill-treatment in detention (Articles 7 and 10);

Compulsory drug detention and treatment (Articles 7 and 9);

Proportionality of the criminal justice response to drugs and prohibition of arbitrary arrest and detention (Articles 9 and 14);

Arbitrary interference with the right to privacy (Article 17);

Shrinking civil society space: targeting of human rights defenders and drug user activists (Articles 19 and 21).

Submission to the United Nations Human Rights Committee ahead of the fifth periodic review of the Philippines

This publication was part of a two-part series on overdose prevention. Click here to access 'Overdose prevention - New technology-based solutions'.

By Graham Shaw & Jean-Paul Grund / Stop Overdose Now (SON)

Fatal and non-fatal overdoses related to opiates use are on the rise in many parts of the world, with North America, Australia and Central Asia being the most affected regions. In Europe as well opioid-related overdose deaths show a continuous increase, at least since 2013. Naloxone is the centrepiece of the response to opioid overdose. This opioid antagonist medication rapidly and completely reverses the effects of opioids and thus, when timely administered, prevents opiate overdose death. Globally, about half of the countries (101 out of 196) had registered injectable naloxone by September 2017, a requirement for the drug to be legally available in the country and for licenses to be issued for the manufacture, importation and/or distribution of the drug. In Europe, by the same time, 80% of the countries (37 out of 45) had Naloxone registered by national authorities. Lack of legislation and registration can hinder Naloxone access. Policymakers and advocates can count with several guidelines to support them in drafting required policies and standard operating procedures to allow the drug’s manufacture, importation and/or distribution. Another barrier to Naloxone access is the costs. Generic and domestically produced naloxone, as well as country-collaboration for bulk purchase can help addressing this. Finally, fostering Good Samaritan Laws, positive media, community education and the meaningful involvement of people who use drugs can help broadening naloxone access, as it fights stigma and discrimination.

Good practice interventions to respond to opioid overdoses include naloxone take-home programs, peer-to-peer naloxone programs, prison and treatment pre-release programmes, and broader interventions such as drug consumption rooms and safe injecting facilities, heroin assisted treatment, and drug checking services (including fentanyl test stripes). These interventions demonstrate that Naloxone and overdose prevention must move from mainly hospital and clinical settings into the hands of people in the community (street users, carers, agency staff) to improve access and timely response. Peers can be a great asset both to improve Naloxone availability and to provide training to various actors in how to administer the drug. Training prison staff and engaging prisoners who use opiates with local health services in the weeks following their release also helps preventing overdose deaths in this population.

Overdose prevention - Status quo and challenges

Many people who inject and use drugs experience negative interactions with the police and, as a result, are over represented in criminal justice systems, prisons and compulsory drug treatment centres. This happens because in many countries, the production, trafficking and use of some drugs is illegal and police are tasked with enforcing the law. Harm reduction programmes at their core recognize that drug use has implications for individual and public health, and these harms must be reduced as a fundamental step towards ensuring the human right to health. Despite these policy and programmatic shifts, people who use and inject drugs frequently report being targeted and searched by police, as well as experiencing harassment, humiliation, extortion, violence and arbitrary detention at the hands of the police.

In many countries, research has documented that these types of police practices increase vulnerability of HIV acquisition and onwards transmission, and are not conducive to access and retention in care for HIV and other related health services for people who use and inject drugs. In recognition of this, the World Health Organization recommends the decriminalization of drug use and possession for personal use as a critical enabler for an effective HIV response. The police have a central role in creating supportive environments where harm reduction programmes can exist and that, by fulfilling this role and becoming a partner in harm reduction, both the police and the broader communities in which they serve benefit immeasurably.

Law enforcement must work in partnership with the community, including people who use drugs, in pursuit of creating a rights- and health-affirming environment. While protecting public health is not the primary function of the police, operating within a human rights framework that improve health and well-being is part of progressive and effective policing practice.

Reducing harm: Police as partners in preventing HIV, promoting public health and protecting the rights of people who use drugs

This report enriches the information and knowledge base of harm reduction interventions in Europe from the viewpoint of civil society organisations (CSOs) that directly work for, and with, people who use drugs. This approach is a necessary, and useful, contribution to the development of drug policy in the region and C-EHRN plans to repeat this reporting on an annual basis to identify developments, changes and trends over time.

The report consists of four parts. The introduction provides background information concerning the development of the questionnaire, the data collection process, methodology used, and the nature of the data. Chapters 2-5 report on civil society involvement in drug policy and related decision-making processes as well as on hepatitis C and drug overdose prevention and management services together with the use of new drugs and new patterns of consumption. Each chapter begins with a short summary of the main results and ends by discussing conclusions and policy implications.

Most CSOs responding to the C-EHRN survey are experienced in contributing to data collection and, crucially, have close contact with many important actors in the field and have access to timely and quality information that complements the data collection mechanisms already in place. Consequently, this report reinforces the added value of the role played by CSOs in the collection of data that can inform harm reduction practice. In most countries, civil society involvement is, to some extent, enabled through dialogue and/ or information exchange but, often, the impact is regarded as unbalanced and ineffective. Permanent and formalised structures that ensure dialogue between civil society and government representatives are beneficial for such civil society involvement as structures allow for cooperation on a regular basis and oversee both the formulation of policy and its implementation. Formalised structures, however, do not safeguard meaningful involvement of civil society if they do not lead to accountable outcomes.

C-EHRN Monitoring shows that people who inject drugs (PWID) are still not allowed access to treatment of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) in 10 European countries. Although 23 countries have guidelines that include specific HCV management for PWID, many C-EHRN respondents are somewhat pessimistic about the impact of such guidelines on improving access to the HCV cascade-of-care in their country, especially to good practice, integrated, test-and-treat services at the same site. HCV testing and treatment at pharmacies remains very rare. On a more positive note, 23 European countries reported PWID organisations working actively to increase political awareness concerning HCV interventions. Compared to 2018, more attention has been paid over the past year to HCV awareness campaigns (in 15 countries), to testing at the service providers’ own premises (in 18 countries), and to treatment at the service providers own site (in 15 countries). The main barriers to address HCV among PWID include a lack of funding, knowledge, recognition, political support and skilful staff as well as weakness of civil society organisations and legal barriers.

In 15 countries of the region, the government monitors the number/proportion of people who progress through each stage of the HCV cascade-ofcare at the national level, with monitoring at the regional or local level also performed in 12 countries whereas monitoring is not performed at any level in a further 9 countries. There are still big differences within Europe as to where and how PWID can undertake a HCV test. This means PWID are in an unequal position in different European countries, regions and cities. Rapid HCV testing is available to prisoners in 21 countries.

Treatment of HCV using direct acting antivirals (DAAs) is available in all countries of the region except North Macedonia. However, 10 of 34 countries still place restrictions on access to DAA’s for those people who are active drug users. However, if access to DAA treatment is achieved, the costs are reimbursable by health insurance or through the public health service in all countries except the United Kingdom.

Consequently, to reduce the HCV-related disease burden among PWID and achieve the 2030 elimination goals as set out in the WHO Global Health Sector Strategy on Hepatitis, a radical change in the HCV response is needed in many European countries. National treatment guidelines that specifically address recommendations for treating PWID, guaranteed access by PWID to DAA treatment, improvements in the continuum-of-care and introduction of one-stop HCV testing and treatment services - including such services delivered by harm reduction organisations - needs to be further developed and adopted by all government and civil society stakeholders.

A further key contribution by civil society is collecting data on the context of drug-related overdose events and interventions at a local level, feeding into already existing data and reports. Only 5 countries reported separate overdose prevention strategies or action plans. Much improvement is needed to be able to adequately respond to overdoses in Europe. Evidence demonstrates that a range of measures – including drug consumption rooms (DCR), take-home naloxone (THN) programmes in the community, and naloxone distribution before release from prison - can reduce opioid and other drug-related overdose deaths. However, C-EHRN Monitoring shows a mixed picture of policies and measures across Europe. There is a significant disparity in how, and by whom, such overdose data is collected which can ultimately influence what is recorded as a drug-related death. To address this, the EMCDDA should encourage the respective national health authorities, their own Reitox Network, as well as others who collect such data, to collaborate more with national harm reduction networks and experts in their field of work. Furthermore, due to the uneven status of naloxone – the safe and simple response to an opioid overdose as recommended by WHO – political authorities are called upon to take appropriate legal initiatives to ensure, without delay, that naloxone is available free of charge and without prescription in pharmacies for people who use drugs; experience from Italy can be the basis for this action. In addition, to obtain a real overview of the number of doses of naloxone administered and data on the successful use of naloxone, a national reference point should be established to collect and analyse this and other data.

In general terms, the results of C-EHRN Monitoring correspond with what we know from other sources concerning new drug trends. In addition, the process of data collection as undertaken by C-EHRN Focal Points in each country has the potential of generating additional information and at a quicker pace than other methods, bringing added, qualitative value to this sector.

A review of the approach used by C-EHRN Monitoring to collect such information suggests that focus groups held several times each year would be more effective than a questionnaire as it would lead to consensus-based data. Also, a focus on drug trends, including new drugs, is preferable rather than the emergence of specific drugs. In addition, the focus should be at the city/urban level, rather than national, as this will likely provide higher quality data, and a reduction in the number of questions is recommended.

Civil society monitoring of harm reduction in Europe, 2019

This collection of case studies is an attempt by experts of the Eurasian Harm Reduction Association (EHRA) to introduce and systematise various models of alternative financing that have been implemented successfully in the current environment.

In recent years, many non-profit organisations (NPO’s) in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (CEECA) have witnessed significant changes in the structure of their revenues; the volume of grant financing provided by charitable foundations has been gradually decreasing. Such a development has forced NPO’s to search for alternative sources of funding for their programmes and projects. At present, NPO’s are moving towards significantly more complex financing models, such as crowdfunding, involvement of businesses in charitable projects, and the establishment of social enterprises, amongst others. These activities are reaching a new level and becoming more mature and professional; they are now taking into consideration the interests and particularities of all stakeholders involved in the process.

This publication offers a description of various alternative financing mechanisms which NPO’s can use in their search for available financial resources, specifically the forms that such mechanisms could take; how the work should be built from the very beginning; what the motives of participating partners in such initiatives could be; and identification of the secrets of success and the possible risks, amongst other issues. This collection is prefaced with an analytical article offering a typology of alternative financing models for NPO’s. Furthermore, specific case studies are provided as illustrations of such models; the examples provided include both large and small scale projects.

Different outcomes are presented through the examples given of NPO’s utilising alternative financing mechanisms. Certain organisations are successful in their implementation of one or other of the listed approaches, whilst others may have not had such an experience but still continue to be active in this sphere while learning from their mistakes; others may just be starting their journeys and are only considering additional opportunities.

This collection is intended to provide help for both experienced and beginner NPO’s and could be of use to the leaders of such organisations, fundraisers and other specialists working with NPO’s. It may also be of interest to specialists of state bodies, business structures and also to everyone who is interested in building long term relations with NPO’s and who are willing to enhance their competencies in the fields of strategic partnership and fundraising.

A number of semi-structured online interviews with representatives of NPO’s working with vulnerable groups and implementing various alternative financing practices were conducted to collect the data introduced in this publication. Most respondents were leaders of such organisations.

In total, 20 NPO representatives from 15 countries of Western, Eastern and Southern Europe took part in the survey, including Ukraine, Georgia, the Russian Federation, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Serbia, Armenia, Croatia, the Netherlands, Switzerland, England, and Scotland.

It is hoped that many public organisations will be able to use the experiences presented here to obtain alternative financing for the implementation of their own projects.

Alternative financing: Models of sustainable development for non-profit organisations

World Report 2020 is Human Rights Watch’s 30th annual review of human rights practices around the globe. It summarizes key human rights issues in more than 100 countries and territories worldwide, drawing on events from late 2018 through November 2019.

In his keynote essay, Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth examines the increasingly dire threat to the global system for protecting human rights posed by the Chinese government under President Xi Jinping. Deepening and increasingly sophisticated domestic repression show that China’s leaders view human rights at home as an existential threat. That, in turn, has led Beijing to see international laws and institutions for the defense of human rights as an existential threat.

As a result, Chinese authorities seek to censor criticism of China overseas, mute attention to human rights in its global engagements, and weaken global rights mechanisms. At stake is a system of governance built on the belief that every person’s dignity deserves respect—that regardless of official interests, limits exist on what states can do to people.

Noting that global institutions are built in part “on the belief that every person’s dignity deserves respect, that regardless of the official interests at stake, there are limits to what states can do to people,” Roth concludes that China is not simply a new and emerging power finding its place, but a country that poses an existential threat to the international human rights system.

The rest of the volume consists of individual country entries, each of which identifies significant human rights abuses, examines the freedom of local human rights defenders to conduct their work, and surveys the response of key international actors, such as the United Nations, European Union, African Union, United States, China, and various regional and international organizations and institutions.

The book reflects extensive investigative work that Human Rights Watch staff undertook in 2019, usually in close partnership with human rights activists and groups in the country in question. It also reflects the work of our advocacy team, which monitors policy developments and strives to persuade governments and international institutions to curb abuses and promote human rights. Human Rights Watch publications, issued throughout the year, contain more detailed accounts of many of the issues addressed in the brief summaries in this volume. They can be found on the Human Rights Watch website, www.hrw.org.

As in past years, this report does not include a chapter on every country where Human Rights Watch works, nor does it discuss every issue of importance. The absence of a country or issue often simply reflects staffing or resource limitations and should not be taken as commentary on the significance of the problem. There are many serious human rights violations that Human Rights Watch simply lacks the capacity to address.

The factors we considered in determining the focus of our work in 2019 (and hence the content of this volume) include the number of people affected and the severity of abuse, access to the country and the availability of information about it, the susceptibility of abusive forces to influence, and the importance of addressing certain thematic concerns and of reinforcing the work of local rights organizations.

The World Report does not have separate chapters addressing our thematic work but instead incorporates such material directly into the country entries. Please consult the Human Rights Watch website for more detailed treatment of our work on children’s rights; women’s rights; arms and military issues; business and human rights; health and human rights; disability rights; the environment and human rights; international justice; terrorism and counterterrorism; refugees and displaced people; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people’s rights; and for information about our international film festivals.

Human Rights Watch - World Report 2020

By Òscar Parés-Franquero, Xavier Jubert-Cortiella, Sergi Olivares-Gálvez, Albert Díaz-Castellano, Daniel F. Jiménez-Garrido, José Carlos Bouso

In Spain, cannabis users are turning to Cannabis Social Clubs (CSCs) as an alternative for obtaining supplies of the substance, free from the risks of the illegal market. The current study aims to establish the profile of a sample (

 = 155) of Spanish CSC members and identify the impacts that these clubs have had on their consumption. To conduct the study, we developed a questionnaire structured around various issues related to the socioeconomic profile of users, their patterns of use, and the practical consequences of being a member of a CSC. The most important findings were that belonging to a CSC did not increase cannabis use and that the services that CSCs offer have favorable impacts on CSC members in terms of reducing health risks, providing legal protection, and improving their general well-being. Based on our data, the regulation of CSCs is warranted as a public health strategy regarding cannabis use.

Click here to read the full article (restricted access).

Publications from IDPC Members