A new poll by Ipsos MORI, commissioned by Transform Drug Policy Foundation, shows that over half of the public (53%) support cannabis legalisation (legal regulation of production and supply) or decriminalisation of possession of cannabis. Only 1 in 7 support heavier penalties and more being spent on enforcement for cannabis offences. In addition, the survey shows that around two thirds (67%) support a comprehensive independent review of all the possible policy options (from legal market regulation to tougher enforcement) for controlling drugs.

Keep up-to-date with drug policy developments by subscribing to the IDPC Monthly Alert.

New Ipsos MORI poll about drug legalisation in UK

The guide provides tips on how to do outreach work among communities of people who use drugs, in particular among injecting drug users. It includes suggestions on how to optimise the number of clients served by each outreach worker, in order to ensure cost effectiveness.

The publication was developed in the framework of the Community Action on Harm Reduction (CAHR) project.

Keep up-to-date with drug policy developments by subscribing to the

Reaching drug users: A toolkit for outreach services

The distribution of land and its unjust use are the major causes of violence in Colombia. For this reason land issues are the starting point of current peace talks between the Santos government and the FARC guerrillas. Remedying these structural problems at the heart of rural Colombia is the best guarantee of progress of the current peace negotiations that could bring an end to a half-century-old violent conflict.

The illicit drugs market in Colombia has flourished in the traditional context of inequality, exclusion and poverty that have characterised the Colombia countryside. While serving as a refugee survival economy and safety net for many, the illicit market dynamic and the war on drugs against it have also increased these problems, stimulating conflict, violence, dispossession, displacement and social unrest.

This briefing presents some recommendations and policy proposals on alternative development.

Keep up-to-date with drug policy developments by subscribing to the IDPC Monthly Alert.

The illicit drugs market in the Colombian agrarian context

This study ensued from clinical observations based on spontaneous accounts by crack abusers undergoing their first psychiatric assessment, where they reported using cannabis in an attempt to ease their own withdrawal symptoms.

Throughout a period of nine months, the researchers followed up on 25 male patients aged 16 to 28 who were strongly addicted to crack. Most of the subjects (68%, or 17 individuals) ceased to use crack and reported that the use of cannabis had reduced their craving symptoms, and produced subjective and concrete changes in their behavior, helping them to overcome crack addiction. The authors discuss some psychological, pharmacological and cultural aspects of these findings.

Therapeutic use of cannabis by crack addicts in Brazil

Since 2011, WOLA staff have carried out research in six different zones of the U.S.-Mexican border, meeting with U.S. law enforcement officials, human rights and humanitarian groups, and journalists, as well as with Mexican officials and representatives of civil society and migrant shelters in Mexico.

As part of this ongoing work, the authors spent the week of November 26-30, 2012 in south Texas, looking at security and migration trends along this section of the U.S.-Mexico border. Specifically, we visited Laredo, McAllen, and Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, Mexico.

 Border security and migration: A report from South Texas   

The global “war on drugs” has been fought for 50 years, without preventing the long-term trend of increasing drug supply and use. Beyond this failure, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has identified many serious negative “unintended consequences”(1) of the drug war – including the stigma and discrimination faced by a range of populations.

These costs are distinct from those relating to drug use, stemming as they do from the choice of a punitive enforcement-led approach that, by its nature, criminalises many users – often the most vulnerable in society. This briefing summarises these stigma and discrimination costs.

The War on Drugs: Promoting stigma and discrimination

Series on Legislative Reform of Drug Policies Nr. 22

In September 2012, the mayor of Bogotá, Gustavo Petro, launched the first centre for drug addicts in the Bronx, a marginalised city-centre neighbourhood. Called the Medical Care Centre for Dependent Drug Users (

Centro de Atención Médica a Drogo­dependientes

 - CAMAD), it is staffed by psy­chiatrists, psychologists, doctors and nurses.

The people given care in these cen­tres are in an at-risk situation and socially excluded due to their high levels of drug dependency.

Bogotá’s medical care centres for drug addicts (CAMAD)

By Kathryn Ledebur and Coletta A. Youngers

Following a landslide victory at the polls, Evo Morales became president of Bolivia in January 2005. Head of the coca-growers’ federation, Morales was a long-standing foe of U.S. drug policy, and many observers anticipated a complete break in U.S.-Bolivian relations and hence an end to drug policy cooperation. Instead, both Morales and the George W. Bush administration initially kept the rhetoric at bay and developed an amicable enough bilateral relationship—though one that at times has been fraught with tension.

Following Bolivia’s expulsion in 2008 of the U.S. Ambassador, Philip Goldberg, for allegedly meddling in the country’s internal affairs and encouraging civil unrest, and the subsequent expulsion of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the White House upped its criticism of the Bolivian government and for the past five years has issued a “determination” that Bolivia has “failed demonstrably during the previous 12 months to adhere to [its] obligations under international narcotics agreements.” U.S. economic assistance for Bolivian drug control programs has slowed to a trickle.

Nonetheless, in 2011 the two countries signed a new framework agreement to guide bilateral relations and are pending an exchange of ambassadors. Moreover, cooperation continues between the primary Bolivian drug control agency—the Ministry of Government’s Vice Ministry of Social Defense and Controlled Substances—and the Narcotics Affairs Section (NAS) of the U.S. Embassy.

Please open the document below to read more.

Bolivian drug control efforts: Genuine progress, daunting challenges

The meaningful engagement of civil society in international decision-making is widely recognised as best practice, and has been emphasised since the inception of the United Nations.

In 2012, UNAIDS released ‘Guidance for Partnerships with Civil Society, including People Living with HIV and Key Populations’, which outlines how UNAIDS, its cosponsors and secretariat should “strengthen and operationalize meaningful and respectful partnership work with civil society” – without which the 2011 Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS cannot be fulfilled.

This document outlines several principles for this partnership, including: evidence-informed and ethical responses; people living with HIV as leaders; responsibility of the entire Joint UN Programme on AIDS; mutual respect and accountability; and the need for “genuine partnership”.

Why UNODC has to do more to engage its civil society partners

This CAVEAT analysis for September and October 2012 focuses on the following topics:


The Amendment of Indonesian Criminal Procedure Code: Quo Vadis?

The idea of reforming Indonesian criminal justice system by amending the current Criminal Procedure Code (KUHAP) has been in suspended animation for much of the last decade. The draft revision has not been enacted and the progress to pass the draft revision practically halted. At this pace it may take another decade for the draft to be passed and one may even conclude that the government and the parliament seem to not want to pass it at all. This is at odds with their enthusiasm to hastily pass legislation of lesser importance as of late.

Harm Reduction and Young Injecting Drug Users in Indonesia

On 17 November 2011, the Indonesian government, together with the other nine governments of South East Asian countries, declared political commitments to achieve zero new HIV infection, zero discrimination, and zero AIDS-related deaths. The fact that HIV epidemic in this region has affected more than 1.5 million people, and the concern that such epidemic may have negative consequences on the realization of an ASEAN Community, has led these ten countries to declare and renew their political commitment in achieving the ‘Getting to Zero’ goals.

LBH Masyarakat v. BNN on the Right to Information: A Brief Note

In February 2012, the Community Legal Aid Institute (LBH Masyarakat) filed a right-to-information request to the National Narcotic Board (BNN) asking for copies of three of their regulations related with the investigation of drug offences. Those regulations are, Regulation of the Head of BNN number 3 of 2011 regarding the Technique of Controlled Delivery, Regulation of the Head of BNN number 4 of 2011 regarding the Technique of Undercover Purchase, and Regulation of the Head of BNN number 5 of 2011 regarding the Technique of Inquiry and Investigation of Drug Offences. However, in March 2012, BNN declined the request arguing that the regulations in question were exempted from the public information category. In April 2012, LBH Masyarakat filed an objection with regard to that decision.

My name is Christina Sitorus. I am a law student at the University of Jember on my third semester now. Since few months ago, I joined the Community Legal Aid Institute (LBH Masyarakat), as a volunteer. One of my tasks is to provide legal counseling in Jember Correctional Institute, under the supervision of staff lawyers. Last August, I met a child prisoner.

Indonesia's bimonthly human rights analysis 

In this report, Human Rights Watch offers new data indicating that people who enter the criminal justice system with an arrest for public possession of marijuana rarely commit violent crimes in the future.

Over the last 15 years, New York City police have arrested more than 500,000 people – most of them young blacks or Hispanics – on misdemeanor charges of possessing small amounts of marijuana in public view. While Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the police have said the arrests have helped reduce violent crime, they have never specified how.

A red herring: Marijuana arrestees do not become violent felons

Since the start of Mexican president Felipe Calderón's military crackdown on drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) in 2006, Mexico has occupied the limelight when it comes to media attention focusing on drugrelated violence in Latin America. However, while this 'Mexican focus' continues to be prevalent, it is actually Central America's Northern Triangle1 – consisting of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador – which is currently experiencing much higher rates of violence and increasing DTO activity, thus providing an illustration of the 'balloon effect' previously experienced by Mexico itself after the implementation of Plan Colombia which was conceived at the end of the 90's.

Together, the countries of the Northern Triangle now form one of the most violent regions on earth. Both El Salvador and Guatemala have been experiencing murder rates higher than those recorded during the countries' civil wars. But it is Honduras – though having been spared the kind of bloody civil wars as experienced by its neighbours – which currently occupies first place on worldwide homicide rate rankings.

Although it is clear that the violence in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala is pervasive and able to destabilize these Central American societies to a large extent, no consensus seems to exist on its exact causes. As in Mexico, much of the violence is attributed to the increased role of Central America as a transit region for controlled drugs destined for the US. While this is to a certain extent justifiable, the possibility of involvement in the drug trade as a symptom of underlying socialeconomic issues rather than a prime cause of violence and crime in itself should certainly not be overlooked.

Another issue often mentioned is the existence of large gangs, or maras, in the region, which foster a culture of machismo Introduction and criminal behaviour and have thereby contributed significantly to the high levels of criminal violence.For this problem underlying causes can of course be identified as well, but it should also be noted that the involvement of maras in drug trafficking operations is reportedly growing, taking the form of both collaboration as well as competition with DTOs.

One of the most important factors contributing significantly to rising crime levels is, paradoxically, the infamous mano dura (iron fist) responses to crime on the part of the region’s governmental authorities, showing that the ‘cure’ might very well be worse than the disease it is meant to treat. Again, this situation can be compared to that of Mexico where the militarization strategy against DTOs has been accompanied by a severe escalation of violence in the country.

This paper will first address the particulars of the high levels of criminal violence in the Northern Triangle. Then an attempt will be made to map out the extent to which the drug trade in general, and in particular the involvement of Mexican DTOs and their part in the region’s criminal violence, are important factors in each of the countries of the region. We will then explore the recently reinvigorated debate on alternative approaches to drug control strategies in the Americas.

In spite of the similarities of the challenges posed to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras when it comes to drug-related problems and criminal violence, the positions occupied by the political leaders of these countries in this incipient debate differ considerably. Further sections of this paper will go into the drug legislation of these countries, as well as the main drug control strategies they have been following to determine how the differences in rhetoric matches actual policies. Then, because of the US opposition to alternative approaches to the war on drugs, important co-operation frameworks between the US and countries in the Northern Triangle will briefly be described in order to assess US leverage in promoting its preferred drug control strategies in this region.

Publications from IDPC Members