• Stop US Delegation in Vienna

    Tom Blickman
    Thursday, January 29, 2009

    Susan RiceThe US delegation in Vienna continues to block any inclusion of harm reduction in the new Political Declaration – to be approved in March 2009 at the high-level segment of the 52nd session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs. Three members of the US Congress have written a letter to the new US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, to call for new instructions to be given to the delegation.

    READ MORE...
  • US Harm Reduction Coalition calls for change

    Tom Blickman
    Tuesday, January 27, 2009

    Nelson Mandela, showing his support for people living with HIV / AIDS

    Allan Clear of the Harm Reduction Coalition made an urgent appeal on the Obama White House to intervene in the current negotiations about the Political Declaration on the 1998 UNGASS review that has to be adopted in March 2009 at the High Level Segment of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND). For more than two million people living with HIV, mainly in Africa, hopes are high for a change in Obama's foreign policy.

    READ MORE...
  • Harm reduction as part of the solution

    Tom Blickman
    Friday, January 23, 2009

    needle_exchangeIt is still not clear what the drug policy of President Obama will be. He has not appointed his drug czar. Many high-ranking Bush Administration officials have yet to leave office and are still setting the agenda on drug policy.

    READ MORE...
  • Lifting the Ban on Harm Reduction

    Tom Blickman
    Wednesday, January 21, 2009

    The Obama White House announced today that the new President supports lifting the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of HIV/AIDS infection among drug users. Will he also lift the ban on the concept of harm reduction, which has paralysed the international drug policy debate under his predecessors?

    READ MORE...
  • The Battle for Harm Reduction

    Tom Blickman
    Wednesday, January 21, 2009

    The issue of harm reduction continues to be controversial during the negotiations in Vienna for the Political Declaration that has to be adopted in March 2009 at the High Level Segment of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND). There is severe pressure on delegates to drop their insistence on incorporating the language and principles of harm reduction in the political declaration, or to accept some watered down version.

    READ MORE...
  • Smoking without Borders

    Tom Blickman
    Tuesday, January 14, 2009

    coffeeshoplicense
    Cannabis license
     

    The Hungarian Civil Liberty Union (HCLU) produced a video on the debate on cannabis policy and the tolerated sale of small quantities of cannabis by coffee shops in the Netherlands. The debate fired up when the mayors of Bergen op Zoom and Roosendaal, two towns near the Belgian border, decided to close their coffee shops.  

    Smoking without Borders
    An HCLU film about drug tourism in the Netherlands: is it really only the problem of the Dutch?

    READ MORE...
  • UNGASS review restart

    Martin Jelsma
    Monday, November 3, 2008

     

    The review of the objectives and action plans agreed at the 1998 UNGASS on Drugs has reached a critical stage. Today and tomorrow, government representatives will start discussions in Vienna on a draft of the annex to the proposed political declaration. TNI has elaborated a series of comments and recommendations.

    READ MORE...
  • An Overview of Cannabis Policy

    Tom Blickman
    Friday, October 31, 2008

    On October 2, 2008, the Beckley Foundation launched in the House of Lords its Global Cannabis Commission Report, an authoritative guide to the effects of cannabis, the policies that control its use, and recommendations for policy reform.  A team of leading drug policy analysts prepared an overview of the latest scientific evidence surrounding cannabis and the policies that control its use.

    READ MORE...
  • Beyond 2008 video

    Wednesday, 23 July 2008

    From 7-9 July, 2008, 300 delegates met in Vienna for the Beyond 2008 NGO Forum meant to provide civil society input for the 10-year UNGASS review. The goal was to produce a consensus statement on behalf of the global civil society to the high level governmental meeting of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), to be held in Vienna in March 2009. The Hungarian Civil Liberty Union (HCLU) produced a 10 minute video interviewing the participants.

    READ MORE...
  • Experts on Alternative Development meet in Vienna

    Tom Kramer
    Wednesday, July 16, 2008

    From 2-4 July I attended the “open-ended intergovernmental expert working group on international cooperation on the eradication of illicit drug crops and on alternative development” in Vienna as part of the Netherlands delegation. It was the third of the five working groups that will be organised, which are part of the UNGASS review process. These working groups are preparations for the high-level segment of the 52nd session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, which will take place in March 2009. 

    READ MORE...

Page 23 of 27