Harm Reduction

The drug policy wheel is turning, and the US and its hard-line repressive drug policies are becoming increasingly isolated in the hemisphere as in the past week alone 150 million Latin Americans came under one form of decriminalization or another.

The Chronicle reviews a journalistic treatment of the Mara Salvatrucha gang and an anthropological treatment of a group of homeless middle-aged heroin addicts. We found one much more satisfying than the other.

As the United Nations issues its annual World Drugs Report, UNODC head Antonio Maria Costa finally notices his anti-prohibitionist critics and fights back. The critics are glad to engage. More importantly, Costa's attack signals that the legalization movement is gaining momentum.

At least 16 Asian nations and an equal number of others, including the US, apply the death penalty to certain drug offenses. It's time for that to stop, said human rights and harm reduction organizations, and they are using UN anti-drug day to pressure both the international community and offending countries to act now.

In a bid to deal with the state's gargantuan budget deficit, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to cut funding for HIV/AIDS programs and Proposition 36 treatment programs. Protests over the former broke out this past week in cities across the state.

Canada's Conservative government is pushing a pair of tough on drugs and crime bills that would institute mandatory minimum sentencing, but the Liberals and the NDP are starting to push back.

The UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) met in Vienna this week to draft a political declaration and plan of action to guide international drug policy for the next decade. While the prohibitionists prevailed in the end, the voices of dissent are growing ever louder and more powerful.

The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) has released its latest annual report on the global drug situation. It calls for increased efforts against marijuana, warns of an increasingly violent drug trade, and worries about the Internet. Critics charge the agency is stuck in the last century.

The drug reform community was hoping for a public health person -- not a cop or soldier -- to be named as drug czar. A cop is what we got, but a cop from a liberal town. Will an (arguably) progressive police chief as drug czar be as good?

The Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy issued a report Wednesday calling for harm reduction, treating drug use as a public health issue, and decriminalizing marijuana. The report was an intervention aimed as much at Washington as at Vienna, where the UN meets next month to plot global drug strategy.