This year the International Conference on the Reduction of Drug Related Harms is taking place in Barcelona, May 11-15, supported by the Department of Health of Catalonia.

On the first day there were satellite events on various issues, including harm reduction in prisons, gender sensitive services, suboxone, alcohol and harm reduction, HIV prevention in Asia and drug users’ activism (our report from the INPUD congress is coming soon).

Paul Hunt, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health made an excellent keynote speech addressing the multiple violations of the human rights of people who use drugs. For example ambulances refuse to treat overdosed people, investigators force suspects into unmedicated withdrawal to extract confessions, drug users are imprisoned and forced into treatment, governments ban publications on harm reduction, police breaks up peaceful demonstrations against drug laws and so on.

“This widespread, systemic abuse of human rights is especially shocking, because drug users include people who are the most vulnerable, most marginal in society,” said Hunt. “Despite the scale of the abuse, despite the vulnerability, there is no public outrage, no public outcry, no public inquiries, on the contrary: the long litany of abuse scarcely attracts disapproval. Sometimes it even receives some public support.”

According to Mr. Hunt, the promotion and protection of human rights should precede drug control objectives. He encouraged NGOs to use the procedures and possibilites provided by the independent rapporteur system. He alluded to his visit to Sweden, where he found inadequate access to harm reduction services and urged the government to scale up needle exchange and substition treatment (read the report of IHRA and the Swedish Drug User Union).

He called it an “inexcusable situation” that the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) focuses on the three international drug conventions “with scant regard for the international code of human rights that emerges from one of the Article 1 objectives of the United Nation’s charter.” He said the international drug control organizations operate in “paralel universes”, but there are some signs that human rights are slowly infiltrating the drug control system.

Amsterdam - Marijuana is one of the most popular Dutch export products, it was reported on Monday. Speaking on the current affairs television programme Reporter, Dutch police commissioner Max Daniel said "Dutch marijuana ranks second or third after the cucumber and the tomato on the list of best-selling Dutch export products."

The sale of so-called soft drugs - marijuana - is legal in the Netherlands, but growing cannabis, which is used to make marijuana, is prohibited in the Netherlands.

In recent months, the Dutch government has been making an effort to close sites where cannabis is being grown. Last year alone, some 5,500 sites -15 per day - were closed by the police.

Any scientist concerned about the relevance of what they do in the lab to the nitty-gritty of everyday life will have one memory that rivals in vividness John Kennedy’s assassination or the death of Diana. It is the image of John Gummer, then Minister of Agriculture, in May 1990, attempting to force-feed a hamburger to his daughter Cordelia. He was, of course, making a statement about the safety of British beef.

Labour came in with a promise to develop policy on the basis of evidence rather than ministerial whim or political expediency. I was in the audience at the Royal Society on 10 April 2002 when Tony Blair gave his now-famous ’science matters’ speech. The scientific establishment was there in force. The portraits of Newton and Hooke looked down at the throng - more like a children’s Christmas party than a gathering of the white-coated great and good. And we were rewarded with a treat as jolly as any panto. Tony was Aladdin, rubbing his lamp over GM food, nuclear power, embryonic stem cells, nanotechnology and the use of animals in research. His vision was of science at the heart of the future of this country, not just a driver of the economy, but a source of rational decision-making.

But if Tony Blair was Aladdin, Gordon Brown was the Genie. Mr Brown, the paymaster, transformed ideology into action. From the first comprehensive spending review in 1999 to his last Budget in 2007, Gordon Brown has consistently championed science. Now Brown as Prime Minister faces what could be a pivotal test of his personal commitment to evidence-based government - the question of whether the classification of cannabis should be shifted back from C to B.

On April 23, 2008, the European Parliament approved a report by MEP Giusto Catania on the Green Paper on the role of civil society in drugs policy in the European Union. The EP, among other things, called "on the Commission and the Member States to explore ways of cooperating with EU civil-society organisations involved in promoting substances derived from coca leaves for lawful use purely as a means of contributing effectively (by absorbing raw materials) to international action against drugs trafficking, ensuring at the same time the safe use of such substances."

Salvador - Bahia - Brazil 6 days of scientific, cultural and politicians aspects of Cannabis sativa and its use.
Beyond the "Walked for the respect to the Human Citizenship, Diversity and Rights in the elaboration of Public Politics and Laws on Drugs", the Salvador/BA edition of Marijuana March (Marcha da Maconha) will also count on 2ª edition of the Seminary "Marijuana in the Wheel": Public politics in dialogue with the Civil Society. They will be 6 days of event with debates, lectures, (...)