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  • Canada’s New Marijuana Medical Access Program

    Canada’s New Marijuana Medical Access Program

    On June 10, 2013 the Minister of Health released the new regulations that will govern access to cannabis for medical purposes in Canada. The regulations are the result of consultations over the past two years and introduce significant changes to the program. The regulations eliminate previous requirements that patients submit an application to Health Canada requesting authorization to possess cannabis. Instead they must seek a document from their physicians that they would then present to a licensed producer. Though this move could potentially streamline access to cannabis for medical purposes, the Canadian Medical Association has released a report that suggests that many physicians believe they do not know enough about the benefits and risks of cannabis to “prescribe” it to their patients for medical purposes. The irony of this situation is that the prohibition of cannabis has limited the amount of research into its medical benefits (though research is increasing).

    In addition, the new rules eliminate personal and designated production by individuals in their homes by March 31, 2014. This means that current options to access cannabis for medical purposes will be replaced by regulated and commercial Licensed Producers and medical cannabis dispensaries remain excluded from the supply chain by these new regulations. Many patients produce their own cannabis in order to access strains that they have found to be helpful. Maintaining one’s own garden is also cost-effective. Even the government’s own regulatory impact statement notes that the cost of medical cannabis will go up with the new rules. These cost increases could potentially act as further barriers to accessing cannabis for medical purposes.

    The exclusion of medical cannabis dispensaries from the supply chain is counterintuitive. The personnel working in these dispensaries are experts on using cannabis to treat a variety of medical conditions. Dispensaries also offer a range of patient-centred services and supports that help challenge the isolation many patients experience. And Canadian medical cannabis dispensaries have developed a rigorous accreditation program to ensure consistency in both the quality of their services and the products dispensed at these sites. Without dispensaries, patients will have to submit their doctor’s authorization to a licensed commercial producer and then receive their medication by courier, without the supports accorded by face-to-face consultations.

    The odd thing about the new rules is that they introduce a fully commercialized route of access to cannabis for medical purposes while keeping the overall prohibition of this drug fully in place. Indeed some of the provisions for producers of cannabis for medical purposes may serve as a model for production of cannabis for a legal, regulated market. At the same time, the requirements for licensed producers are quite strict and could make it very difficult for small growers to transition to this new regime. It is also unclear how many licensed producers will be approved by Health Canada. This later point is key for patients who want to able to access a range of strains of cannabis.

    All in all, these new rules will likely result in new barriers to accessing cannabis for medical purposes and will end up costing patients more money over the long-term.

    – Connie Carter & Lynne Belle-Isle

  • CDPC Report on Drug Policy Highlights the Failures of Criminalization

    CDPC Report on Drug Policy Highlights the Failures of Criminalization

    On Thursday, May 23, CDPC released the first- ever comprehensive report by a civil society organization on the failures of Canada’s approach to drug policy. The report calls for the replacement of the current national anti-drug strategy with one focused on health and human rights; the decriminalization of all drugs for personal use; the creation of a regulatory system for adult cannabis use, increased efforts to eliminate stigma and discrimination against people who use drugs, the scale up of comprehensive health and social services, including housing and treatment services that engage people with drug problems; more robust educational programs about safer drug use, programs for distributing new supplies for injection and crack cocaine use, safer consumption services, opioid substitution therapies and heroin-assisted treatment and the collection and monitoring of data on drug use and its effects in Canada.

    All of these measures are designed to reduce harm from substance use in Canada and assist people who develop problems with drugs to get the help they need.

    Canadian media responded quickly to our recommendation to decriminalize personal possession of drugs with questions about how this approach would increase the safety and health of Canadians, especially when it comes to so-called “hard” drugs like heroin and cocaine. Canada’s Conservative government also reacted swiftly to media coverage of our report and publicly dismissed our proposal to decriminalize the personal use of all other drugs, while failing to adequately justify their current approach, which has shifted focus from a public health approach to drugs back to one that relies heavily on the criminal justice system.

    Our recommendations were shaped by the stories Canadians told us as we prepared this report. The CDPC talked to people across the country – service providers, family members, and people who use drugs. Story after story, along with research evidence, confirmed that the harms of drug use are exacerbated by Canada’s current drug policies. Canada still puts the majority of its resources behind conventional approaches to drug control like policing, courts, and prisons – approaches that have failed to meet their objectives – public health and public safety. In fact, Canada’s national drug policy increases the harms of substance use by driving it into the shadows and away from life-saving services. And like the United States, Canada’s drug laws disproportionally target already marginalized groups.

    Our report rues that fact that Canada used to be a leader when it came to progressive drug policy. Before the current federal government took power, harm reduction was a key pillar of the federal drug strategy, and the federal government supported innovative approaches like supervised injection sites, heroin assisted treatment and the expansion of needle exchange programs as well as focusing on prevention through social development rather than “Just Say No to Drugs” style of programs that have been shown not to work. Since 2007, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s approach is best represented by the National Anti-Drug Strategy; a yet to be proven effort that reasserts the use of criminal law to suppress the trade and use of illegal substances.

    Our report documents how this approach, encapsulated by last year’s enactment of minimum sentencing provisions for some drug crimes, neither supports health or public safety but will lead to increasingly overcrowded and costly prisons. But the most stunning display of unimaginative thinking when it comes to solving current drug problems is the refusal by our government to even talk about the failures of the overarching policy framework and the criminalization of drugs and prohibition – policies that not only create much of the drug crime in Canada, but also constrain our ability to address many drug-related health harms. In fact, the Canadian government was one of the few that voted against the 2012 motion at the UN put forward by the President of Mexico to have a United Nations General Assembly Special Sesssion on global drug policy in 2016.

    Even where provincial level policies attempt to make “every door the right door” people still fall between the cracks, or wait intolerably long for drug treatment services because private treatment is prohibitively expensive and the publicly funded workforce whose role it is to provide these services is small.

    In many places in Canada, the harms associated with drug use continue unabated because we can’t commit fully to services like needle exchanges and supervised injection sites that help reduce these harms. The federal government remains openly hostile to evidence-based measures like key harm reduction services. As a result, rates of HIV and HCV associated with drug use remain unacceptably high, particularly among some groups of Canadians. In 2010, 30.4% of new infections in women versus 13.5 % of new cases in men were attributed to injection drug use. Cases of HIV attributed to injecting drug use among First Nations, Métis and Inuit persons have gone up to more than 50% in the period spanning 2001 to 2008. This is a tragedy and a national disgrace that can be prevented.

    Canada must modernize its approach to drugs. Globally, the current system of drug control is under considerable pressure to change and some jurisdictions have begun to chart their own paths when it comes to drug control, including experimenting with decriminalization and legal regulation of cannabis while over 70 countries embrace harm reduction in their drug strategy policy frameworks. The CDPC’s report recommends that it’s time to follow suit and modernise Canada’s legislative, policy and regulatory frameworks that address psychoactive substances.

  • New Supervised Injection Rules: Does the Government Really Care about Communities?

    New Supervised Injection Rules: Does the Government Really Care about Communities?

    On June 6, 2013, the Conservative government tabled amendments to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act that creates 20 additional conditions required for applications for supervised consumption services. Entitled the “Respect for Communities Act”, these amendments essentially give police, public safety officials, and municipalities a veto over health services. The tabling of these amendments is clearly an attempt to head off applications expected within the year from a number of Canadian cities. Media coverage was swift and mixed. But the both the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Nurses Association quickly condemned the legislation and chastised the government for letting fear trump sound scientific evidence. Immediately following the release the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition and PIVOT Legal Society issued a media release challenging these amendments.

    The new requirements will not only be costly and time consuming but they will likely prevent the expansion of these much-needed services. The intention of the legislation seems to be to give a broad range of community members an opportunity to comment on any proposal to create a service. There’s a sense of grievance in the government’s press releases that somehow communities have been excluded from playing a role in deciding the fate of these services. It seems ironic given the heavy-handed approach used by the Harper government, that suddenly they care about what communities think. What’s more likely is that they care about what the opponents of these services think. Of course communities should play a part in these discussions. But we can’t let one group of people, guided by fear and ignorance, prevent the implementation of life-saving and cost-effective services.

    No sooner had the legislation been tabled than an email blast from the Conservative Party to its members whipped up fears about supervised consumption services. Entitled “Keep heroin out of our backyards”, the CP missive uses language like “do you want a supervised drug consumption site in your community”. Clearly this is an attempt to stir up opposition to these life-saving services and to the people who use these services. Do they not realize that the “addicts” they fear so much are potentially their family and friends? We need to stop treating substance use as an “us” and “them” issue. At some point in our lives, many of us have been, or will be, touched by drugs and alcohol.

    In the last 20 years, supervised injection services (SIS) have been integrated into drug treatment and harm reduction programs in Western Europe, Australia and Canada. These services grew out of the recognition that low-threshold, easily accessible programs to reduce the incidence of blood-borne pathogens were effective and cost efficient. Since 2003, the city of Vancouver has been the location of a rigorously evaluated and highly successful stand-alone supervised injection site (SIS). More than 30 peer-reviewed studies describing the impacts of Insite indicate that it has several beneficial outcomes. The service is used by the people it was intended to serve, which includes over 10,000 clients. It is being used by people who would otherwise inject drugs in public spaces. Insite has reduced the sharing of needles and provided education on safer injecting practices. Insite has promoted entry into treatment for drug dependence and has improved public order. It has also been found to reduce overdose deaths and provide safety for women who inject drugs.

  • Will Hemispheric Leaders Change Course on Drug Policy?

    Will Hemispheric Leaders Change Course on Drug Policy?

    This winter the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition was invited to participate alongside 45 other representatives of government, business and civil society organizations in a process to create different scenarios for what could happen in the hemisphere related to drugs and drug policies over the next 15 years.

    The commitment to undertake such a forward thinking exercise was made by leaders at the 6th Summit of the Americas held in Cartagena, Colombia in 2012, where they agreed to review current approaches to illegal drugs and to consider alternative futures for drug policy in the region. Through a process of transformative scenario planning, a diverse array of participants came together to create different scenarios that each tell a story of what could happen in the next 15 years – not what should happen or what we want to happen – but what could happen in the area of drugs and drug policy. The OAS has also prepared an analytical report that looks at the situation on the ground.

    The agreement to undertake this process stemmed from the urgency Latin American leaders expressed this past year in response to the increasing levels of violence in the region. For several years the voices of former and sitting political leaders in Latin America have been becoming more insistent that drug policies must be reviewed because of the death and destruction being witnessed related to the ongoing war on drugs. Even Canada’s cautious and conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that “It is clear that what we are doing is not working” at the closing press conference of the Summit. He is not alone.

    Sitting leaders in Colombia, Uruguay, Guatemala and the former leaders of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia have all called for dialogue on alternative approaches including considering the legal regulation of drugs, decriminalization, and shifting illegal crops such as poppies and coca to legal cultivation regimes for medical and industrial uses. Is change really in the wind or is this a policy window that will slam shut with a few changes of leadership? Dialogue is an ongoing process and the commitment by the OAS to undertake scenario building is a great start. But where will it lead?

    On May 15th, the OAS will release its analytical report and a set of four scenarios developed through the scenario planning process. This release is another marker on the path towards drug policy reform in the hemisphere and the scenarios presented will provide an opportunity for dialogue and public engagement on the future of drug policy in the region. The release of a the scenarios is the next event in a string of opportunities that are coming up over the next 3 years that may help to turn the tide on the war on drugs.

    In early June, a Summit of Foreign Ministers will be held to discuss and craft a declaration to strengthen and update drug policies in the region including considering some alternative approaches. In 2014, the United Nations will complete a mid-term high-level review of the Plan of Action that came out of the 2009 Commission on Narcotic Drugs. In 2015, the next Summit of the Americas will take place in Panama, which will provide a serious opportunity for leaders to consider new directions in drug policy. And in 2016, the United Nations General Assembly will hold a special session on Drug Policy in New York. The road ahead provides a number of critical opportunities for politicians to show leadership and support efforts to learn from new ideas and approaches. Let’s see if they can rally the support and courage to do so.

    To keep up to date with CDPC’s activities abroad, sign up to our mailing list. And if you would like to support our efforts to end the war on drugs, please consider making a donation.

  • Safer Consumption Services – Plans are Underway for More Than Two

    Safer Consumption Services – Plans are Underway for More Than Two

    Several cities in Canada are planning for the implementation of safer consumption services in their communities.

    That was the conclusion of the speakers at a lively event on the feasibility of scaling up supervised consumption services in Canada held at the recent Canadian Association of HIV Care (CAHR) conference in Vancouver. Sponsored by the Dr. Peter Centre, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, this half-day workshop brought together speakers from Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver to discuss their plans for the scale-up of these services across the country.

    The most famous of these services is Insite, located in Vancouver, BC. The vast amount of evidence from the reviews conducted on Insite suggest that this unique service has several beneficial outcomes: it is used by the people it was intended to serve, which includes over 10,000 clients. And it’s being used by people who might ordinary inject drugs in public. This service has also reduced risk behaviours by reducing the sharing of needles and providing education on safer injecting practices. Insite has promoted entry into treatment for drug dependency and has improved public order. It has also been found to reduce overdose deaths, provide safety for women who inject drugs, and does not lead to increased drug use or increased crime.[i]

    But public opposition and political fears still plague the scale up of these services. Despite well-documented benefits, opponents still claim that these services “promote” illegal drug use. These claims are based on the false assumption that failing to provide health care services to people who use drugs will dissuade drug use itself. All this does is drive people away from health care and into less safe injecting practices that can result in injury, infection and death. These opponents fail to appreciate that these services promote engagement in health care for hard-to-reach populations, and protect the dignity of people who use drugs by prioritizing their health care concerns.

    Formal opposition coming from the federal government has stalled the implementation of these beneficial services even in BC. In 2007, the federal government refused to grant a continuation of the legal exemption to Insite (Section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA)). Proponents of the site, including the PHS Community Services Society, VANDU, and Vancouver Coastal Health, challenged this refusal all the way to Canada’s Supreme Court. In 2011, that Court ruled in favour of the exemption noting the rights of people to access this health service, and ordered the federal Minister of Health to grant a continuation of the exemption. Future sites will be required to make an application for a section 56 exemption to avoid criminal charge for violations of the CDSA.

    It looks like the process of making an application for a Section 56 exemption will be onerous. Because of these challenges, some speakers at the CAHR conference urged the audience to consider other options like less expensive unsanctioned sites that use peer-run models of care.

    The need is clear – the will is there – the results are in.  Let’s urge the federal government to make access to these services as easy as possible so we can save lives, prevent illness and protect the dignity of people who use drugs.

    If you would like to help us advance the implementation of safer consumption services in Canada, please consider making a donation to the CDPC. And if you would like to keep up to date with our campaigns, sign up to our mailing list.

     

  • Aboriginal people in Canada will bear the brunt of Mandatory Minimum Sentences for Drug Crimes

    Aboriginal people in Canada will bear the brunt of Mandatory Minimum Sentences for Drug Crimes

    In early April, the BC Provincial Health Officer released a report that warns that recent changes to sentencing and other justice practices brought about by the enactment of the Safe Streets and Communities Act (SSCA) will have very negative effects on the health of Aboriginal people – changes brought about by the SSCA like mandatory minimum sentences will put more Aboriginal people in prison.

    This report also notes that the SSCA appears to conflict with other federal programs aimed at reducing prison time, specifically section 718.2(e) of the Criminal Code, which requires sentencing judges to consider all options other than incarceration.[i]

    The imposition of mandatory minimum sentences flies in the face of evidence of their ineffectiveness. Convicting people of drug-related offences does not reduce the problems associated with drug use, nor do these sentences deter crime.[ii]

    The overrepresentation of Aboriginal Canadians in this country’s prison system is a national disgrace, made all the more disturbing by its avoidability. In 2011, approximately 4% of the Canadian population was Aboriginal, while 21.5% of the federal incarcerated population were Aboriginal. Since 2006-07, there has been a 43% increase in Aboriginal inmate population, and one in three federally sentenced women are Aborignal. In the Prairies, Aboriginal people comprise more than 55% of the total prison population at Saskatchewan Penitentiary and 60% at Stony Mountain Penitentiary in Manitoba. Provincial rates are even worse; 81% of people in provincial custody in Saskatchewan were Aboriginal in 2005.[iii]

    As the BC Provincial Health Officer’s report argues, the reasons for the overrepresentation of Aboriginal people in Canada’s prisons are multifaceted but are rooted in historical causes like colonialism, loss of culture, and economic and social marginalization by white Canadians.

    These concerns were echoed in an October 2012 report by the Correctional Investigator of Canada entitled, Spirit Matters: Aboriginal People and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (CCRA, 1992).[iv] This report speaks to the lack of resolve on the part of the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) to meet the commitments set out in the CCRA. The CCRA contains Aboriginal-specific provisions to enhance Aboriginal community involvement in corrections and address chronic over-representation of Aboriginal people in federal corrections. Included among these requirements were the establishment of Healing Lodges that emphasize Aboriginal beliefs and traditions and a focus on preparation for release.[v]

    The report found that in BC, Ontario, Atlantic Canada and the North there were no Healing Lodge spaces for Aboriginal Women. In addition, because Healing Lodges limit intake to minimum-security offenders, 90% of Aboriginal offenders were excluded from being considered for a transfer to a Healing Lodge. The report concludes with a critique of the lack of action by the Correctional Service of Canada: “Consistent with expressions of Aboriginal self–determination, Sections 81 and 84 capture the promise to redefine the relationship between Aboriginal people and the federal government. Control over more aspects of release planning for Aboriginal offenders and greater access to more culturally-appropriate services and programming were original hopes when the CCRA was proclaimed in November 1992.”[vi]

    The implications of Conservative government changes to sentencing practices are clear: rising rates of incarceration of Aboriginal people, higher rates of substance use problems combined with a lack of commitment to alternative healing paths means more federally and provincially sentenced Aboriginal people will end up in Canada’s prisons where they will not receive the services they need.

  • Cannabis Prohibition is Falling Apart

    Cannabis Prohibition is Falling Apart

    During the March meetings of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, discussion of drug policy reform occurred mainly in side events organized by NGO’s. The International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) organized a series of lunch-time discussions on themes like cannabis policy reform, the Latin American agenda for drug policy reform, and models of decriminalization. In each of these sessions the current state of cannabis control was a key issue given that several countries and other jurisdictions have or are considering lessening controls on this drug.

    As speakers at the session on cannabis policy reform pointed out, the history of the inclusion of cannabis in the international drug control treaties had little to do with facts or evidence. In Canada for example, cannabis was prohibited in 1923 with little public debate and even less actual use of this substance. Its prohibition may have been related to a number of factors including emerging international drug control agreements as well as a series of racist articles in Canada’s national magazine, Maclean’s, written by Emily Murphy from 1920-22 and published in her book, The Black Candle, in 1922. [1] Murphy depicted cannabis use as the domain of Black men and insisted that this drug undermined the morality of otherwise good white women. In fact, at that time very few people used cannabis in Canada and most members of Canada’s Parliament did not even know what it was. [2]

    But the misanthropic roots of Canada’s efforts to control cannabis also stemmed from geopolitical politics of the late 19th and early 20th century. As the Canadian Senate argued in 2002:

    “The international regime for the control of psychoactive substances, beyond any moral or even racist roots may have initially had, in first and foremost a system that reflects the geopolitics of North-South relations in the 20th century. Indeed, the strictest controls were placed on organic substances – the coca bush, the poppy and cannabis plant – which are often part of the ancestral traditions of the countries where these plants originate, whereas the North’s cultural products, tobacco and alcohol, were ignored and the synthetic substances produced by the North’s pharmaceutical industry were subject to regulation rather than prohibition.” [3]

    By 1961, a patchwork of international treaties existed to control drugs (I.e. cocaine, heroin).  In 1961, the CND consolidated these treaties into the aptly named Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. Cannabis was included in both Schedule IV and Schedule I of the Convention marking this plant one of the most dangerous substances. [4] This new Convention obliged signatories to create a system of penalties for possession, trafficking and cultivation of this plant. But by 1961, cannabis had been prohibited in Canada for almost 40 years. It remains today a prohibited substance. In fact, the most recent amendments to Canada’s drug law, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, provide mandatory minimum prison sentences for cultivating as little as six plants. [5]

    But as the IDPC session at the CND illustrated, the international consensus on the prohibition of cannabis is quickly breaking down. Legislators in Uruguay are seriously considered the implementation of a legally regulated and state controlled regime for cannabis; the US states of Washington and Colorado have voted to create regulated markets for cannabis for adults and proposed legislation to do the same has been introduced in eight other state legislatures. These events follow on a long history of decriminalization of cannabis including the Dutch coffee shop model, the decriminalization of cannabis in several Australian states, and the initiation of discussions about cannabis decriminalization in several Latin American countries. In fact, the pace of recent developments that lend support to new models for regulating cannabis has been so rapid that it’s hard to keep up.

    BC sits on the border of the one the U.S. states currently creating a regulated market for this drug. It begs the obvious question…what is Canada going to do in the face of these changes? Drug law in this country is a federal matter and thus changes must occur at that level. That hasn’t stopped Sensible BC from initiating a campaign to get British Columbians to vote for a ballot initiative that would see changes to BC’s Policing Act. These changes would redirect policing resources in BC away from enforcing laws against simple possession of cannabis by adults – a form of defacto decriminalization.

    The public health footprint of cannabis is small compared to other substances like alcohol. And there are likely significant tax revenues to be gained from a regulated model. One of the other advantages that seldom gets a mention is the fact that a regulated model can borrow some of the techniques used to regulate tobacco and alcohol including age controls, plain packaging, limits on who can sell, when they can sell, licensing for cultivation, specifications for potency and purity, among others. Right now, cannabis supply is controlled by an underground market with none of the provisions I noted above. What make more sense? Continue along the same failed road, or create a regulated market which could potentially balance the need for consumer choice with public health goals?

    I think the choice is clear.

    To support the CDPC’s cannabis reform activities,  please consider making a donation.

  • Reading between the lines at the 56th Commission on Narcotic Drugs

    Reading between the lines at the 56th Commission on Narcotic Drugs

    I fully expected the 51st Commission on Narcotic Drugs to be as depressing as others that I have attended in recent years. With so many organizations in the world working to change drug policies and refocus attention on the harms that arise from global drug polices on individuals, families, communities and countries, attending the CND is often a reality check on the slow, sometimes microscopic pace of change in this international forum on drug policies.

    As the meeting commenced it became clear that there was something different in the air this year. For one the usual buzz around the presence of the US Drug Czar was strangely missing from the proceedings – his travel budget a victim of sequestration cuts, Gil Kerlikowski stayed home this year. Not a bad one to miss given the torturous task his staff might have had writing speaking notes to explain the recent situation in Colorado and Washington where voters passed resolutions to bring into existence a legal regulatory regime for adult non-medical use of cannabis.

    Evo Morales, President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, in his opening address to the Commission thanked the delegates for allowing Bolivia to re-join the conventions with a reservation that addressed Bolivia’s constitution, which upholds the use of coca leaf as a part of Bolivia’s cultural heritage. President Morales went on to ask whether there was tension in the room and he wondered if it was related to the knowledge that “the fight against drugs has failed globally?” He went on to chastise the US for trying to force Bolivia to curb its coca farming with threats and by tying eradication of coca to the building of schools in the 1980s. Morales’ words were strong in that he pointedly noted that efforts to control drug trafficking are intertwined with other geopolitical goals of “mastery” and “dominance”. Such bold statements are rare in the public forum at CND.

    UNODC Director, Yuri Fedetov’s opening remarks were an interesting mix of the old and the new. While asserting that progress is being made on the global drug problem Fedetov acknowledged that international drug control policy cannot remain isolated from needed improvements in HIV services nor can it ignore discrimination and the lack of evidence-based services for people who use drugs. During the civil society session with the Director, Fedetov was animated and seemed to welcome the openness of the debate at this session where a number of questions focusing on drug policy reform surfaced.

    Another fresh breath of air in this years event was New Zealand’s Minister of Revenue, Peter Dunne who addressed the Commission and explained the new and innovative legislation that will be coming before the New Zealand parliament in the fall that will address the many new psychoactive substances that are appearing almost daily that are unscheduled within the treaties. Under the proposed legislation, the Psychoactive Substances Bill, all of these new substances will be banned unless a manufacturer can prove that they pose no more than a low risk of harm. Rather than ban all new substances immediately the New Zealand government plan to put the onus on the industry to ensure the safety of their products and if they pass muster they will be placed in a regulatory schedule that will allow retail sales of the products under certain conditions.  When asked how this scheme was received by other delegations Minister Dunn said there was a great deal of interest in the proposed legislation and countries are watching closely to see the outcomes.

    The Organization of American States review of drug policy in the western hemisphere that was mandated by the last Summit of the Americas in April 2012 was also a topic of interest as expectations begin to mount now that the review is coming to conclusion in the next couple of months.

    All in all this years CND had some interesting moments if you read the tea leaves and listened to the buzz in the corridors. My take is that there is an implicit if not explicit recognition that the drug policy landscape is indeed changing, new approaches are being considered, and countries are beginning to demand a wider debate on policy. For the CND to remain relevant, these debates should be welcomed as an important opportunity at future meetings of the Commission.

  • Civil Society is Key to Global Drug Policy Reform

    Civil Society is Key to Global Drug Policy Reform

    The CDPC is continuing its coverage of the week-long meetings of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna this week. 

    The current UN drug control system is based on three international drug control treaties: the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Drugs and the 1988 Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. This drug control systems requires member states to take measures to prevent the non-medical use of a wide range of drugs through restrictions on production and supply, and by suppressing demand.

    Canada is a party to these treaties and subject to scrutiny by the International Narcotic Control Board. Historically, these drug control treaties and organizations were created by governments and stacked with law enforcement professionals with very little influence or participation by civil society groups.

    The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) operates as the secretariat for the UN and advises governments on effective law enforcement, treatment systems, methods of estimating drug use and publishes the annual World Drug Report. The UNODC is front and centre this week because of its responsibilities for the organization of the Commission’s meetings

    On Wednesday, the head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Yury Fedetov, met informally with NGO’s. Fedetov was faced with drug policy reform groups like the Transnational Institute in Holland, Transform Drug Policy Foundation, the International Drug Policy Consortium, and Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.  I almost felt sorry for the guy and then I remembered that he still holds many of the cards when it comes world drug control. Fedetov faced many questions about the involvement of civil society in the deliberations of the Commission. Clearly there is a push for these groups to be involved in a more meaningful way – and there are examples at the UN where civil society groups play a much larger role, such as UNAIDS.

    This week the CND Committee of the Whole is discussing a resolution entitled “Preparations for the high-level review of the implementation by Member States of the Political Declaration and Plan of Action on International Cooperation towards an Integrated and Balanced Strategy to Counter the World Drug Problem.” Yes, apparently the titles given to CND resolutions can be … long. Let’s just say the resolution has something to do with an upcoming review of the Commission’s activities.

    This resolution also refers to the 2016 UN Special Session (UNGASS) on the “World Drug Problem”. This session is the first opportunity for a global discussion on drug policy since 1998. The last paragraph of the resolution would make the CND the primary preparatory body for UNGASS 2106. Some civil society groups are here in Vienna pressing delegations to open the preparatory process so that it will include civil society and other UN organizations with a stake in drug policy.

    This is key to global drug policy reform. We want as fulsome and open a debate in 2016 as we can muster to ensure the numerous experiments in reform taking place around the globe can be openly considered.