Drug-Related AIDS/HIV or Hepatitis C

2014 was a big year for drug reform, and for a change, the US is pulling things in the right direction. But it some places, it's been business as usual, and in others, things have gone in the wrong direction. Here are our big international stories of the year.

It's much easier to do bad things to -- or fail to do good things for -- people we have stigmatized as somehow lesser than the rest of us. The Denver-based Harm Reduction Action Center is taking on the stigmatization of drug users. That's a good thing.

Wichita looks set to vote on decriminalization this fall, Rand Paul (busy, busy) files a federal asset forfeiture reform bill, drug users finally get a voice at the International AIDS Conference, and more.

The World Health Organization calls for drug decriminalization (and more), international drug reform and harm reduction groups warn of an AIDS prevention crisis, marijuana policy is popping up in some Republican primaries, and more.

This year's National Drug Control Strategy was released today. There are some steps in the right direction, but otherwise, it pretty much looks like every annual drug strategy for the past 20 years.

A new report from the West Africa Commission on Drugs calls for decriminalization and a public health approach, but that may be just the beginning of changes needed in West Africa.

The folding of Crimea back into Russia has some ominous implications for hard drug users there, and the other shoe is already beginning to drop for them.

On Thursday, Michelle Alexander, author of the best-selling and galvanizing "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" sat down with poet/activist Asha Bandele of the Drug Policy Alliance to discuss the book's impact and where we go from here. It's a discussion worth reading.

The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) issued its annual report on the global drug situation today, and it is very "concerned" about marijuana legalization. But its chorus of critics is growing larger and louder.

The death of Phillip Seymour Hoffman has focused a media spotlight on heroin overdoses. There are better ways to deal with heroin than the current one, if there is the will.