After a two-year battle, the Philadelphia nonprofit Safehouse says next week it will open the first space in the U.S. where people struggling with addiction can use opioids and other illegal drugs under the supervision of trained staff. The announcement comes one day after a U.S. district judge issued a final ruling declaring the facility does not violate federal drug laws. This solidified an October decision, which was the first time a federal court has weighed in on the legality of a supervised injection facility, or what advocates call an overdose prevention site. The planned launch of the controversial facility faces stiff opposition from the Justice Department. (See also: SF to introduce legislation authorizing safe injection sites)

The Australian drug expert who pioneered the nation's first legal injecting centre is on a collision course with the Baird government and NSW Police by vowing to break the law and roll out pill testing at Sydney's music festivals. President of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation, Alex Wodak, joined forces with emergency medical specialist David Caldicott in announcing a privately funded drug testing "trial" will commence with or without the blessing of a government that has repeatedly blocked the proposal in favour of a hard line, law enforcement strategy. (See also: Mass arrests part of NSW pill testing program proposal)

The Authority for the Responsible Use of Cannabis (ARUC) will be organising the first training on harm reduction for those Associations which have reached an advanced stage of application to form a 'Cannabis Harm Reduction Association'. This was announced during Malta’s second ministerial conference on the legislation concerning the responsible use of cannabis with representatives from Malta, Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and the Czech Republic discussed developments related to rules and laws on the use of cannabis that is not for medical or scientific purposes. The Maltese Parliament partially legalised the recreational use of cannabis in December 2021, allowing the possession of up to seven grams of cannabis and the growing of four plants at home.

Este primer cuatrimestre de gobierno de Gustavo Petro ha tenido muchos desafíos, como el proyecto de ‘paz total’ o aterrizar las políticas económicas. Entre estos temas nodales, el complejo cambio en el abordaje a las políticas de drogas ha sido de lo que más ha sonado en la agenda del mandatario, posibilitando un debate público que involucra a varios ministerios como el de Justicia y Defensa. La tarea no es fácil y probablemente requiera de mucho más de cuatro años para lograrse, pero un balance que sí es posible hacer antes del cierre del año es identificar qué cambios se han materializado en este tema y qué se mantiene en promesas del gobierno en política de drogas de cara a los retos que se vienen.

This study tested the impact of a long-acting form of amphetamineas medication to help control dependent use of the closely allied stimulant, methamphetamine. Prescribed usually for the treatment of pathological sleepiness or attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, effects of the amphetamine tablets prescribed in the study take several hours longer to emerge than normal amphetamine and last three to six hours longer, giving it a 'smoothing' profile similar to methadone for heroin users; non-rapid onset make it less intensely pleasurable, and longer duration suits it to once-daily administration.

Download the article (PDF)

This study tested the impact of a long-acting form of amphetamineas medication to help control dependent use of the closely allied stimulant, methamphetamine. Prescribed usually for the treatment of pathological sleepiness or attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, effects of the amphetamine tablets prescribed in the study take several hours longer to emerge than normal amphetamine and last three to six hours longer, giving it a 'smoothing' profile similar to methadone for heroin users; non-rapid onset make it less intensely pleasurable, and longer duration suits it to once-daily administration.

Download the article (PDF)

Dating back to the latter part of 1800s, precisely in 1894-95, the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission consisting of medical experts of Indian and British origin concluded that moderate use of cannabis was the rule in India, and produced practically no ill-effects. “What countries like Uruguay and Canada are doing now, India had already proposed 120 years ago,” says Tom Blickman from the Transnational Institute (TNI), an international policy think tank based in the Netherlands. “Had the wisdom of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission’s recommendations prevailed, we would have prevented a lot of misery by erroneous drug control policies,” he points out. (See also: A legal hallucination)

The smokable cocaine market was established decades ago, and is definitely not a new phenomenon. Rather than disappear, it is undergoing a slow expansion: from constituting a rather localized and isolated habit in the Andean region in the 1970s, its reach has extended in all directions, throughout North and South-America, including the Caribbean and Central American regions. Societies in the Americas have coexisted with smokable cocaines for over four decades, but - surprisingly - there is a dearth of research on the development of the market, or much first-hand evidence of how this substance is actually commercialized and used by millions of people in the region.

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In an attempt to curb a surge in overdose deaths caused by increasingly potent street drugs, New York City will authorize two supervised injection sites in Manhattan to begin operating. Trained staff at two sites — in the neighborhoods of East Harlem and Washington Heights — will provide clean needles, administer naloxone to reverse overdoses and provide users with options for addiction treatment, city health officials said. Users will bring their own drugs. New York, the country’s most populous city, will become the first U.S. city to open officially authorized injection sites — facilities that opponents view as magnets for drug abuse but proponents praise as providing a less punitive and more effective approach to addressing addiction.

Drugs now kill about 70,000 Americans every year—more than car crashes or guns (both 39,000), more than AIDS did at the height of its epidemic (42,000), and more than all the American soldiers killed in the entire Vietnam war (58,000). In 2017 about 47,600 of those deaths were caused by opioid overdose – a fivefold increase since 2000. Only 32% of those opioid deaths involved prescription pills; the rest were from illegal heroin and fentanyl. But three out of four heroin users first became addicted to pills. What started as a problem of abused prescription drugs has been transformed by corporate greed, a failure of the health system and a lack of political will into a social disaster.

An alarming rise in drug-related deaths at music festivals can be countered by testing illicit substances onsite, according to the first academic study of its kind, which has triggered calls for similar services to be rolled out at all major events. Testers found that one in five substances sold at the Secret Garden Party, a four-day festival in Cambridgeshire in July 2016, were not as described by dealers. Chemists from the non-profit social enterprise The Loop analysed 247 drug samples brought in anonymously by festivalgoers. Two-thirds of people who discovered they had had substances missold to them subsequently handed over further substances to the police, according to the study. (See also: Pill testing could save lives – so why are we letting people die?)

In the Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 2002 that was released on February 26, the president of the Board, Dr. Philip O. Emafo from Nigeria, launches a strong attack against groups that advocate legalisation or decriminalisation of drug offences, as well as groups "that favour a crusade" focusing only on harm reduction. Mr. Emafo's attack reflects how out of touch the president of the INCB is with current developments in inter­national drug control. If anyone is involved in a "crusade' with "missionary zeal', it is Mr. Emafo himself, trying to turn back accepted best practices in countering the adverse effects of problematic drug use. Mr. Emafo gives a completely distorted picture of the political acceptance of the harm reduction concept.

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The European Commission has published its new EU drug strategy (now called the Drugs Agenda), which is part of a wider Security Union strategy entitled “Delivering on a Security Union: initiatives to fight child sexual abuse, drugs and illegal firearms.” While I celebrated the previous Action Plan as the most progressive ever, I think this document has come as a disappointment for civil society organisations that have been advocating for a sensible, balanced approach in drug policies. Here are 4 reasons why.

The mounting moral panic against safer supply and other harm reduction interventions to counter the toxic drug crisis is not based in evidence. The reality is safer supply works. We are researchers who have been studying safer supply in British Columbia and Ontario for several years. Multiple published studies and program evaluations, including our own and those led by colleagues, have found that people receiving safer supply report decreased use of fentanyl from the unregulated street supply, fewer overdoses and better health and social outcomes. Our research, using hospital data published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in September last year, reported rapid improvements in health indicators among people receiving safer supply.

Today, the contributions of drug suppliers towards harm reduction efforts remain mostly neglected by history, although some within the grassroots end of the movement still emphasise their critical role. The work of Van Dam in The Netherlands and Southwell in the United Kingdom is part of a mostly-forgotten history of drug dealers organising themselves and alongside drug-user activists to advance the health and wellbeing of people who use drugs. In 1996, as the City of Rotterdam was cracking down on the public presence of drug suppliers and consumers, or what they called “nuisances,” the City officially supported drug consumption rooms (DCR). But some drug-user activists were skeptical of these newly above-ground programs. “It is only concerned with regulating and monitoring users.”

It was in 1992 that the Platzspitz city park – right by Zürich train station and internationally nicknamed “Needle Park” – was cleared out by the police, who had previously tolerated drug use and sales there. This was eventually followed, however, by a far more enlightened policy. Switzerland found itself at a crossroads, and chose to take the path of careful consideration instead of ostracization, incarceration and destruction of fellow human beings. From the mid-1990s, we vastly expanded syringe services and methadone access, and also permitted the limited prescribing of heroin – a policy with many well-studied benefits, which spawned a number of imitators around the world. 

A NSW Coronial Inquest investigating a series of drug-related deaths at Australian music festivals has heard evidence of festival goers taking multiple concurrent doses of MDMA to avoid police detection and not receiving adequate medical attention. But a lack of knowledge about the drug use patterns and demographic profile of festival goers has stymied capacity to develop evidence-informed policy responses. Two data reports may help to inform the inquest and shed light on these patterns. Both reports are based on data from more than 5,000 Australian festival goers who completed the Global Drug Survey from late 2018. (See also: 'Please someone': inquest hears of tragic teen's cries for help)

Ecuador has entered a new era in drug policy and legislation. Twenty-five years after the last major legal reform, brought about by the famed Narcotic and Psychotropic Substances Law (Ley de Sustancias Estupefacientes y Psicotrópicas, Law 108), which took effect on September 17, 1990, the National Assembly is about to debate—for the second and final time—the draft Law on Prevention of Drugs and Use or Consumption of Substances Classified as Subject to Oversight (Ley de Prevención de Drogas y Uso y Consumo de Sustancias Catalogadas Sujetas a Fiscalización.)