Drug use practices that can lead to transmission of HIV, HCV, and other infections are pressing issues affecting communities throughout Canada. To stay current with emerging evidence and ensure that people have access to high-quality services that help prevent HIV and HCV transmission, best practice recommendations must undergo review and update.

A Canada-wide team of researchers, service providers, policy makers and people with lived experience have developed, through extensive literature review and synthesis, an updated and comprehensive set of best practice recommendations.

The document has new and improved best practice recommendations about needle and syringe distribution, other injection equipment distribution, handling and disposal of used drug-use equipment, and safer drug-use education. In addition, lots of new material can be found on safer crack cocaine smoking equipment distribution and opioid overdose prevention (education and naloxone distribution).

The Best Practice Recommendations are divided into two parts. Part 1 is a synthesis of the most up-to-date scientific evidence available about the distribution of injection and smoking equipment, safer drug use education and overdose prevention. Part 2 will focus on program models, testing and vaccination, first aid, referrals and counselling, and relationships with police and other organizations. It is scheduled be completed in the latter part of 2014.

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Best practice recommendations for Canadian harm reduction programmes

The tenth meeting of the Informal Drug Policy Dialogue series, organised by the Transnational Institute (TNI) and Association Diogenis, took place in Warsaw, Poland, gathering over 35 NGO representatives, academics, policy makers and practitioners. The Dialogue comprised five major sessions on drug policy.

During the first session, participants discussed the current state of drug policy in Poland. The second session focused on the new European Union (EU) Drug Strategy for 2013-2020 and its Action Plan for 2013-2016. Thirdly, participants discussed cannabis policy reform movements worldwide, with a special focus on the legal regulation of cannabis markets in US states Colorado and Washington and the Uruguayan bill on cannabis policy. In the following session, participants shared their experience and expertise on different models of decriminalisation, with a specific focus on Poland, Italy and the Czech Republic. The final session of theDialogue provided updates on the 56th Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), which was held from 11th to 15th March 2013 in Vienna, Austria.

Report of TNI/Diogenis Informal Drug Policy Dialogue 2013 Warsaw 

The national opioid pharmacotherapy statistics annual data collection 2012 has found that on any given day almost 47,000 people received pharmacotherapy treatment for their opioid dependence at 2,226 dosing points around Australia.

General findings point that the number of people receiving opioid pharmacotherapy treatment has almost double since 1998 though growth rates in the amount of service users has been slowing down in recent years.Other findings point to an ageing population accessing these facilities with Males and Indigenous people being over-represented in pharmacotherapy.

Click here to see the full publication (restricted Access)

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Australian national opioid pharmacotherapy statistics annual data collection 2012

The objective of this report by the Australian Insitute of Health and Welfare is to inform on the planning, delivery, and quality of prisoner health services. Among the main findings have been the significant health issues, with high rates of mental health problems, communicable diseases, alcohol misuse, smoking and illicit drug use; as well as a comparatively higher prevalence on aboriginal populations.

Click here to see the full publication (restricted access)

The health of Australia’s prisoners 2012

The Australian Government has released a new ten-year strategy for improving health outcomes among Indigenous Australians. The Plan builds on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It adopts a strengths-based approach to ensure policies and programs improve health, social and emotional wellbeing, and resilience and promote positive health behaviours. The policy acknowledges the detrimental impact on social and emotional wellbeing that alcohol and other drugs can have on Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander communities.

National aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health plan 2013-2023

The World Health Organization estimates that as many as 185 million people, or 3 percent of the world’s population, are infected with the hepatitis C virus. Though it is curable, the vast majority of people living with hepatitis C reside in low- and middle-income countries where treatment is virtually inaccessible.

The main medicine used in the current standard of care—Pegylated Interferon-alfa (Peg-IFN)—can cost as much as $18,000 USD in these countries for a 48-week course of treatment. For those who cannot afford it, this price tag may mean death.

Hepatitis C Treatment: Price, Profits, and Barriers to Access

, we examine the difference in price of a 48-week course of hepatitis C treatment in low- and middle-income countries, and detail breakthroughs that have been made in countries like Egypt and Thailand to negotiate lower prices and increase access to this lifesaving medicine.

Hepatitis C treatment: Price, profits, and barriers to access

Modern use of the coca leaf in Argentina provides a series of examples that could contribute to dispelling many of the myths that have polarized debate about the subject over the last few years. Argentine coca consumption does not fit commonly held preconceptions on the subject. Furthermore, the social acceptance and legitimacy of the habit has created an absurd situation in which the sale and possession of coca leaf for consumption is legal, but the supply and wholesale purchase of it are prohibited, and therefore part of an illegal circuit.

Argentine coca leaf consumption is definitely traditional but not entirely indigenous. It is rooted in the Northwest of Argentine in every social class, and not only in the poorer sectors. Argentine consumption of coca is legal and very widespread.

The Northwest of Argentina is a choice destination for a significant proportion of the Bolivian crop. This fact was never taken into account by international narcotics control bodies, nor did it ever influence the design of public policy in Argentina.

Attention must be drawn to the sheer scale of Argentine coca imports, and to the border rent which appears to remain forever in the hands of the ‘backyard’ of security forces, and other networks of a similar kind.

It is high time that a new bilateral agreement be established between the two countries with the aim of regulating legal imports of the coca leaf.

Working towards a legal coca market: The case of coca leaf chewing in Argentina

The European Union (EU) has had some form of formal drug strategy since the early 1990s. These successive strategies have attempted to articulate a common Europe-wide position, and set out the role for the European Commission (EC) and other agencies in supporting the activities of EU member states given that the main decisions on policy, strategy and resource allocations are made at the national level.

Reviewing successive versions of the EU Drug Strategy, a clear trend of increasing scope, sophistication and clarity can be observed. Over the last 20 years, European governments and institutions have led the way globally in collecting information about the drug problem and government responses;1 in implementing and learning from the experience of a wide range of supply reduction, demand reduction, and harm reduction activities; and in developing a consensus around a balanced approach to strategy that avoids the more extreme forms of repressive law enforcement, and encourages significant investment in harm reduction and treatment services for people who use drugs.

In this advocacy note, the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) analyses the extent to which the Strategy, and its initial Action Plan, are effective in articulating activities and plans that are appropriate to this challenge, and that reflect the best evidence and experience in this sector. We also comment on the extent to which the process of development of these documents has lived up to the Strategy objective to: ‘Promote and encourage the active and meaningful participation and involvement of civil society… in the development and implementation of drug policies, at national, EU and international level.’

IDPC Advocacy Note - The European Union Drugs Strategy 2013-2020

This advocacy note is not intended to provide a thorough analysis or critique of the content of the two reports presented by the OAS, which together with the annexes referred to above cover hundreds and hundreds of pages. Rather, the purpose here is to highlight some of the key points presented in the OAS analytical and scenarios reports that, in the view of the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), especially merit further debate and discussion.

The challenge for governments, civil society groups and citizens across the hemisphere is to use the report as a tool for debating present drug policies and ultimately crafting alternative approaches that are both more humane and effective.

IDPC Advocacy Note - Launching the debate: The OAS Reports on Hemispheric Drug Policy

The burden of liver disease could be dramatically reduced by increasing treatment for hepatitis C infection among people who inject drugs, suggest new recommendations developed by researchers from the Kirby Institute at UNSW, in collaboration with colleagues from the International Network on Hepatitis Care in Substance Users (INHSU).

In Australia, 226,000 people are living with chronic hepatitis C and over 10,000 new cases are reported every year. Hepatitis C can lead to serious liver complications such as liver failure or cancer, which are associated with considerable costs to the health care system. Although almost 80 per cent of all infections occur among people who inject drugs, only one per cent of these people currently receive treatment.

“Treatment for hepatitis C infection among people who inject drugs remains unacceptably low,” said

Dr Jason Grebely, Senior Lecturer at the Kirby Institute, UNSW, and co-lead author of the recommendations. “Clinicians have been hesitant to recommend treatment in this population because of a lack of understanding about how lifestyle factors may impede successful treatment.”

But research supporting the first set of international recommendations ever released for treating hepatitis C in people who inject drugs has shown that treatment can be very successful when barriers are addressed within a supportive environment.

“Reducing the significant burden of liver disease related to hepatitis C in Australia and internationally will require improved assessment and treatment of the population most affected: people who currently inject drugs and those who have injected drugs in the past,” says Philip Bruggmann, President of INHSU. “By providing appropriate care to this group, we can reduce the burden of hepatitis C-related liver disease in this vulnerable population and slow the spread of this world-wide epidemic. These new recommendations serve as a first step towards elimination of hepatitis C.”

The global recommendations are published online today in the journal 

 ahead of World Hepatitis Day on July 28. They are part of a supplement entitled “Prevention and Management of Hepatitis C Virus Infection Among People Who Inject Drugs: Moving the Agenda Forward”, developed in collaboration with INHSU.

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

Prevention and management of hepatitis C virus infection among people who inject drugs: Moving the agenda forward

The periodic evaluation of implementation of the WHO strategy requires an initial baseline survey of all Member States. In mid-2012, WHO, in collaboration with the World Hepatitis Alliance, conducted such a survey, asking Member States to provide information relating to the four axes of the WHO strategy. In particular, Member States were asked whether key prevention and control activities are being conducted. This report presents the results.

The first chapter provides an introduction to viral hepatitis and to the global response to this group of diseases. The second chapter provides a global overview of the survey findings. Chapters three through eight present findings from the six WHO regions, including summaries of data from all responding countries. Additional survey data, study methodology information and the survey instrument can be found in Annexes A–E.

Global policy report on the prevention and control of viral hepatitis

The New Founding Model (NFM), launched in 2013 by the Global Fun to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, enables greater flexibility, predictability, and simplicity in the application process while promoting the engagement of stakeholders in all Global Fund activies. Aiming to have an improved impact and management of grants, the NFM will continue this year and be open to al countries by 2014.

The purpose of this guide is to make clear to civil society the key elements of the NFM application process, with a focus on the Standard Applicants who will be submitting applications in 2014 and beyond.

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