Category Archives: cannabis

Cultivating Change: The Contemporary Challenges of Studying Cannabis Regulation in Jamaica

Branwen Lloyd*

At the end of summer 2019 the GDPO was successful in an application to Swansea University’s Higher Education Funding Council for Wales – Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) scheme. The GCRF is a £1.5 billion fund announced by the UK Government in 2015 to support cutting-edge research that addresses the challenges faced by developing countries. The fund supports research surrounding three challenge areas; Equitable Access to Sustainable Development, Sustainable Economies and Societies and Human Rights, Good Governance and Social Justice. As it happened the project the GDPO proposed touched on addressing issues in all of theses categories.

This was the GDPO’s second successful GCRF award. Earlier in 2019 GCRF funding was secured to begin the project Cultivating Change: UN treaties, cannabis regulation and options for sustainable development in the Caribbean, in collaboration with partners at the University of the West Indies, Mona (UWI) in Jamaica. The aim of this interdisciplinary project was to facilitate knowledge exchange and to identify in-region expertise pertaining to the complex and increasingly challenging issues of international drugs policy. The project focused on exploring the potential of enabling the currently illicit cannabis cultivation within the Caribbean to enter the licit market. This is an issue that is becoming an increasingly important part of sustainable development strategies within many traditional producer states in the Global South. With a rapid expansion of legally regulated markets for recreational use of cannabis comes the potential for market engagement and associated benefits, relating to social justice and human rights within marginalized communities in the Caribbean.

Jamaica is just one of many Caribbean islands exploring if the relaxation of certain drugs policies relating to marijuana can not only lead to social reform but to related economic development. The Jamaican ‘brand’ of cannabis culture and production is world-renowned. Add this to the historic and religious use of ganja for sacramental purposes and one can see why it is such a burning issue.

In 2015, the Jamaican government amended the Dangerous Drugs Act, which effectively decriminalized the possession and use of ganja in small amounts, (up to 2 oz), possession of larger amounts remaining a criminal offense, and which also legalized medical marijuana. This allowed the use of marijuana for medical and religious purposes, but not for recreational use. It also introduced licenses for its cultivation and sale. Other Caribbean nations have looked towards Jamaica as an early mover and many have amended and introduced their own legislation keen not to miss out on potential profits, particularly in the field of medical marijuana production. However, in the years since the act was passed forward progress has apparently stalled, and it is currently unclear how the legislation would develop to assist the significant numbers of traditional (illicit) marijuana producers across the country. Many of these growers struggle to survive economically; a fact often underpinning engagement with the currently illicit market.

The goal of the Cultivating Change project was to generate knowledge exchange and develop in-region expertise pertaining to complex and increasingly challenging legal and policy dilemmas around cannabis, both at the national, regional and international level. The project focused on the potential transition of currently illicit cannabis cultivation within the Caribbean to the licit market and as such become an important part of sustainable development strategies in traditional so-called producer states within the Global South. With a rapid expansion of legally regulated markets for both medical and recreational use come the potential for market engagement and associated benefits relating to social justice and human rights within currently marginalized communities within the Caribbean. While shifts would do much to help states work towards a range of Sustainable Development Goals (particularly those relating to poverty, gender equality, decent work and economic growth and life on land) there are currently complex legal questions concerning not only the practicalities of market transition within Jamaica and other states within the region, but also of the feasibility of international trade in cannabis for recreational purpose. The GDPO team were therefore keen to speak to legislators, growers and officials to examine the complex legal questions concerning the feasibility of international trade in cannabis and to consider how such a shift would do much to help states work towards a range of SDGs.

So, in June 2019, in the good old pre-COVID days (we thought the risk assessments were bad enough then!) GDPO Senior Research Associate Axel Klein and I boarded a fight to Jamaica to meet colleagues at the University of the West Indies, Mona and begin field work. The team visited traditional growers and discussed the impact the CLA regulations were having on licit and illicit cannabis production. They then met with Minister J.C. Hutchinson from the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries (MICAF) who explained the Cannabis Licensing Authority’s (CLA) new ‘Alternative Development Programme’. The programme is a pilot project aimed at transitioning current illicit cannabis farmers into the legally regulated medical cannabis industry. It hopes to increase the legitimate earning potential of small, marginalised communities that have been disproportionately impacted by drug policy and regulation and therefore still operated within the cannabis black market. The team visited the site of the Maroon community project in Accompong, St. Elizabeth and saw first-hand that the transition from illicit to licit production and trade of cannabis will be a complicated but no less worthy endeavour. After meeting with CLA officials and numerous academics at Mona working in various fields of study relating to cannabis in the Caribbean we were confident we had had a good overview of the current state of play and were encouraged that there was much support for further collaboration.

When the second Swansea University GCRF grant award was approved in late 2019 the GPDO moved to assist in the set-up of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Cannabis Research (ICCR) at UWI, Mona. Its aim is to serve as a centre of research excellence for pertinent cannabis related study and discussion within the Caribbean. This includes the fields of political science, law and agriculture, gender studies, as well as criminology and public policy. A second research trip to Jamaica in January 2020 led to the publication of the ICCR first paper ‘Ganja Licensing in Jamaica Learning lessons and setting standards’ by Axel Klein and Vicki J. Hanson. The paper, at the request of Minister J.C. Hutchinson, is an analysis of the roadblocks within the licensing process that prevent small farmers from getting access to a license and problems they have in trying to enter the medical marijuana industry. Things were going well for the ICCR. Staff were appointed to set up the website, arrange workshops and start connecting the academics across the UWI network… then COVID struck.

Universities shut; countries went into lock down. Workshops, meetings and launches were delayed and put on hold, but we adapted, and thanks to the power of Zoom and not a little hard work and creative thinking we were able to proceed with the project and in fact generated more activities and outputs than first anticipated. Thanks to GCRF funding, research on cannabis policy, social and cultural impact now has a permanent home in the Caribbean that can react to developments first-hand. This was exemplified by one of the first events hosted by the ICCR, a Covid-19 and Ganja: Medical and Economic Impact Webinar. Working on an international project at this time was not without its challenges. Nonetheless, the lessons learnt, and connections made (albeit more virtual than face-to-face) will be far reaching and impactful. Further fieldwork in the Caribbean may be on hold for some time yet, however continuing to work together across international borders proved to be, after the first few weeks of uncertainty, a fairly smooth transition.

But the work doesn’t stop! Keep an eye out for some upcoming work by GDPO, TNI and ICCR on the Cannabis Trade in the Caribbean.

*GDPO Project Officer

Drugs, Prisons and ‘Unintended Consequences’ – Does drug interdiction drive drug-related harms?

Rick Lines, Olivia Howells and Daniel Webb*

The availability of drugs in prisons around the world is well documented. In Europe alone, up to seventy percent of people in prison have used an illicit drug. In Canada, forty-eight percent of prisoners in federal correctional institutions have had ‘problems’ with drugs. In Australia, one in six people discharged reported using illicit drugs during their sentence.

The 2018-19 Annual Report of HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales stated, ‘we are regularly told how easy it is to get hold of illicit drugs in prisons, and of the shockingly high numbers who acquire a drug habit while they are detained’. The Chief Inspector was ‘particularly concerned by the high number of prisoners who said they had developed a problem while in prison – 13% of adult men in our survey reported that they had developed a problem with illicit drugs since they had arrived’. Here in Wales, a Cardiff prison survey found that fifty-two percent of prisoners said it was easy to get illegal drugs into the prison.

The availability and use of drugs in prisons cannot be separated from wider drug policy. The criminalisation of drugs and the people who use or sell them fuels mass incarceration in many countries, and in doing so creates large profitable markets for drugs behind bars. To counter this, prison systems around the world have deployed a wide range of supply reduction and drug interdiction measures – from searches to sniffer dogs to drug testing – to try to stop drugs entering prisons, and to disrupt internal markets.

Are these measures effective at deterring drug use or shrinking illicit markets? The high levels of drug use in prison cited above suggest the impacts are limited at best, and that despite the efforts of prison security, drugs continue to flow into places of detention with relative ease.

Although supply reduction efforts in prisons may be ineffective overall at eliminating drug markets, that does not mean they do not have an impact on drug consumption. As noted in 2008 by Antonio Maria Costa, former Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, efforts to control illicit drugs often have negative ‘unintended consequences’ not considered at the time they were implemented. In other words, drug enforcement efforts often have the effect of creating problems worse than those they were intended to solve. In prisons, one of these ‘unintended consequences’ is increased drug-related risk and drug-related harms.

One widely used measure to deter drug use in prisons is mandatory drug testing (MDT). The UK Ministry of Justice states that 67% of prisoners surveyed in 2014/15 had participated in some form of MDT. While the UK government states that MDT is intended to ‘deter prisoners from misusing drugs’ and to ‘contribute to drug supply reduction, and contribute to prisoner safety, violence reduction, order and control’, the evidence suggests that random drug testing may actually undermine all of those objectives.

Cannabis is the most commonly used drug by people in prison in the UK, with a reported 79% lifetime prevalence of use. It is also a drug that remains highly detectable in the body for long periods after use. As such, cannabis users in prison have a ‘high risk of detection through mandatory drug tests’. One of the ‘unintended consequences’ of MDT in prisons is therefore a switch from cannabis use to heroin use among prisoners. As heroin is undetectable via MDT after only two to three days, heroin use becomes a logical choice for people who want to use drugs and minimise their risk of being caught. This switch to heroin use can also lead to a switch from smoking to injecting as a route of administration, with the attendant risks of blood-borne virus transmission and vein damage from sharing and reusing scarce injecting equipment in prisons.

There are also increasing indications that drug interdiction activities in prisons are driving the availability and use of new psychoactive substances (NPS), with mandatory drug testing again playing a role. Many varieties of NPS are not detectable by drug testing, creating an incentive to choose new psychoactives as a way to minimise risk of detection. As noted by one observer, ‘due to testing…cannabis, which is argued to be a lower risk substance, has been replaced by spice – a substance perceived to have more dangerous health implications’. A study commissioned for the National Offender Management Service found that prevalence of synthetic cannabinoids was twice as high among prisoners at time of release than at the time of admission. In that study, synthetic cannabinoids were the only substance for which a higher prevalence was detected upon release than upon admission, suggesting a statistically significant uptake of use of NPS by people in detention.

The European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) has noted that ‘the avoidance of positive drug tests has been suggested as motivation for drug users to switch to NPS while in prison’ and that ‘increases in NPS use in prisons may therefore, arguably, be an unintended negative consequence of random mandatory drug testing programmes in some European prisons’.

While the UK and Germany have recently incorporated detection of synthetic cannabinoids into its MDT programme, this ultimately will not address the issues of drugs in prisons, or the creation of risk. As noted by EMCDDA, ‘One possible outcome…is that there may be displacement from use of synthetic cannabinoids to other substances, such as synthetic opioids, which may also be extremely harmful.’ Indeed, the EMCDDA notes that the use of synthetic opioids in Latvian prisons ‘has been accompanied by more overdoses and an increase in injecting, including needle-sharing’.

The UK Prison Inspectorate has stated that ‘NPS have created significant additional harm and are now the most serious threat to the safety and security of the prison system’. The widespread use of NPS, driven in part by random drug testing, suggests that the MDT is having the opposite effect of that intended by the government. In 2005, MDT was withdrawn from Scottish prisons as it was deemed a waste of funds that had little effective impact on drug use amongst prisoners.

Such negative ‘unintended consequences’ can also be identified from other supply reduction efforts. Drug detecting sniffer dogs are widely used throughout the UK prison regime. A 2014 review of supply reduction activities in Australian prisons described the impact of sniffer dogs as ‘modest’. However, even this ‘modest’ success is undermined in the case of new psychoactives. The EMCDDA, for example, cautions that, ‘Sniffer dogs are not trained to recognise the many different types of NPS.’ The UK Prison Inspectorate has noted that ‘Synthetic cannabis has no distinctive odour and is therefore harder to detect than non-synthetic cannabis, making it more attractive to smuggle in’. Even where dogs are trained specifically to identify one type of NPS, such as ‘Spice’, the longer-term effectiveness of this is made difficult by ‘the ever-changing composition’ of new psychoactives, making the programmes ‘ineffectual’.

Drug use is as much a part of the prison environment as it is the outside community. Overall, the supply reduction activities of prison regimes fuel drug-related risk and drug-related harms among people in detention. The advent of NPS only exacerbates this, creating an environment in which use of new psychoactive substances, substances often more dangerous than the traditional drugs they are created to mimic, are the easiest to smuggle in, and the most logical to use if wishing to avoid detection.

If governments are truly serious about addressing drug use and reducing drug-related harm, they must move away from enforcement-focussed responses, and instead implement laws and policies that reduce the number of people in prison for drug-related offences, and to provide comprehensive harm reduction programmes for people in detention.

*Dr Rick Lines is Associate Professor of Criminology and Human Rights at the School of Law, Swansea University. He is also a Senior Research Associate with the Global Drug Policy Observatory. Olivia Howells is a Law and Criminology student at Swansea University and Daniel Webb is a Criminology and Criminal Justice student at Swansea University.

This research was conducted as part of the Swansea Paid Internship Network programme, a scheme enabling School of Law students to obtain experience working on an active research project under the guidance of an academic supervisor.

What have the Russians done for us in the international drug policy field? A timely reminder to take back control

Axel Klein, GDPO Senior Research Associate.
April 24, 2019.

At the 62nd meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in March this year the tensions between states with widely diverging drug policies finally came to the surface. On the floor of the plenary meeting the Russian delegation took Canada to task for ‘violating international law [by] legalising cannabis.’ (http://cndblog.org/2019/03/plenary-item-9-implementation-of-the-international-drug-control-treaties-cont-2/)

The Russia delegate also took issue with the Expert Commission on Drug Dependence of the World Health Organisation for recommending that cannabis be moved from schedule 4 of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and placed in the less strict schedule 1. Interestingly, the objection had nothing to do with either the new assessment of the harms posed by cannabis or its medical potential. What had given cause to offence was that the ‘perception of the world of the community would be that legalisation is fine and dandy. Probably the experts don’t have to go through the turmoil of thinking through the repercussions of their decisions. They are technical experts. Nothing more’ (emphasis added).

Technical issues, say of patient benefit, the need to address discrimination and stigma, or pre-empt trafficking were not touched upon. The Russian Federation’s statement also glossed over the fact that the placement was not designed to be permanently fixed. The original founders of the system expected that substances would move across the schedules as more scientific evidence became available. Important to recall here is that at the time that cannabis was slotted into schedule 4, tetrahydrocannabinol, the most important psychoactive substance, had not even been discovered.

The point of Russia’s attack on countries like Canada, Uruguay and several US states– though only Canada was singled out – was the risks that legalisation was having consequences.

Consequentialism has not been a driving force in the history of international drug control, given the ontological foundation of the treaties on the ‘welfare of mankind’. The system architects recruited ‘mankind’ to labour in the construction and then retire. Hence the object of Russian concern were not people in their totality or diverse sub-populations – patients, drug consumers, communities – but the ‘international drug control system’ itself.

Taking this to its logical conclusion, we then understand that adhering to the provisions of the three drug control conventions and the various associated agreements and protocols is only indirectly to do with problems of addiction and substance misuse. Their overriding purpose lies in protecting the functionaries and officials who work in it.

Such proposals tend to resonate particularly with representatives of countries with natural resource-based economies and authoritarian regimes. If the recent focus on human rights has already opened a divide between countries, the question of accountability is likely to push them even further apart. Justifying costly layers of administration to tax-paying electorates (though not to universities), is difficult at the best of times, but particularly when they fail to have a positive purpose.

And yet this is what the international system has long been lacking, at least according to Antonio Maria Costa, the former head of UNODC. In a seminal address to the CND in 2008 he stated with counter-intuitive perspicacity, that the ‘system was no longer fit for purpose’ and unable to contain a number of displacements.(Costa, Antonia Maria, Making drug control ‘fit for purpose’ Building on the UNGASS decade, Report by the Executive Director of the UNODC, 2008) The first he mentioned was the ‘huge criminal black market that now thrives in order to get prohibited substances from producers to consumers.’ Along with these markets comes the full spectrum of crime from large, police and policy corrupting syndicates to addiction fueled shoplifting. Such crime is the trade-off for containing the public health that is threatened by open drug markets. It is on this Faustian pact that the system is build.

(Antonia Maria Costa, UNODC)

Picking up on the admonition by the Russian delegate to consider the repercussions of our actions we need to review the criminogenic effect of drug control. This has to be done repeatedly and publicly precisely because it runs counter to the popular assumptions. In popular folklore, police and paramilitaries are believed to be breaking down doors and shooting up laboratories in ‘response’ to drug criminals. In effect, the causal effect runs the other way. The harder police and magistrates squeeze drug supply, the more devious and brutal the industry becomes when meeting the demand.

The fact that drug control generates crime needs to be repeated to policy makers at every level and may even hold sway with an audience that is otherwise immune to arguments about human rights, patient needs or stigmatization.

At the CND in Vienna most national delegations are comprised of and led by senior law enforcement officers or officials of the Ministry of Interior. If the realisation that vigorous enforcement is resulting in ever more vigorous criminality has not so far had much effect comes down to one of two possible sets of explanation. First, it could be that they are (i) simply not listening, (ii) the causal chain has not been understood, or (iii) is simply not believed. But the second explanation is that the criminal justice sector agencies and public have different objectives. The former are interested in expanding and increasing means and powers to enforce the law. And if public safety is one of the outcomes, so much the better.

In accordance with key tenets of institutional economics we hold that drug control and law enforcement are driven by motives of any social organism – self perpetuation. Hence the need for continuous checks and assessments of policy purpose and outcomes. Since all institutions also include well intentioned and dedicated professionals the need for restating the arguments of criminogenic consequence has to be repeated over and over.

Naturally it is much more difficult to achieve results in thematic areas where key policy decisions have been abstracted by remote and unaccountable international bodies. As the Russian delegate reminds of the importance of repercussions, it is high time to take back control.

Yes, legalizing marijuana breaks treaties. We can deal with that.

By John Walsh, Tom Blickman, Martin Jelsma and Dave Bewley-Taylor

This Op-Ed was originally published in iPolitics on December 11th, 2017

Buzzing in the background of Canada’s debate on cannabis legalization is the issue of the three UN drug control treaties, and what to do with them.

The issue arose during the House of Commons’ consideration of Bill C-45, and may well come up again now that the bill is coming under Senate scrutiny. There is no doubt that legalizing and regulating cannabis markets for non-medical use will mean Canada is no longer in compliance with the obligation under the treaties to restrict cannabis to “medical and scientific” purposes. And Canada will need to address those treaties — in due time.

However, what ‘due time’ should mean has been the subject of some alarmist commentaries. It has been argued that Canada should have initiated the process of withdrawing from the treaties by this past July 1 to avoid a breach of international law when cannabis is legal for recreational use in July, 2018, as the government intends. Some have suggested that, by missing this supposed deadline, Canada has now limited its legal options and might even suffer international sanctions if its reforms continue as scheduled.

This raises two key questions. Did the supposed July 1 deadline really exist? And does Canada really now have fewer options with regard to managing the mismatch between cannabis regulation and UN drug treaties?

The 1961 UN Single Convention specifies that if formal notification of withdrawal from the treaty is submitted before July 1, it takes effect on January 1 of the next year; if notification is submitted after July 1, then withdrawal takes effect a full year later. But at this stage in Canada’s reform effort, the mechanics of the treaty withdrawal process do not dictate hard deadlines. The alarmism about treaty violations, deadlines and delays is misplaced.

Canada certainly has important decisions to make about how to ensure that its impending cannabis reforms will align with its international obligations. As we describe in our report Cannabis Regulation and the UN Drug Treaties: Strategies for Reform, a range of alternatives merit Canada’s careful consideration. Beyond simply withdrawing from the drug treaties, these options include the possibility of withdrawing from and then rejoining the treaties with reservations (a procedure that Bolivia used with regard to coca) or of modifying certain treaty provisions by means of a special agreement among a group of like-minded countries.

In reviewing its options, Ottawa would be wise to be protective of Canada’s positive reputation as a country that upholds international law. But there is no need to postpone the regulation of cannabis, and there is also no reason to rush to withdraw from the drug treaties — certainly not before the relevant legislation has even become law, and not even immediately afterwards.

The experience in Uruguay — the first country in the world to regulate cannabis — demonstrates why immediate withdrawal from the treaties is not necessary. Having justified its policy position via its human rights obligations, Uruguay has suffered no negative consequences beyond mentions in the annual reports of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), the watchdog of the UN drug conventions — noting that the country’s law regulating cannabis is contrary to the provisions of the drug conventions and urging a resolution.

The United States — where eight states have legalized adult-use cannabis and where the federal government has adopted a policy of accommodation — has received a similar message from the INCB regarding Washington’s legally dubious interpretation of the drug treaties.

Canada has better and more legally-grounded options, and plenty of time to consider them carefully. A good starting point would be for Canada to publicly acknowledge that moving forward with regulation of adult-use of cannabis will result in a period of respectful non-compliance with certain treaty obligations — a route that, in the absence of a seamless transition, displays the appropriate regard for international law.

Canada could explain the reasoning behind its reforms and why the country’s new regulatory approach is justified by the need to realize other domestic and international legal and policy commitments, particularly with regard to public health, child protection and human rights.

Canada is not alone in reforming its cannabis policy, nor is it the first. In addition to Uruguay and the eight U.S. states, many local authorities in other countries, notably in Europe, are pushing national governments to follow suit. In the Netherlands this has resulted in the October 2017 decision of the new coalition government to allow for experiments with regulated supply of cannabis to coffee shops. This would extend toleration of cannabis sales in these premises to tolerated regulation of the supply.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has initiated a review of the classification of cannabis under the drug conventions. Canada’s cannabis regulation is part of a bigger trend and there is no reason to rush to unilaterally withdraw from the drug conventions. Acting unilaterally may not even be in Canada’s best interests; it could be wiser to act in concert with like-minded states.

The bottom line is that Canada ultimately will need to choose a path forward with regard to cannabis regulation and the drug treaties. But there is no need for hasty decisions and plenty of time for Canada to evaluate its options — and act when the time is ripe.

John Walsh is director for drug policy at WOLA (Washington Office on Latin America) in Washington, DC. Tom Blickman is a senior policy analyst and Martin Jelsma is director of the Drugs & Democracy program of the Netherlands-based Transnational Institute (TNI). Dave Bewley-Taylor is director of the Global Drug Policy Observatory (GDPO), Swansea University, U.K.

Read the Original Publication Here

View from the Ground – Harm reduction, drug policy and the law in the Maghreb: focus on Morocco and Algeria

View from the Ground – Harm reduction, drug policy and the law in the Maghreb: focus on Morocco and Algeria

Khalid Tinasti, Geneva
Global Drug Policy Observatory, Swansea University
October 2016

As WordPress doesn’t allow referencing, full PDF with references available here: khalid_blog-maghreb-drug-policy_final

Introduction:

The Maghreb countries, part of the Arab Maghreb Union, are Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia and form the largest part of North Africa. These countries are currently in the centre of the boiling issues of the world including terrorism, human trafficking and drug trafficking. These countries are large consumers and producers of plant-based and synthetic l psychotropic substances, Morocco being the largest cannabis producer in the world in 2014. But when it comes to discussing the issue of drug use, the legal response to it, and its impact on society, the debate focuses on ideological issues of morality and the rejection of illicit drugs, as data on the prevalence of drug use and the patterns of the use in these countries are missing.

The Maghreb is also part of the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa), which is one of the two regions in the world in which new HIV infections are increasing (with Eastern Europe and Central Asia) and largely driven by drug injection. In 2014, the region has seen HIV infections related to drug injection represent 28% of all new infections, and this represents a minimum since it is based only on often incomplete data submitted by governments. The region is also home to an estimated 630,000 people who inject drugs. This blog will analyze the current situation in two major countries of the region, Algeria and Morocco, which have chosen different approaches to drugs, and compare the outcomes of their policy choices. The blog will finally highlight the current drug policy reform discussions in both countries.

The current official drug prevalence:

Morocco is the country with the most widely available data in the region, with an estimated injecting population of 3000 to 4000 according to the Ministry of Health. Drug injection is concentrated in the North and East of the country, in the transit regions that export cannabis to Algeria and Spain, and import amphetamines (mainly from Algeria) and heroin (mainly from Spain). The country is also the first Arab country, and the second in Africa, to have introduced methadone substitution therapy in six centers in 2011. Furthermore, it is among the two only countries that have a national harm reduction policy in the Arab world, the other being Lebanon. The prevalence of HIV in the general population is of 0.14% (0.1%-0.2%), and mainly concentrated among key affected populations, with people who inject drugs (PWID) representing 10.17% of this total. The country has introduced methadone therapy in prisons as a pilot project , but the author has been informed that the experiment will be extended to five penitentiary centers throughout the country in the coming months.

In Algeria, the situation of PWID or people who use drugs without injection is undocumented. There is no official data on the prevalence of drug use in the country, but it is known that cannabis is the most widely used substance in the country and its use has doubled in the course of two years, between 2012 and 2014. PWID living with HIV represents 1.1% of those tested in 2014, for a prevalence rate among the general population of less than 0.1%. In 2014, a study by the National Office on Drugs and Addiction (Office national de lutte contre la drogue et la toxicomanie) showed that the number of people who use drugs (PWUD) is 250.000, while simultaneously independent research by the FOREM (Fondation nationale pour la promotion de la santé et le développement de la recherché), a non-governmental organization, estimated PWUD to be one million people in the country. A 2006 study on the number of PWID in developing countries reveals that Algeria is the second highest burden country in all North Africa following Egypt, with a number of PWID reaching 40,961.

The two neighboring countries, the largest demographically in the region, hegemons politically and dynamic economically, are at odds largely due to their conflict on the Western Sahara, Morocco claiming its territorial integrity includes the said territory, while Algeria hosts and supports, diplomatically and financially, the separatists. The conflicting relationship between the two countries is also represented in the cooperation against drug trafficking, where they accuse each other of knowingly enriching their respective black markets of illicit drugs. Publicly and through official press conferences, Algeria accuses Morocco of the impact of the large amounts of cannabis being smuggled by the Rif traffickers, while Morocco reminds Algeria that it is one of the largest producers of psychotropic substances that flood the Moroccan black market.

The narcotic laws and drug use:

The laws in Algeria and Morocco punishing drug use and possession are harsh, as they are in the rest of the African and MENA regions. The Algerian law (Law No. 04-18 of 25 December 2004) imposes incarceration between two months to two years in addition to a fine from five to fifty thousand Dinars (fifty to five hundred US dollars) or one of the two sentences for personal use or possession. For a similar offence, a Moroccan convict will face imprisonment of between two months and one year in addition to a fine (Dahir No. 1-73-282 of 21 May 1974), or one of the two sentences. Meanwhile, the Moroccan law remains the least harsh policy in the region. In 2014, 31% of the cases treated by tribunals in the country were related to illicit drugs.

The Algerian narcotics law differs highly from its Moroccan counterpart since it gives precedence to prevention over punishment, as it states preventive and treatment measures before penal judgments. It makes treatment the basis of the legal response to drug use, and sanctions are not enforced if and until the treatment is refused. In addition, returning to treatment when necessary is not prevented even in cases where the treatment decision was previously refused (Article 9 of the law). Sanctions on drug consumption have been reduced for the following reasons: First, punishment for possession or consumption would be imprisonment of between two months and two years. This is a lighter sentence than lockup or hard labor and indicates that drug consumption or possession for personal consumption is considered a misdemeanor rather than a felony; second, the law authorizes the judge to choose between imprisonment and a fine and does not force him to combine the two and third, the judge’s authority to determine the sanction provides some autonomy as to whether imprisonment or a fine is chosen, as there are large differences between the minimum and the maximum limits.

These parameters of the law, that are presented as a prioritization of public health over punishment in drug policy, are still problematic as they allow for the institutionalization of mandatory treatment. According to Article 7 of the law, the examining magistrate or juvenile judge may order detoxification, accompanied by medical surveillance and rehabilitation for “any drug user whose condition requires these measures”. The court’s judicial authority, in this case the specialized judicial authority, may also rule exemption from sanctions (Article 8). According to Article 9, incarceration and fines shall only be applied to anyone who refrains from executing the decision to undergo detoxification. The law as it is today gives judges the power to decide on medical conditions and how they should be treated. Despite every effort, it is still difficult to find data on how many people are diverted from tribunals to treatment centers in both countries.

The findings of on-the-ground research:

To face this complex situation, in countries that produce large quantities of illicit drugs, consume heavily and carry the burden of epidemics related to drug injection, non-governmental organizations on the ground have started researching the situation and gathering evidence. The Association de Lutte contre le Sida (ALCS) in Morocco has launched on-the-ground research as early as 1996 in the Northern provinces of the country to map the injection drug use, and respond to the HIV situation. At the time, drug injection has been found to be limited. A 2003 national survey on mental health and addiction, with a sample of 6000 people over 15 years old, has shown that cannabis is the most widely used substance with a prevalence rate of 3.94%, the age of first use was decreasing, and the prevalence of heroin was of 0.02%. In 2006, with the changing nature of drug use and the spread of HIV through drug injection as transmission mode, the Ministry of Health launched situational studies on drug injection, in order to establish the first harm reduction national plan. The first action was to launch needle and syringe programmes, followed by methadone treatment. The harm reduction programme includes several advances, such as the inclusion of civil society in the delivery of services, the dispensing of harm reduction training, and the delivery of services during the night hours. For instance, the ALCS delivers through its mobile unit a needle exchange programme in three cities in the Rif. Nevertheless, the programme faces tremendous challenges, be it within the harsh legal environment or through the obstacles for the scaling up the services delivery.

In Algeria, and as stated earlier, data and monitoring of current drug policies is missing. The Association de Protection Contre le Sida (APCS) has reached out to the Moroccan ALCS to conduct a rapid diagnostic mission to map the drug situation in the capital city Algiers. For this research, 43 PWUD were interviewed, of which 5 were women, 62% were students or unemployed at the time of the qualitative interview, and represented 6 communes of the capital city. The findings concluded that outside of the squats in the Blida neighborhood, drug injection remains a personal activity, that it concerns all ages and all socio-professional categories of society. Regarding PWID, 70% injected Subutex (buprenorphine) and 30% heroin, and poly-consumption was the most shared behavior of the study participants (100%). 33% of those interviewed were incarcerated at some point in their lives, and up to 5 times for some, and for over 25% the imprisonment resulted of a simple possession offence. The study finally has shown that PWID do not access the services they need, since pharmacists refuse to sell them clean syringes, increase substantially their price, or do not have a stock in remote areas. Finally, only the national hospital of Blida offers rehabilitation and abstinence based programmes which are limited in number and do not respond to the needs of PWID.

This first study highlights the situation in Algiers, and is being currently used to advocate for drug policy and harm reduction reform with the Algerian authorities and civil society. In a consultation entitled “the role of civil society in harm reduction” held in Algiers on September 26-27, 2016 attended by the author, the representative of the Office national de lutte contre la drogue et la toxicomanie, the drug control organ under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister, announced that the country will open the first methadone induction service in Algiers in the coming months. No details were given. Moreover, NGOs collaboration between the two countries is in vivid contrast with the non-cooperation of the states on the drugs issue.

Conclusion:

Algeria and Morocco share the same languages (Berber and Arabic), similar colonial historical patterns, and the longest border for both countries. They also share the drug production, use and trafficking since they both produce large amounts of plant-based (Morocco) or manufactured (Algeria) illicit drugs; they share the same trafficking routes from the Sahara or from the Middle East towards Europe; and cannabis is the most used substance in both countries. Nevertheless, the countries have taken different public policies to respond to drugs. Morocco, a traditional and large producer of cannabis, faced with a heroin crisis in the 2000s developed the first harm reduction strategy in North Africa. Algeria, where heroin injection has not been seen as a health crisis until recently, has focused its efforts on the rehabilitation of PWUD.

khalid_blog-maghreb-drug-policy_finalAfter years of designing drug policies, mainly focused on eliminating drugs and curbing the HIV infections among PWID, drug policy reform is becoming a mainstream discussion in Morocco. The political parties PAM and Al Istiqlal have introduced parliamentary bills to legalize the medical and industrial use of cannabiskhalid_blog-maghreb-drug-policy_final. In Algeria, the debate still focuses on the issues related to trafficking and illicit production, and the announcement of a methadone service has been recurrent since 2015 without details on the location or the conditions required to enroll PWID in need of this service.

View From the Ground: Bocas del Toro; Drugs in Paradise

By Alastair Smith, Panama

Following exploratory fieldwork in the rural coca growing fields of Colombia, GDPO followed the cocaine supply chain to Panama. Most recently, time spent on the Northern Caribbean coast soon revealed the permeation of drug trafficking into the already complex socioeconomic context that many perceive as paradise.

Paradise of Bocas del Toro (MandingA 2013)

First impressions of Bocas del Toro – the name of both the 7,000+ person settlement on Isla Colon, just off the north eastern seaboard of Panama, but also the wider surrounding Province – largely confirm its international reputation as an accessible tropical ‘paradise’. With sympathetic afternoon light, the final leg of the 1-hour flight from Panama City reveals aqua marine water lapping at golden sands backed by lush green forests. Once established in the area, other widely talked about attractions of Bocas quickly emerge. There is a wealth of outdoor activities. Many international tourists, largely backpackers, and domestic visitors come to enjoy the Caribbean Sea: to scuba dive and snorkel, surf the notorious waves of Playa Bluff, or to take things a little easier with sunbathing and guided tours to spot the charismatic wildlife.

Party goers in one of Bocas’ bars open late into the morning (Taken by Author 2015)

Another attraction of Bocas del Toro for many, and particularly backpackers, is undoubtedly the opportunity to mix Salsa and Reggaeton music, with low cost national beers and regional rum cocktails, as they enjoy the party life offer on Isla Colon (primarily in BocasTown) and the surround islands. Many of the bars and clubs in Bocas town are right on the water: making it very possible to ‘live the dream’ of enjoying beers in a hammock, dancing off the alcohol, and when things get a little too hot back-flipping off the dock into the cooling sea.

In this hedonistic environment, it is seemingly easy to forget the volumes of boat traffic and not think about the dubious quality of the sea water while enjoying a midnight swim. Another undercurrent in the town is the availability cocaine and cannabis. Sellers freely mix in the nightlife with various degrees of subtly in communicating their offerings. During the day, it is unusual to walk the length of town without being offered ‘weed’ – sometimes as a follow up to the initial list proposal of taking a boat tours to the beach – although there is little menacing about time spent in Bocas, and disinterest is well-accepted by opportunistic sellers.

Part of the reason for the level of supply is the demand of international tourists and more permanent life style migrants willing to pay higher prices than local consumers. However, Bocas del Toro is also well supplied with drugs as one of the recognized points of refuge for traffickers making the journey up the EasternCoast from Colombia to North America

Originally founded as a settlement of concentrated population by foreign banana producers, the region remained disconnected from administration in Panama City due to a lack of a reliable road connection: and therefore, the centralized government administration has lacked a presence in many respects. The archipelago is also composed of some highly remote islands that fall well beyond almost all government services and authority: and as in many cases across the world, the lack of state institutions supports the trafficking of drugs.

View of coastal geography from the air (Author 2015)

Despite limited resources, local law enforcement officers in Bocas confirm that they have been involved in interdiction operations in partnership with central authorities and the US Coast Guard: furthermore, these operations have yielded high powerboats used by the traffickers that are then repurposed for local counter narcotics operations. Discussions with the local police support existing knowledge that traffickers use the inland water ways of the Panamanian coast to evade the authorities during the day, and then make their staged journeys under the cover of night (UNODC 2012). In some cases it is believed that small shipments of drugs are consolidated in Panama before being moved on (UNODC 2012). Local testimony also identified that during chases, traffickers will jettison quantities of drugs in attempts to bribe the police.

It is through a combination of these mechanisms that trafficked drugs enter the Bocas economy. The availability of drugs then provides relatively easy returns for those willing to become involved. This option is especially attractive so some due to the poor quality of education, high levels of poverty and general limitations on livelihood opportunities in the Bocas region. Despite Panama’s average national economic growth of 7.2% between 2001 and 2013, of the mainly indigenous population of the Bocas del Toro province, 25% are classified as poor and 11% as extremely poor (Omar and Moreno 2014). Many of these people live on subsistence agriculture and fishing on outer islands. There is therefore a potentially strong pull incentive to become involved in the distribution of drugs. In this case, as was found in Colombia, rural development will likely be as important an anti-trafficing policy as strengthening governance capacity for interdiction operations.

In conclusion, while the vast majority of visitors to Bocas del Toro find their expectations of fulfilled, the reality is that the international trafficking of drugs is playing into a complex socioeconomic situation, which many of the ‘poor’ permanent residents might well not accept as ‘paradise’. Again, genuine investment in enhancing the life opportunities of those currently motivated to support drugs distribution will likely contribute to a reduction in the global trade in narcotic drugs.

Sources

Omar, A. and V. Moreno ( 2014). Pobreza e Indigencia. Panama, Ministerio de Economia y Finanzas.

UNODC (2012). Cocaine from South America to the United States. Transnational Organized Crime in Central America and the Caribbean A Threat Assessment. Vienna, United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime.

Follow the Global Drug Policy Observatory:

GDPO on Twitter GDPO on Facebook GDPO on Academia.edu GDPO Website

Has the US just called for unilateral interpretation of multilateral obligations?

by Rick Lines And Damon Barrett

[Dr Rick Lines and Damon Barrett are the Chair and Director of the International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy, University of Essex]

This post was originally published here

These are interesting times for drug law reform, which, as it gathers pace, is asking important questions of international law. A UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs is set for 2016just as national reforms are challenging international treaties that form the bedrock of a global prohibition regime that has dominated since the turn of the twentieth century. States parties to the three UN drug control conventions must now confront the legal and political dilemmas this creates. This is the situation in which the US now finds itself following cannabis reforms in various states that are at odds with these treaties. The State Department has issued its official position in this regard, one that stretches and boundaries of interpretation and raises other serious questions for international law.

In an October statement Ambassador William Brownfield set out that position in the form of the ‘four pillar’ approach the United States will now follow in matters of international drug control. While the four pillars, set out below, have prompted much discussion and debate among those working on drug policy issues, attention among international lawyers has been rare. This is something of an important gap given the implications of what the US suggests:

Respect the integrity of the existing UN drug control conventions.
Accept flexible interpretation of those conventions.
Tolerate different national drug policies…[and] accept the fact that some countries will have very strict drug approaches; other countries will legalise entire categories of drugs.
Combat and resist criminal organisations, rather than punishing individual drug users

Internationally, the four pillars have emerged in the context of efforts, led primarily by Latin American States, to open discussions on the future of the international drug control regime, and look at alternatives to the current and destructive prohibitionist paradigm. Domestically, it comes in the context of successful referenda to legally regulate cannabis in several US states.

Both of these are welcome developments. The international drug regime is long overdue for reform, and the cannabis referenda will produce many positive criminal justice, health and social outcomes in those US states adopting them. However, domestic cannabis law reform places the United States in a compromised position within the coming debates on the future shape of the international drug control regime.

By permitting legal markets in recreational cannabis, the United States is in breach of both the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and the 1988 Convention on Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. This is an awkward position for the US, which for over 100 years has been both the driving force behind the international drug control regime, as well the regime’s de facto policeman. Admitting the breach threatens both a system the US wishes to protect, as well as its own influential role within it. Rectifying the breach domestically requires trampling on State-level democratic ballot initiatives. To its credit the Obama Administration has said via a memorandum from Deputy Attorney General James Cole it will respect and not interfere with the outcomes of those referenda.

The four pillars are a response to this legal and diplomatic conundrum. To justify its contention of treaty ‘flexibility’ – allowing, for example, its legal cannabis market – the US engages in some interesting, if problematic, legal gymnastics. As explained in an earlier speech of Brownfield’s in March:

[I]f it is a living document and they are living documents [the UN drug control conventions], living means you are allowed to adjust your interpretation as the world changes around you, the world in 1961 was a different place from the world in 2014 and we the governments and members states of the UN system should be permitted to interpret with that degree of flexibility as we move in to the 21st century.

Using the language of treaties as living documents – more commonly known as dynamic or evolutive interpretation – Brownfield attempts to paint cannabis legalisation in the US as something other than the breach it obviously is, in the process raising a number of international legal concerns.

Dynamic interpretation is well established in international human rights law, particularly the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. But, as described by the International Law Commission in 2006, it is an approach ‘much more deeply embedded in human rights law than in general international law’, suggesting that its application in the context of international drug control law must be considered cautiously. This is not to suggest that dynamic interpretation is not evident in other regimes, and it indeed has been used by the International Court of Justice, the European Court of Justice and the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization in various cases.

The drug treaties are suppression conventions. They form part of the body of transnational criminal law, not international human rights law. However, we accept that, for a variety of reasons it is legitimate to apply a dynamic interpretive approach to elements of international drug control law, particularly where drug control engages human rights. However, there are clear problems with the US’s use of this approach.

The first is the limits of interpretation itself. The classic approach to dynamic interpretation, as established by the European Court in Tyrer v UK, is a process of broadening or expanding the understanding of an obligation based upon changes in law, evolving social norms or widespread change in State practice. In other words, understanding treaty language in a modern context. There are various examples of this in practice from differing legal regimes.

However, Brownfield suggests that the ‘living’ nature of the drug treaties means that an obligation can legitimately evolve to the point of meaning the exact opposite of what it states, and that somehow the non-medical, non-scientific use of cannabis has evolved from being illegal in international law to being legal. This is an absurdity. The treaties already include a mechanism for the status of individual drugs to change or evolve, and for individual substances can be included in, or removed from, international control with approval of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, a process known as ‘rescheduling’. The Brownfield approach circumvents this, for the obvious reason that such a resolution would never make it through the Commission, and instead posits the ‘living instrument’ idea as the alternative.

However, for this outcome to be legally valid without cannabis being rescheduled, dynamic interpretation would need to alter the understanding of what the term ‘medical and scientific use’ means within the conventions, the only circumstance within the current international regime under which cannabis, and all controlled substances, may be legally manufactured, accessed and used. But Brownfield does not suggest this, for if he did then this evolved understanding of medical and scientific use could reasonably be applied to all drugs under international control, making legal recreational access to all controlled drugs part of the new ‘living’ drug regime. This is clearly a bridge too far for the US.

The second problem is one of interpretive forum. Dynamic interpretation is a judicial approach, utilised by judges or adjudication bodies to balance competing or conflicting interests in arriving at a decision. It is an approach employed by a neutral arbiter to dispute resolution, not a doctrine for States to use to unilaterally change the nature and scope of their own treaty obligations. Indeed, if we are to pursue an evolutive approach, then we also need to look at broader State practice. You can easily count on the fingers one hand the number of countries with a legalised recreational cannabis market, so this approach has clearly not evolved to an extent where legal regulation of the substances within the treaties would be permissible. Even then it is stretching any reasonable interpretation to reverse what the law in fact says. But in any case Brownfield does not suggest that we look to evolving State practice. The four pillars suggest, quite clearly, the acceptance of divergent unilateral interpretations. Whatever one thinks of the drugs treaties, such an approach creates an international minefield. Imagine an international legal order in which individual States are allowed to decide for themselves which treaty obligations apply to them, and in what way.

Here, however, we come to the third major problem, which is that the flexibility the US seeks for itself may not extend to others at all. We have both argued separately that this new US position has little to do with treaty compliance, and is really about maintaining its own central role as global arbiter of drug control, a position which it uses to great influence internationally. Surprisingly, US drug czar Michael Botticelli recently admitted as much in his Senate confirmation hearings, stating that ‘[t]he Four Pillar framework is an effort to stake out a middle ground between those who believe that prosecution and jail is the only approach and those favoring radical changes to the conventions’. In effect, the US denial of its own treaty breach allows it to sit in judgement over the drug reform actions of other States, comfortable in its self appointed role of neutral ‘middle man’ or ‘referee’ of acceptable treaty flexibility, and therefore protecting its own national interests against any ‘radical changes to the conventions’, apart from its own.

To be clear, our concern is not about compliance with bad laws, which these treaties surely are. Our concern is with the potential implications of the State Department’s argumentation. The failed, punitive prohibitionist approach of the international drug control regime must end. It is a regime that causes untold human and societal damage across the globe, and change to this regime is slow yet becoming more inevitable. However, it would be unfortunate to see established rules of international law become collateral damage in the fallout of the end of the war on drugs.

Fatal attraction: Brownfield’s flexibility doctrine and global drug policy reform

This post was first published here at the Huffington Post

A joint contribution by:

Professor Dave Bewley-Taylor
Director, Global Drug Policy Observatory, Swansea University

Martin Jelsma
Coordinator, Transnational Institute Drugs and Democracy Programme

Damon Barrett
Director, International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy

___________________________________

State-level cannabis reforms, which gathered steam this month, have exposed the inability of the United States to abide by the terms of the legal bedrock of the global drug control system; the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. This is something that should force a much-needed conversation about reform to long-standing international agreements. But while ostensibly ‘welcoming’ the international drug policy reform debate, it is a conversation the US federal government actually wishes to avoid. The result is a new official position on the UN drugs treaties that, despite its seductively progressive tone, serves only to sustain the status quo and may cause damage beyond drug policy.

The 1961 Single Convention has been massively influential. Almost every state in the world is bound to prohibit cultivation, trade and possession of cannabis and a range of other substances such as coca and opium for anything but medical and scientific purposes. Wherever you are, your drugs laws are probably modeled on this agreement.

The United States has been a staunch defender of this legal regime. The treaties are central to its foreign policy on drugs, including in Latin America. But at home the government has been clear that it will not trample on the will of voters with regard to cannabis, even though this places it in breach of the 1961 Convention. So the US faces a predicament; a treaty breach it does not wish to admit within a system it wishes to protect.

The response is the new ‘four pillars’ approach, set out by Ambassador William Brownfield (Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement):

Respect the integrity of the existing UN Drug Control Conventions…

Accept flexible interpretation of those conventions…

Tolerate different national drug policies…accept the fact that some countries will have very strict drug approaches; other countries will legalize entire categories of drugs…

Combat and resist criminal organizations

Brownfield’s statement received some positive responses, welcoming it as a breakthrough in drug policy reform. However, its attractiveness is superficial and there are important reasons to be cautious.

For US foreign policy on drugs the four pillars make sense in the short term. Through these pillars, the US can appear to embrace reform discussions while changing nothing of substance. US approaches to Latin America that have dominated US attentions can carry on as before. The US gets to continue to have presence in places it has no business being other than to fight the drug trade – the fourth pillar of this ‘new’ approach.

In addition, in defending the ‘integrity of the treaties’, the US can go on using those treaties as a disciplinary tool against producer and transit nations in the region. Under the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, when a country does not fulfill the requirements of the international drugs conventions, the President determines that the country has ‘failed demonstrably’ to meet its obligations, which can lead to sanctions.

Bolivia received such a determination again only a few weeks ago. While explaining the rationale for a more ‘flexible interpretation’ Brownfield said, ‘Things have changed since 1961‘. However, the Presidential Determination on Bolivia stressed that the ‘frameworks established by the U.N. conventions are as applicable to the contemporary world as when they were negotiated and signed by the vast majority of U.N. member states‘.

The determination further expressed the US government’s concern that Bolivia tries ‘to limit, redefine, and circumvent the scope and control‘ for coca under the 1961 Convention, even though that is precisely what the US is doing in the case of cannabis.

The US also objected to Bolivia’s efforts to have traditional uses of coca removed from international control because it challenged the ‘integrity of the treaties’ – the very first pillar above. So which countries’ reforms or interpretations will be deemed tolerable, and which will threaten the integrity of the treaties? Crucially, who decides?

It is clear that a legally regulated market in cannabis is not permissible under the 1961 Single Convention. To deal with this the US, in the second pillar above, has signalled its acceptance of unilateral interpretation of multilateral agreements beyond what those agreements allow for. That is a very serious call beyond cannabis and beyond drug policies. The attempt under the Bush administration to argue that waterboardingwas not a breach of the UN Convention Against Torture and that detainees in the war on terror were not covered by the Geneva Conventions should caution against allowing this kind of unilateral approach.

In reality, beyond the progressive sounding words, the path the Brownfield doctrine set out leads to further US exceptionalism and the ongoing use of the treaties as it sees fit.

But that exceptionalism cuts both ways, and the US has also vital interests, including national security, in holding states to international and bilateral treaty obligations. A recent example demonstrates the risks of failing to take this into account. In July, the US issued a determination that Russia was in violation of obligations of the Inter-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), a bilateral agreement banning the testing of ballistic missiles of a certain range. But if a ‘flexible’, a-la-carte approach is to be permissible under the drug control regime when it suits the US, why should that not apply here?

Why not other important international agreements that matter to so many such asenvironmental protocols setting specific targets, or human rights law and its vital protections? Following the second pillar to the extent the US suggests is a very slippery slope.

The shift to regulated cannabis markets in the US should open the space for a much-needed discussion of treaty reform. The problem at hand is not the treaty breach by the US; the problem is the drug control treaty system itself. Preparations have started for a UN summit on drugs in 2016, the first in almost twenty years, and where a conversation about treaty reform should begin. The Brownfield doctrine is part of US efforts to keep it off the agenda.

For governments, in an effort to avoid political controversy, the four pillars may seem attractive. For those who support drug policy reform they may seem progressive. But this is no win for drug policy reform or progress towards policies grounded in evidence and human rights. To allow the US, for its own ends, to lead us into a politically calculated theatre of adherence simply serves to sustain a regime that is no longer fit for purpose. It is also harmful for the integrity of international law more broadly, from human rights, to security to the environment. The price of allowing the US to avoid its breach of the 1961 Convention, in other words, is too high. And the war on drugs has already cost too much.

Country Snapshot: Drugs in Zimbabwe

Africa is witnessing an upsurge in illicit drug trafficking as well as an increase in illicit drug use and the problems associated therewith. Whilst data in the region is sketchy, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) World Drug Report of 2013 estimates that there are 28 million drug users in Africa. They note that cannabis is the most commonly used drug on the continent with a prevalence rate of 7.5% which is nearly twice the global average. According to the UNODC, whilst the use of amphetamine type stimulants (ATS), cocaine and opiates are comparable with the global averages (0.9%, 0.4%, 0.3% respectively) there are concerns that opioid use is increasing significantly. The UNODC estimates that almost 37,000 people in Africa die annually from diseases associated with the consumption of drugs. However they recognise that data for Africa is weak because data collection on drug consumption in Africa is incomplete. Gilberto Gerra the chief of drug prevention and health branch at the UNODC says Africa’s rising illegal drug consumption can be attributed to political instability as well as porous borders.

Zimbabwe is also witnessing an increase in problematic drug use among its domestic population along with the related public health issues that accompany certain types drug use. The substances that are most commonly used in Zimbabwe include alcohol, cannabis, heroin, glue and cough mixtures such as histalix and bron clear. Cannabis (mbanje) remains the most popular illicit drug mainly because it is grown locally or smuggled in from neighbouring countries like Malawi and Mozambique. In some societies along the Zambezi, mbanje is grown and consumed in large quantities as a way of life and therefore the drug finds their way into other parts of the country.

Drugs also come through Zimbabwe on their way to other countries in the region such as South Africa. Local Zimbabweans are often used to transport these drugs and rather than being paid in cash, they are usually paid in drugs which then enter the local market. “When you become a transit country, you are immediately also a consumption country,” Gilberto Gerro of the UNODC concluded.

Young people in Zimbabwe have been identified as the most vulnerable section of the population, especially those from poor or unstable backgrounds who may be tempted to see drugs as an escape from life’s troubles. According to Rudatsikiri et al’s 2009 study of cannabis and glue use amongst school pupils (largely aged between 13 and 15) in Harare, it was found that overall 9.1% of pupils had used the drugs (13.4% of males and 4.9% of females). Poly-drug user is also a problem amongst vulnerable groups, for example the use of cannabis and glue is commonly associated with cigarette smoking and alcohol use. Use of these substances is also associated with sexual activity as well as a lack of parental supervision. In order to make drug intervention programmes more relevant to the local situation, they should be designed to target risk factors within these domains. However, reducing discrimination and violence, and trying to facilitate positive parent-child relationships through social policy may also be worthy targets of intervention which could result in a decrease in adolescent drug misuse. The study also concluded that illicit drug use among adolescents is associated with poor academic performance, violence and unsafe sexual behaviour as well as increased risks of STIs including HIV/AIDS. Unsafe sexual practices are a real problem in Zimbabwe where, according to UNAIDS, almost 15% of the population is HIV positive and access to anti-retrovirals (ARVs) is limited by price inflation and corruption.

According to research carried out by the Health Professionals Empowerment Trust in Zimbabwe 50% of admissions to mental institutions have been attributed to substance misuse. The research went on to single out youths as the most affected group of individuals in the country. In Zimbabwe over 80% of people admitted to mental institutions due to substance misuse disorders are aged between 16 and 40, and most of these are male.

Zimbabwean drug laws do not adequately address issues surrounding drug use/misuse – particularly prevention and treatment. The Dangerous Drugs Act (Chapter 15) in conjunction with the Criminal and Codification Act has not kept up-to-date with current thinking on how to tackle drug-related issues. Furthermore, decent data is lacking. The statistics available often come from small research projects and newspaper articles that do not present a full picture of the nature and extent of the issues at stake.

The possession, use and trade in drugs is harshly punished in Zimbabwe. Possession of illegal drugs like cannabis and heroin as well as the recreational use of prescription drugs such as histalix and pethidine can attract a long jail sentences. Drug trafficking is also treated harshly. For instance, in a recent case, a South African woman who was arrested at Harare airport trying to smuggle 2 kg of cocaine from Colombia to Zimbabwe was sentenced to 15 years in jail. Zimbabwe also has a high level of pre-trial detainees – up to 30% of prisoners – meaning that even before being convicted of a crime they are forced to endure harsh conditions in jail.

Jails in Zimbabwe have a shocking reputation: according to the Zimbabwe Association of Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of the Offender (ZACRO), an average of 20 prisoners were dying daily in 2009 due to malnutrition and a 2011 report by Zimbabwe’s parliamentary committee on human rights noted that the lack of toiletries, ablution facilities and the unavailability of water for a long time at some prisons were disturbing and that prisoners’ diets needed improvement. Furthermore, a 2012 report on human rights by the US Embassy in Harare, also noted that prisoners were being denied access to ARVs and not being tested for HIV/AIDS. However it’s not just those that are sent to jail that suffer. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) there is no provision for opioid maintenance treatments such as buprenorphine or methadone and there are no needle exchanges in the country.

In 2011 a new organisation – The Zimbabwe Civil Liberties and Drug Network (ZCLDN) – was set up to advocate for effective strategies for addressing problems associated with drug misuse in the country. It is working to advocate for evidence-based drug policies that are embedded in public health, human rights and scientific research. In order to do this, the day-to-day activities of the ZCLDN include:

To research, document and disseminate information on drugs and related issues in Zimbabwe.
To engage and contribute to the identification of issues in Zimbabwe relating to dangerous drugs and unlawful drugs.
To engage and contribute to programmes to inform and educate persons on drug issues in Zimbabwe.
To address issues of governance that negatively impact on the adoption and implementation of science-based drug policies.
To train and advise on appropriate systems that seek to improve the management of drug-related issues.
To work with other people and organisations in joint consultations and action in matters of common interest.
To participate in regional and sub-regional initiatives for the furtherance of the appropriate responses to drug issues and adoption of good democratic governance systems and structures.
To ensure that humanitarian and human rights laws that protect the rights of those adversely affected by drugs are enforced.
To lobby for inclusion of appropriate drug policies in the decision making structures’ in public affairs.

This blog was co-written by Wilson Box, Program Executive Director & Board Secretary of ZCLDN.

Time for UN to open up dialogue on drug policy reform and end counter-productive blame-game

As the UN International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) launched its annual report on Tuesday, 4 March, amidst an unprecedented crisis in the international drug control regime, leading drug policy reform experts have called on the INCB and related UN institutions to urgently open up a constructive dialogue on international drug policy reform.

Approval of legally regulated cannabis markets in the states of Colorado and Washington and in Uruguay have caused breaches in the UN drug control regime and shakes the foundations of the prohibitionist “Vienna consensus” that has dominated international drug policy for several decades.

Yet rather than seek to learn from or understand the growing political support for alternative drug policies, the UN drug apparatus – and particularly the INCB – has responded mainly with shortsighted hostility and narrow-minded rejectionism. It has refused to countenance any reforms, treating the set of conventions like a perfect immutable constitution rather than a negotiated settlement that needs reforming and modernising as science advances or political and social conditions change. This came to a head recently, when Raymond Yans, President of the INCB denounced Uruguay’s “pirate attitude” for its cannabis regulation laws, causing a diplomatic uproar and raising questions about his position.

A forthcoming report by the Transnational Institute and the Global Drug Policy Observatory to be released in the advance of high-level UN drug policy meetings in Vienna in mid March 2014, tells the hidden story of how the inclusion of cannabis in the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs as a psychoactive drug with “particularly dangerous properties” was the result of dubious political compromises, questionable decision-making procedures and with little scientific backing.

Growing numbers of countries such as the Netherlands and Spain, but also states in the U.S. and India have shown discomfort with the UN drug control treaty regime through soft defections, stretching the inbuilt legal flexibility to sometimes questionable limits. The regulated cannabis markets in Uruguay, Washington and Colorado however are clear breaches with the treaty, and mean that a discussion on the need for fundamental reform of the UN drug control system can no longer be avoided.

Martin Jelsma of the Transnational Institute said,

“We are at a tipping point now as increasing numbers of nations realise that cannabis prohibition has failed to reduce its use, filled prisons with young people, increased violence and fuelled the rise of organised crime. As nations like Uruguay pioneer new approaches, we need the UN to open up an honest dialogue on the strengths and weaknesses of the treaty system rather than close their eyes and indulge in blame games. The moral high-ground that Yans claims in name of the Board to condemn such “misguided” policies, are completely out of place and unacceptable.”

Dave Bewley-Taylor of the Global Drug Policy Observatory said,

“For many years, countries have stretched the UN drug control conventions to their legal limits, particularly around the use of cannabis. Now that the cracks have reached the point of treaty breach, we need a serious discussion about how to reform international drug conventions to better protect people’s health, safety and human rights. Reform won’t be easy, but the question facing the international community today is no longer whether there is a need to reassess and modernise the UN drug control system, but rather when and how.”