The War on Drugs is a War on People – It’s Time to Change That

For many years, I’ve been talking about the need to reform global drug laws and to put people’s safety, health and wellbeing at the centre of drug policy. There has been remarkable progress as some governments have moved towards cannabis regulation while others made harm reduction the primary goal of

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BBC News: “Avoid saying ‘drug user’ to combat stigma, report urges”

Policymakers and the media should avoid using terms such as “drug user”, “addict” and “junkie”, a report by a group of former world leaders has said. Read article by the BBC.

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BBC World Service: “Nigeria’s Obasanjo speaks out on drug policy”

The Global Commission on Drug Policy – a group of eminent world leaders – has called for a rethink on drugs policy. They’ve released a new report saying the current attitude of stigmatising drugs is hindering effective policy-making, and argue that governments should be talking about ‘harm reduction’ rather than

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Globe and Mail: “Report highlights the need to clean the conversation around drug use”

Skewed perceptions of drugs and people who use them negatively affect both health and health care by feeding into harmful prohibitionist policies and sometimes directly affecting clinical care, according to a new international report that aims to counter such prejudices. Read article in The Globe and Mail

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LUSA/DN: “Relatório defende mudança de percepções para facilitar reformas sobre drogas”

Perceções erradas sobre o consumo de drogas alimentam políticas de proibição e repressão que continuam sem resolver o problema, alerta um relatório internacional publicado hoje em Londres, em que Portugal é considerado um exemplo positivo. O relatório “The World Drug Perception Problem” [O Problema Global da Perceção das Drogas], produzido

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Sir Nick Clegg in Daily Mirror: “Why attitudes to drug use must change”

The Member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy urges Governments and opinion leaders to treat drugs seriously and provide the public with reliable information.  I have a radical notion for you. What would you say if I told you that using drugs or other techniques to alter consciousness is

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“The irrationality of modern drug laws, in one chart”

Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post how the current prohibitionist approach to drug policy is based on outdated treaties and laws that do not take into account the advances in science, stating “That disconnect is abundantly clear in the diagram below, which comes from a new report on world drug use

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Commissioner Branson: “US Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinds state-level legal cannabis guidance”

Read original article on Virgin website. US Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that he will rescind the so-called ‘Cole Memo’, guidance issued in 2013 by deputy Attorney General James Cole under the Obama administration, promising limited federal interference in US states where voters have approved the legalisation and regulated sale of

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George Shultz in NYT: “The Failed War on Drugs”

By GEORGE P. SHULTZ and PEDRO ASPE The war on drugs in the United States has been a failure that has ruined lives, filled prisons and cost a fortune. It started during the Nixon administration with the idea that, because drugs are bad for people, they should be difficult to obtain. As a

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Commissioner Branson: Drug Reform in Norway

By Commissioner Richard Branson. Original article at Virgin website blog. Last week, Norway became the first Scandinavian country to decriminalise drug possession and use. The historic vote in parliament, supported by a broad alliance of political parties, puts harm reduction and public health at the centre of Norway’s drug policy, allowing

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