Legislative Reform Series

Fixing a broken system

2015-02-11T08:54:48+00:00

Despite efforts by governments in Latin America, illicit drugs continue to provide one of the largest incomes for criminal organizations, enabling them to penetrate and corrupt political and social i ...

Cannabis policy reform in Europe

2015-02-02T10:26:05+00:00

While in the Americas cannabis policy reform is taking off, Europe seems to be lagging behind. That is to say, in European nations at the level of national governments – where denial of the changing ...

Reform der Cannabispolitik in Europa

2015-02-17T16:55:59+00:00

Während die Reform der Cannabispolitik in Amerika Fahrt aufnimmt, scheint Europa hinterherzuhinken. Genauer gesagt, die europäischen Staaten auf nationaler Regierungsebene, wo die Leugnung der Veränd ...

Time for a Wake-up Call

2014-12-19T09:48:47+00:00

The chemically-based frame of reference adopted by the UN Single Convention is mistaken in the culturally loaded and falsely “scientific” manner in which it was applied to different plants. With the ...

The International Drug Control Regime and Access to Controlled Medicines

2014-12-29T06:43:01+00:00

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that some 5.5 billion people around the globe inhabit countries with low to non-existent access to controlled medicines and have inadequate access to tre ...

Scheduling in the international drug control system

2014-06-13T09:08:29+00:00

While often viewed as an obscure technical issue, the problem of scheduling lies at the core of the functioning of the international drug control system. Scheduling – the classification of a substanc ...

Cocaine: towards a self-regulation model

2014-03-07T16:38:17+00:00

By taking cues from users’ self-regulation strategies, it is possible to design innovative operational models for drug services as well as drug policies, strengthening Harm Reduction as an alternativ ...

Working towards a legal coca market: The case of coca leaf chewing in Argentina

2013-07-30T13:32:14+00:00

Modern use of the coca leaf in Argentina provides a series of examples that could contribute to dispelling many of the myths that have polarized debate about the subject over the last few years. Arge ...

Bogotá’s medical care centres for drug addicts (CAMAD)

2012-12-20T13:13:09+00:00

In September 2012, the mayor of Bogotá, Gustavo Petro, launched the first centre for drug addicts in the Bronx, a marginalised city-centre neighbourhood. Called the Medical Care Centre for Dependent ...

A breakthrough in the making?

2012-06-25T16:31:33+00:00

Remarkable drug policy developments are taking place in Latin America. This is not only at the level of political debate, but is also reflected in actual legislative changes in a number of countries. ...

Drugs, crime and punishment

2012-06-19T09:32:13+00:00

Proportionality is one of the key principles of the rule of law aiming to protect people from cruel or inhumane treatment. The principle has been established in international and regional human righ ...

Towards revision of the UN drug control conventions

2012-03-08T11:44:20+00:00

Recent years have seen a growing unwillingness among increasing numbers of States parties to fully adhere to a strictly prohibitionist reading of the UN drug control conventions; the 1961 Single Conv ...

The Limits of Latitude

2012-03-08T12:07:18+00:00

Faced with a complex range of drug related problems, a growing number of nations are exploring the development of nationally appropriate policies that shift away from the prohibition-oriented approac ...

Chewing over Khat prohibition

2012-01-10T16:43:31+00:00

In the context of a fast changing and well documented market in legal highs, the case of khat (Catha edulis) provides an interesting anomaly. It is first of all a plant-based substance that undergoes ...

'Legal highs'

2011-10-21T10:18:27+00:00

This paper aims to set out some of the policy and public health issues raised by the appearance of a wide range of emergent psychoactive substances of diverse origin, effect and risk profile (commonl ...

How to determine personal use in drug legislation

2011-08-23T20:05:59+00:00

Distinguishing between drug possession for personal use and supply and trafficking is widely acknowledged as one of the most difficult and controversial issues facing drug legislators and policy make ...

Conviction by Numbers

2011-05-17T17:05:52+00:00

Threshold quantities (TQs) for drug law and policy are being experimented with across many jurisdictions. States seem attracted to their apparent simplicity and use them to determine, for example, wh ...

Kratom in Thailand

2011-05-02T12:58:29+00:00

In early 2010, the Thai Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) developed a policy proposal to review different aspects of the criminal justice process in relation to drug cases. The possibility ...

Fifty Years of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs: A Reinterpretation

2011-03-18T14:43:01+00:00

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, signed on 30 March 1961. 73 countries were represented at the conference that took place in New York fr ...

Lifting the ban on coca chewing

2011-03-18T14:19:05+00:00

January 31 marked the close of the 18-month period during which countries could submit objections to Bolivia’s proposal to remove from the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs the obligation to a ...