decriminalization

By. Globe and Mail Editorial Board

 

Toronto this week became the first city in the world to formally endorse the Vienna Declaration that states that war-on-drugs-style prohibitions are a costly failure, denounces the “severe negative consequences” of such policies both in terms of public health and crime rates, and urges a shift in emphasis to regulation and harm reduction.

 

It would be easy to dismiss the city council’s decision as a meaningless gesture by local politicians working well out of their depth, except that the push to decriminalize, not only marijuana, but hard drugs like cocaine and heroin as well, is a rising international phenomenon, being driven by serious and credible sources, not by local politicians or stoner websites. Read more »

By. Zoe McKnight, National Post

 

Toronto City Council voted to endorse the Vienna Declaration on Thursday, raising a loud voice against the war on drugs.

 

“The war against drugs has failed,” said city councillor Kyle Rae, who brought the declaration to council after attending the AIDS 2010 international conference this July, where it was announced. “In every jurisdiction and in every community, we know that policing this issue is not enough.”

 

The principles of the declaration favour a public health approach to dealing with drug addicts, rather than enforcing ever-stricter drug laws, which advocates say doesn’t work, and in fact can cause greater harm. Read more »

Surrey Herald (UK)

 

The Government should consider decriminalising drugs because the blanket ban has failed to cut crime or improve health, a leading doctor has said.

 

Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, former president of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), said he agreed that drug laws should be "reconsidered with a view to decriminalising illicit drugs use".

 

He called for the UK to take a fresh look at its laws and added there was a strong case for putting a regulatory framework around illicit drugs, rather than the current blanket ban.

  Read more »

By. James Clark, Huffington Post

 

Last week, the Economist published an article illustrating a widespread failure of American Christianity. Entitled "Rough Justice" with the subheading "America locks up too many people, some for acts that should not even be criminal," the article detailed the practice of mass incarceration and revealed some startling facts: 1 in 100 American adults is living behind bars. When we narrow the field to young black men, it's 1 in 9. Put another way, we have incarcerated 1 percent of our neighbors.

 

Our war on drugs is one of the leading contributors. Those who insist that the United States is a "Christian nation" would be hard-pressed to find evidence for it in our nation's drug policy, which condemns millions of our neighbors to be warehoused behind bars for nonviolent offenses. The Economist article brings to light a systemic denial of Christian love and compassion, particularly toward those struggling with addiction.

 

But on the same day the Economist published "Rough Justice," something else happened that few would immediately associate with the biblical command to love our neighbor: the California Affiliates of the ACLU endorsed Proposition 19, the ballot initiative to legalize recreational use of marijuana. Christian communities looking for a smarter, more compassionate, and more successful way forward in fighting drug addiction would do well to consider the merits of marijuana decriminalization.

  Read more »

By Stephen Thomson, Georgia Straight

 

A Downtown Eastside group is calling for a stop to gentrification and support for a government-sanctioned drug market in the Vancouver neighbourhood.

 

The proposed actions are part of a “vision” for the area introduced by the Carnegie Community Action Project today (July 20).

 

In a 14-page report, the project organizers call for pressure on the federal government to reform the rules around the drug trade in the Downtown Eastside.

 

“Replacing the illegal drug market with a regulated legal market based on health and human rights principles would improve safety and health in the DTES and in other places,” the report reads.

 

“If the city supports DTES residents to replace the illegal drug market with a regulated legal one, that could be a first for the country and the world.” Read more »

By Christopher Hope

 

Nicholas Green QC, the chairman of the Bar Council for England and Wales, said it was “rational” to consider “decriminalising personal drug use”.

 

Taking such a step would save the economy billions of pounds – drug-related crime costs the economy £13billion a year - free up police time, cut crime and improve public health.

 

However campaigners and MPs rounded on the remarks, made in a newsletter to barristers, saying it sent out the wrong message on drug use.

 

Mr Green, who runs body which the 4,500 criminal and defence barristers, said: “A growing body of comparative evidence suggests that decriminalising personal use can have positive consequences. Read more »

The Lancet

 

In a paper in The Lancet Series on HIV in people who use drugs, a call to action is made by experts who say that while scale-up of various interventions outlined in earlier papers are vital, these are not enough. Drug users should be decriminalised, along with other changes in policy on drug control and law enforcement. The paper is by Professor Chris Beyrer, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA, and colleagues.

  Read more »

by Donald MacPherson

 

The 18th International AIDS Conference in Vienna, July 18 – 23 marks an important moment in the history of drug policy that might just be the beginning of the end of the “War on Drugs”. The policy document that will be the centre piece of the conference is the Vienna Declaration which calls on governments around the world to develop policies related to psychoactive substances that are based on scientific evidence and public health principles rather than continuing the costly and ineffective approach based on the criminalization of drugs and punishment of drug users. The Declaration is an important benchmark in that it marks a scientific consensus among those studying drug policies, infectious diseases, public health and human rights that current drug policies are causing more harm than drug use itself.

 

The Vienna Declaration repudiates the “War on Drugs” approach to drug control and clearly articulates the necessity to re-evaluate current drug policies in the face of rising drug related HIV infections worldwide. The Declaration is the culmination of a great deal of discussion and collaboration among the scientific community around the world and I believe it has the potential to help the international community finally embrace change in new ways. Resistance to change, especially with an issue like the “War on Drugs” where there is a long adhered to policy and many vested interests, is immense. The Vienna Declaration is a call to action by the scientific community to overcome this resistance and to take a hard look at the evidence of the failure of current approaches to drug control. Read more »

By. Am Johal

 

Dr. Evan Wood is director of the Urban Health Research Initiative, research scientist at the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and associate professor at the Department of Medicine of the University of British Columbia. Am Johal interviewed him in Vancouver.

 

Am Johal: You were involved with drafting the Vienna Declaration ahead of the 2010 AIDS conference scheduled for Vienna. Can you outline its basic premise and why this was released at this time?

 

Evan Wood: The Vienna Declaration is a scientific statement drafted by a large international writing committee, which included various leaders in medicine and public health including Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, who won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 2008. The declaration is available online to read and we are inviting endorsements from the public: www.viennadeclaration.com. Read more »

David Cameron could be the man to de-criminalise cannabis as the most "drug-experienced" PM, a former government adviser has claimed.

 

Prof David Nutt insisted he was optimistic there would be changes in the British narcotic laws.

 

He commented: "UK politics itself has in recent years been a major block to rational debate.

 

"Perhaps this will change now David Cameron is Prime Minister as he is the most obviously drug-experienced person to have held this post, having been caught using cannabis as a schoolboy at Eton (for which he was not expelled)."

 

Prof Nutt, a former chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, told the academic journal Prometheus: "As an MP, he served on the science and technology committee and took a progressive view on drugs arguing that MDMA [ecstasy] was inappropriately positioned in class A. Read more »