Wednesday, 21 May 2008

During IHRA's 19th international conference this month the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU) recorded a film which poses a series of questions to Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of the UNODC, from a range of user representatives, harm reduction experts and drug policy advocates.

Monday, 12 May 2008

The International Conference on the Reduction of Drug Related Harms is taking place in Barcelona, May 11-15. UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, Paul Hunt, made an excellent keynote speech addressing the multiple violations of the human rights of people who use drugs. Our Hungarian friends from the HCLU taped his speech on video.

Friday, 2 May 2008

TNI’s Martin Jelsma participated in the inaugural meeting in Rio de Janeiro of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy on April 30, 2008. Prominent members of the Commission are three Latin American former presidents: Fernando Henrique Cardoso from Brazil, César Gaviria from Colombia and Ernesto Zedillo from Mexico.

"It is time to develop a proper Latin American response that is detached from the ideology from the United States that has been common in the past decade," Martin Jelsma told the meeting. "It is potentially a good time to try because politically there is now more distance to US policies in a growing part of Latin America and to US domination in general."

Monday, 28 APRIL 2008

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."