There is growing interest by national governments in exploring the adoption of legislation to legalize and regulate recreational cannabis markets. As such, a range of stakeholders is increasingly seeking clarification on whether such a policy change is in compliance with international law. This policy brief responds to this need by outlining four potential policy pathways for national governments to align their international legal obligations with domestic legalization of recreational cannabis, using Canada as a primary case study. By employing a transformative scenario planning (TSP) process, this policy brief aims to inform key stakeholders of the opportunities and challenges associated with a range of policy scenarios.

TSP involves an investigation of current political and international trends to construct relevant and plausible scenarios. Importantly, the TSP process does not predict the most likely or unlikely scenarios, nor does it seek to determine whether certain scenarios are preferable. Instead, this process articulates the potential policy space available to policymakers, and it is hoped that in this way, allows for a consideration of the full range of policy options.

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Recreational cannabis regulation & international law

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Mainline Foundation, and this provides an opportunity to reflect on twenty-five years of harm reduction.

Our mission to reduce the number of HIV infections among drug users through education – the purpose of Mainline’s establishment in 1991 – has been achieved. Or at least the number of HIV infections is no longer on the rise, and most users have a roof over their head. But the fringes of this phenomenon remain. Crystal meth is slowly seeping into the Netherlands. GHB is being quietly used in the provinces. And freebase cocaine dealers are still doing a roaring trade each week when those who depend on drugs receive their allowance from the budget-maintenance service. And abroad, where Mainline is also active, improving the legal status of people who use drugs remains high on the agenda. As always, Mainline operates by going out onto the streets and making contact with our audience, be that at home or abroad. We never do so with a wagging finger, and we’re always ready to lend an ear. In addition, we’ve set out a new strategy this year and reformulated our mission, vision and goals. Everyone is now working even more collectively for a common purpose, and facing the next 25 years with renewed energy.

Mainline annual report 2016

Canada is in urgent need of comprehensive harm reduction policy that jettisons the failed, costly model of drug prohibition that has ravaged so many lives, from fueling the spread of HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV), to contributing to over-incarceration, to creating conditions for the ongoing epidemic of overdose fatalities. A harm reduction approach must include measures to reduce the harm sometimes associated with various substances (legal or illegal), and also a commitment to end the harms produced by the existence and enforcement of punitive drug laws and policies. Drug policy must be guided by evidence, public health objectives and a commitment to upholding the human rights of people who use drugs. The federal government can and should act now on several fronts to protect the health and human rights of all Canadians, particularly those most at risk of harms.

Harm reduction in Canada: What governments need to do now

The United Natons General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on drugs, held in April 2016, was the frst high-level event of its kind since 1998. Held three years before it was due to take place, the Special Session was meant to respond to the urgency of discussing the successes and failures of global drug policies, and identfy optons for the way forward. The UNGASS took place in the midst of unprecedented calls for a rethink of punitve strategies towards drugs – an approach that had prevailed for decades. This was in recogniton that prohibiton-led policies focusing on mass incarceraton, interdicton and eradicaton have failed to reduce the scale of the illicit drug market, and have resulted instead in a number of severe negatve consequences, including prison overcrowding, human rights abuses (such as extrajudicial killings, police abuse, torture and ill-treatment, lack of access to justce and due process), health harms and an explosion of drug market-related violence and corrupton. A study of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, tabled at the 30th Human Rights Council session in September 2015, outlined the human rights impact of drug policies, addressing concerns relatng to health, criminal justce, discriminatory practces, rights of the child and Indigenous peoples.

In preparation for the 26th Session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, set to take place from 22 to 26 May 2017, this Advocacy Note by the International Drug POlicy Consortium and Penal Reform International seeks to identify key aspects of the Outcome Document that are relevant to the work of the CCPCJ.

The UNGASS Outcome Document: Opportunities for promoting criminal justice reform

In 2015, 52,404 people in the United States died of a drug overdose, more than any previous year on record. Some 33,000—63 percent—of these deaths involved opioids, including heroin and prescription pain medicines.

Most people who died of overdoses involving opioids were white and male, though deaths among women are increasing at an alarming rate. Since 2000, drug overdose deaths have increased 137 percent; deaths involving opioids have increased 200 percent. The human impact of what the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has called an “epidemic” of overdose involving opioids is enormous, affecting tens of thousands of individuals and families. The toll is highest in rural America, where rates of death from opioid overdose are far higher than in metropolitan areas.

A second chance: Overdose prevention, naloxone, and human rights in the United States 

This is a historic moment for hepatitis C treatment. With the advent of direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) we can now massively reduce the harm from an infectious disease that affects millions of people and causes hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths every year. Interferon-free DAA regimes are short, highly tolerable and simple to deliver, with cure rates of over 90%. Today, one year after the first-ever World Health Organization Global Health Sector Strategy on Viral Hepatitis was approved, we call on stakeholders to work together to meet the strategy´s ambitious goal of hepatitis C elimination as a public health threat.

Hepatitis C elimination will require sizeable scaling up in testing and treatment, along with comprehensive harm reduction services, including in prisons. There is an urgent need for policymakers, health care providers, health insurance providers and the pharmaceutical industry to work in collaboration with the affected communities and their organization, as well as low threshold services, to achieve this scale-up. Communities and community representatives must participate in formulating and implementing hepatitis C prevention, testing and strategies for affordable treatment because these stakeholders have unique knowledge about what will be accessible, acceptable and effective. Without their close ongoing involvement, the effort to eliminate hepatitis C is likely to fail.

Community Summit on Hepatitis C: Declaration on the importance of civil society involvement to eliminate hepatitis C

Opening letter from the President and Executive Director

The work of the Drug Policy Alliance is both all about drugs and ultimately not really about drugs at all.

We are at the front lines of much larger struggles in U.S. and international society – over what it means to remain a free society and how we deal with both real and phantom threats to health, life and security.

Donald Trump’s election and his appointment of drug war extremists to senior positions are going to make it harder to consolidate our marijuana legalization victories, and to make progress in Congress on rolling back harsh drug laws, repealing civil asset forfeiture laws, reducing overdose fatalities, and integrating harm reduction principles into federal drug policies.

But what most concerns us is the assault on the values for which we’ve fought for so long.

We advocate for drug policies grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights because we believe those values should infuse all public policies. Only through our shared strength and vision can we uproot the drug war and advance the broader values that guide our struggle.

Drug Policy Alliance Annual Report

The HAT clinic model, initially developed by the Swiss, differs from the old “British System” (still in place for around 100 people in the UK) in that rather than being given ‘take home’ heroin prescriptions, patients attend a clinic once or twice a day, and use their prescriptions on site, under medical supervision.

The first Swiss pilot HAT clinics opened in 1994. In 1997, the federal government approved a large-scale expansion, aimed at 15% of the nation’s estimated 30,000 heroin users, specifically long-term users who had not succeeded with other treatments. Other countries followed suit, with the UK opening three pilot NHS supervised injecting clinics (London, Brighton and Darlington) in 2009 - the Randomised Injectable Opiate Treatment Trial (RIOTT) - extended to 2016 after proving successful.

Heroin Assisted Treatment (HAT): Saving lives, improving health, reducing crime

Morocco continues to be the world’s largest producer of cannabis resin (hashish). Over the past 50 years, the Moroccan cannabis growers shown a remarkable resilience to government attempts to eradicate or reduce cannabis cultivation as well as a noteworthy ability to adapt to changing international market conditions.

Since Morocco’s independence the government has practiced a policy of containment regarding cannabis cultivation, allowing no new areas but tacitly allowing those already in production to be maintained.

The rapid increase in illicit cannabis cultivation in the Rif during the last decades, as well as poor soil conservation practices, have taken a heavy toll on the Rif’s already threatened forests and fragile ecosystems.

The unregulated cannabis market in Morocco has negative social consequences. Some 48,000 growers have arrest warrants hanging over their heads, which is a source of corruption and repression. An amnesty and decriminalization could be effective measures to diminish negative social consequences and open the debate about regulation.

Cannabis farmers in Morocco should have access to emerging legally regulated cannabis markets that are gaining ground worldwide. The challenge is to find a sustainable development model that includes cannabis cultivation in Morocco, instead of excluding cannabis and ignoring the realities of more than 50 years of failed attempts to eradicate the only viable economic option in the region.

Morocco and cannabis

The prohibitionist approach imposed on cannabis by the international drug control system still persists in nearly all of the Latin American and Caribbean countries examined. In almost all of them, possession falls under criminal law. Some countries’ legislation establishes thresholds below which cannabis possession should not be considered a crime. Only in Uruguay does the law include regulation of the entire chain.

Although cannabis organizations and other groups have managed to place the issue on the agenda, in most countries reforms are still pending or have been inadequate. The inclusion of relatives and users of cannabis for medicinal and therapeutic purposes has helped give impetus to the movement and to raise awareness among both political stakeholders and the public.

Many of the reforms under way do not recognize the need to regulate the recreational and cultural use of cannabis and run the risk of perpetuating the current consequences, with the persistent impact on health, security, institutionality and human rights that the prohibition of cannabis and the lack of state regulation allow and encourage.

The countries of Latin America and the Caribbean should prepare for future reform scenarios, instead of considering temporary measures that will perpetuate the same harmful consequences. Limiting reform solely to medicinal cannabis is only a partial, inadequate and temporary solution. If change is truly sought, it is necessary to move toward models of state regulation of cannabis for all purposes.

Cannabis in Latin America and the Caribbean: From punishment to regulation

Since its establishment in the 1970s, TNI has always believed in the need to find global answers to global problems, been a strong defender of multilateralism and an advocate of a well-functioning United Nations which stands as the guarantor of universal human rights. On the drugs question, our position is straightforward: drug control should respect human rights.

We defend the rights of farmers caught in the illicit economy to live a life in dignity.

We favour the decriminalisation of use, possession for personal use and minor trafficking offences. We defend harm-reduction approaches and advocate differentiation among substances on the basis of health concerns.

We also defend the principle of proportionality: a basic principle that should be obvious to all but got lost in the process of the escalation of the war on drugs: everyone involved in the illicit drugs market, farmers, traders and users alike, are fully protected by human rights.

Any drug control measure that violates their basic human rights is illegitimate and TNI will always reject measures that violate the right to live a life in dignity.

Click here to read the full publication.

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Human rights and drug policy

Further to Human Rights Council Resolution 30/l.16 on human rights in the administration of justice, adopted in September 2015, we welcome the opportunity to provide the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) with relevant information as a contribution to the report on the non-discrimination and vulnerable groups, in particular in detention, and with regard to the causes and effects of overincarceration and overcrowding.

This submission, made by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) and the Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS), will address the human rights implications of incarceration on women – an issue that was raised in the 2015 OHCHR Study on the impact of the world drug problem on the enjoyment of human rights.

The information provided in this brief is based on the activities of the Working Group on Women, Drug Policy and Incarceration, which advocates for drug policy reform in the Americas.

Publications from IDPC Members