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Posts tagged Drugs policy
Protect the drug giants’ patents – and harm the health of the poor?
Mar 12th
India has become “the pharmacy of the world”, home to dozens of generic copycat drug companies that have been producing expensive medicines at dirt-cheap prices that the poorest countries can afford. Famously, Mumbai-based Cipla forced down the prices of Aids drugs some years ago with the launch of a twice a day pill, which then became the staple treatment in many sub-Saharan countries.
But Medecins sans Frontieres, also known as Doctors without Borders, which played a role in that epic turnaround, is now warning that a Free Trade Agreement between the EU and India could ensure that sort of Robin Hood episode never happens again. Yesterday, its supporters demonstrated in New Delhi. They fear the EU, negotiating behind closed doors, will push or cajole India into recognising tough new intellectual property rights. The winners, it fears, will be Big Pharma, while the losers will be the impoverished sick.
This was Loon Gangte, president of the Delhi Network of Positive People (DNP+):
We are marching to call on the Indian government not to trade away our lives. Lifelong treatment for people living with HIV depends on continued access to newer AIDS medicines. Because of international trade rules that India has already signed in the past, some of our newer AIDS medicines are already patented and completely unaffordable. We are protesting against India’s accepting terms that would further compromise access to life-saving medicine.
This is a complicated issue, which is why it gets little attention in the mainstream press. Trade rules and agreements are tough going for any but the dedicated and the nerdy. But essentially, for some years now Big Pharma has been trying to use its influence over politicians in the US and in Europe (who don’t want to lose the investment, jobs and taxes that drug companies bring at home) to demand tighter rules on the Indian copycats. Patents normally last for 20 years, so drug companies can recoup the millions they spend on R&D. They want India to observe their patents, just as Europe and the US do.
India gets cheaper drugs if the generic whizzkids can knock off copycat versions of the blockbusters. While India is middle-income and getting richer, unfortunately a tough trade agreement with the EU would probably penalise the Indian poor. But it also threatens the poorest of the poor, in Africa and other parts of Asia. Look in an African health centre and all the drugs are Indian-made. With a growing need for new and better HIV drugs in sub-Saharan countries, it may be no time to curb the Indian generic manufacturers.
Meanwhile the lobbying for more money for HIV/Aids moved seamlessly this week from London to Washington, where Dr Peter Mugyenyi, director and founder of Uganda’s Joint Clinical Research Center, gave evidence on the Hill. The Center is the biggest implementer of Pepfar (the president’s emergency plan for Aids relief) funds in East Africa and Mugyenyi was one of a handful of people in the room when Pepfar was conceived in 2003. He says that cuts in US funds for Aids are already beginning to bite. This is what he told me:
I’m panicking about it. That’s how bad it is because I’m foreseeing the return of the catastrophic times of the 90s, when everything in Africa came to a standstill and the hospitals couldn’t function and the staff fled the health service – and many of them died. They couldn’t get access to treatment and had nothing to offer their patients. The patients were abandoning the health facilities and flocking to witch doctors and traditional healers who were clearly helpless.
Could we go back there? Mugyenyi says he is already seeing people with newly-diagnosed HIV turned away from clinics as the orders are given only to carry on treating those already on the drugs. The money has been frozen, he says. And yet only 4 million are on treatment and 10 million need to be – and the WHO’s new guidelines say people with HIV should be treated earlier, which would perhaps double the numbers who should be getting drugs.
Read also Chris Collins of the Foundation for Aids Research in the Huffington Post on the hearings in the House and Senate over the Aids budget.
But good news from the Commission on Narcotic Drugs meeting in Vienna this week. After years of blocking resolutions to encourage access to clean needles to protect drug users from HIV, the Obama administration made a break with the past. This was the verdict of Professor Gerry Stimson, Executive Director of the International Harm Reduction Association:
Real progress was made here this week in Vienna – some countries that in the past tried to obstruct resolutions dealing with harm reduction and human rights have backed off. The big – and welcome – development is the US position. The fresh approach of the Obama administration to the UN and to international drug and HIV/AIDS policy is making itself felt. US officials here for the first time were able to voice their support for HIV-related risk prevention measures, and for HIV prevention firmly based in human rights. Let’s hope this continues to play through in the years ahead – if so we are going in the direction of a more rational global response to drug-related harm.
So all eyes are now on Russia, where 65% of HIV infections come from injecting drug users, and which turns a blind eye.
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Britain’s love of cheap cocaine: the view from Latin America
Mar 7th
While we regard the drug as socially acceptable, cocaine wreaks havoc in the countries that produce it
Britons are snorting 30 tonnes of cocaine a year and consider the drug to be a socially acceptable part of a night out, a House of Commons report lamented last week. The Home Affairs Select Committee accused law enforcement agencies of intercepting too few shipments and of arresting too few people, allowing the price of the class A drug to fall to as little as £2 a line.
But there is a part of the world which is not getting away with cocaine and is not inclined to consider it glamorous, socially acceptable or normal. It is called Latin America, where the coca leaf is grown, turned into paste and powder, and trafficked. And here is where narco-related violence and corruption is exacting a terrible price.
Last week brought fresh horrors. In Mexico, authorities found the dismembered body of a journalist, Rodolfo Rincon Taracena, who disappeared in 2007. His articles on the drug trade had prompted his brutal murder. More than 16,000 people have died in Mexico since President Felipe Calderón declared war on drug cartels in December 2006.
In Guatemala, the national police chief, Baltazar Gonzalez, and anti-drug czar, Nelly Bonilla, were detained in a case of stolen cocaine that led to the deaths of five police agents. In a tale too bloody for The Wire, it seems that the agents were killed while trying to steal a stash from members of the Zetas, a group of hit men linked to Mexico’s powerful Gulf cartel.
There was more grim news from the US International Narcotics Control strategy report, which said that traffickers were annually sending $8bn to $25bn from the United States, expanding production in Bolivia and finding new routes through Venezuela.
Peru’s Shining Path insurgency, once almost extinct, has revived in recent months: the guerrillas have learned from Colombia’s Farc how to use cocaine revenue to perpetuate a conflict.
Calls for decriminalisation are growing; former presidents from Brazil, Colombia and Mexico have swelled the chorus. Latin America can only hope that Europe and the US, the main markets, will one day figure out a way to curb demand.
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Child cocaine treatment rises by more than 65%
Mar 2nd
• Number of under-18s receiving treatment rises to 745
• Cocaine use rises five-fold among 16-59-year-olds
• Drug advisory body to review effects of Class A drug
The number of under-18s receiving treatment for cocaine addiction in England has increased by more than 65%, NHS figures reveal.
The release of the figures today coincides with the announcement by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) of a review into the drug’s effects based on separate statistics showing that cocaine use has increased five-fold among 16- to 59-year-olds since 1996.
The NHS study, conducted by the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (pdf), found that the number of 18- to 24-year-olds receciving treatment has doubled since 2005.
Three-quarters of users combined cocaine with alcohol, according to the report. Mixing is thought to boost the high but also causes more damage to the heart and makes users more violent.
After six months of treatment with cognitive behavioural therapy, four in 10 people were no longer addicted, but nearly a quarter had dropped out of treatment.
Last year 12,354 people were treated for cocaine addiction in England. Between 2005-06 and 2008-09 the number of under-18s in treatment rose from 453 to 745, and the number of 18- to 24-year-olds doubled from 1,586 to 3,005.
Around one in 10 adults in England and Wales now admit to having used cocaine at some point in their lifetime – a three-fold increase on 1996.
The chairman of the ACMD, Professor Les Iversen, wrote to the home secretary (pdf) citing recent British Crime Survey statistics showing that 6.6% of 16- to 24-year-olds used cocaine last year, compared with 1.3% in 1996. Usage among those aged 16 to 59 jumped from 0.6% to 3% during the same period.
Iversen wrote that the figures were deeply concerning. Along with cocaine’s increased usage, the purity of samples had been decreasing because more “cutting agents” were being added. He hoped the review would “counteract the increasingly common misapprehension that cocaine is a relatively safe drug”.
Iversen – whose predecessor Professor David Nutt was sacked last year for criticising government drug policy – said he did not expect the report to result in a call for a change in the classification of cocaine’s existing Class A status.
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats both called for a change in the government’s approach to tackling addiction, with the shadow home office minister James Brokenshire criticising the closure of Middlegate Lodge, the country’s only specialist teenage residential drug rehabilitation centre.
The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Chris Huhne, said: “Instead of posturing on penalties and ignoring scientific advice, the government should focus on educating young people about the serious health consequences of drug abuse.”
A Home Office spokesman said: “Serious drug use among under-18s is declining. For the small minority of young people who need treatment, it is readily available.”
He acknowledged that the trend for cocaine use had changed and said the government had introduced effective treatment, education and early intervention for those most at risk.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Child cocaine treatment rises by more than 65%
Mar 2nd
• Number of under-18s receiving treatment rises to 745
• Cocaine use rises five-fold among 16-59-year-olds
• Drug advisory body to review effects of Class A drug
The number of under-18s receiving treatment for cocaine addiction in England has increased by more than 65%, NHS figures reveal.
The release of the figures today coincides with the announcement by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) of a review into the drug’s effects based on separate statistics showing that cocaine use has increased five-fold among 16- to 59-year-olds since 1996.
The NHS study, conducted by the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (pdf), found that the number of 18- to 24-year-olds receciving treatment has doubled since 2005.
Three-quarters of users combined cocaine with alcohol, according to the report. Mixing is thought to boost the high but also causes more damage to the heart and makes users more violent.
After six months of treatment with cognitive behavioural therapy, four in 10 people were no longer addicted, but nearly a quarter had dropped out of treatment.
Last year 12,354 people were treated for cocaine addiction in England. Between 2005-06 and 2008-09 the number of under-18s in treatment rose from 453 to 745, and the number of 18- to 24-year-olds doubled from 1,586 to 3,005.
Around one in 10 adults in England and Wales now admit to having used cocaine at some point in their lifetime – a three-fold increase on 1996.
The chairman of the ACMD, Professor Les Iversen, wrote to the home secretary (pdf) citing recent British Crime Survey statistics showing that 6.6% of 16- to 24-year-olds used cocaine last year, compared with 1.3% in 1996. Usage among those aged 16 to 59 jumped from 0.6% to 3% during the same period.
Iversen wrote that the figures were deeply concerning. Along with cocaine’s increased usage, the purity of samples had been decreasing because more “cutting agents” were being added. He hoped the review would “counteract the increasingly common misapprehension that cocaine is a relatively safe drug”.
Iversen – whose predecessor Professor David Nutt was sacked last year for criticising government drug policy – said he did not expect the report to result in a call for a change in the classification of cocaine’s existing Class A status.
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats both called for a change in the government’s approach to tackling addiction, with the shadow home office minister James Brokenshire criticising the closure of Middlegate Lodge, the country’s only specialist teenage residential drug rehabilitation centre.
The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Chris Huhne, said: “Instead of posturing on penalties and ignoring scientific advice, the government should focus on educating young people about the serious health consequences of drug abuse.”
A Home Office spokesman said: “Serious drug use among under-18s is declining. For the small minority of young people who need treatment, it is readily available.”
He acknowledged that the trend for cocaine use had changed and said the government had introduced effective treatment, education and early intervention for those most at risk.
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Time to prohibit drugs prohibition | Levent Akbulut
Feb 14th
From Juárez to London, the real victims of the ‘war on drugs’ are not the criminal gangs but ordinary young people
Nubia Legarda is a young woman from El Paso, Texas and Students for Sensible Drug Policy member. Just one year ago, she gave evidence to her city council urging them to pass a resolution on the violence in the Mexican border city of Juárez, and to promote a national debate over drug legalisation. While the resolution was initially passed, a number of representatives changed their minds after receiving pressure from the federal government, fearing that funding to the city would be cut in the event it passed.
Nubia has been unable to visit family in Juárez out of fear for the violence that is a daily feature of life there. She is just one of millions of young people around the world whose lives have been caught up in the war on drugs.
Last Thursday, people around the world lit candles to remember 16 young people who were murdered at a student house party in Juárez. They were celebrating when gunmen drove up to their house and opened fire on their victims. It is suspected they mistook the address for that of a rival drugs gang.
Last week, the El Paso city council passed a resolution to condemn the gang violence in Juárez, calling for a presidential summit on the drug war. Deleted from that motion again was a paragraph calling for the legalised regulation of cannabis by the US government. Clearly, the elimination of a major source of income from the cartels through regulation of sales would remove much of the profit incentive for impoverished but unscrupulous individuals to risk their lives and liberty by getting involved in a dangerous criminal empire, the product of global drug prohibition.
The tragic irony of this situation is that while prohibitionist drug laws are lauded as necessary to protect young people, they do the exact opposite. Speaking as someone who has attended secondary school in the past ten years, I can say it is an open secret that drugs are on sale in every secondary school in, for instance, London. Drug dealers do not ask for proof of ID. All the more concerning is that young people here get caught up in the same criminal culture, because of prohibition.
Opponents of anything other than the status quo will often claim that the removal of criminal penalties for possession and the regulation of the supply of currently criminalised drugs would “normalise” the use of drugs among young people. This is in the face of evidence that harsh drug laws do not lead to lower levels of use. After all, the United States, which has the highest prison population per capita in the world, the majority of whom are non-violent drug offenders, has higher levels of drug use than the Netherlands, even with its famously liberal drug laws.
Media hysteria, political posturing and lack of evidence lead the debate on drugs. Unless we can address the issue from the perspective of the welfare and rights of young people, drugs will continue to blight and cost lives – both in the UK, in Mexico, and worldwide.
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This cocaine report gets it so wrong | Niamh Eastwood
Mar 4th
Posted by Niamh Eastwood in Politics
No comments
The new parliamentary report on the cocaine trade lacks evidence and contradicts current expert thinking on the drug
The home affairs select committee (HASC) yesterday published its report on the cocaine trade, and what a woeful job they have done. It is hard to believe that this committee was the same one that in 2002 called for the government to initiate talks at the UN level to discuss “alternatives ways – including the possibility of legalisation and regulation – to tackle the global drugs dilemma”. The current report lacks evidence, contradicts current expert thinking and, frankly, panders to a “tough on drugs” stance that by their own admission does not work.
There are a number of serious problems with the report itself, but from Release’s position it is important that two points in particular are addressed.
Firstly, the environmental costing in the report is truly disingenuous. The report in its summary boldly states: “For each gram of cocaine consumed, 4 sq m of tropical forest is destroyed.” The HASC points to the submission from the Colombian government that if consumers were made aware of how their drug money was used “they would not only rethink their cocaine habit but actively support the eradication of coca crops from Colombia”.
Release has previously pointed out that the environmental argument that cocaine use and production are destroying large swathes of the rainforest is a distorted view. The damage caused to the rainforest is a direct result of the decision to use crop eradication as a method of tackling the production of coca. Sebastian Saville, executive director at Release, was recently invited as part of an international delegation to witness the spraying of crops through aerial fumigation in Colombia. He saw first-hand the devastation caused by spraying poisonous pesticides, ones that would not be tolerated for use in the US or EU, in an attempt by the Colombian government, supported by the US, to destroy coca. In reality, this aerial fumigation causes long-term damage to the land – destroying both coca and other vegetation – making it impossible to grow any crop for a number of years. This forces farmers to move further into the rainforest to locate new land and also to avoid detection by the government.
If HASC want this issue to be taken seriously, then it should have presented all the facts and evidence on this matter. Our colleagues at Transnational Institute have done some great work in this area. It is also worth watching the documentary film Shovelling Water where one can actually see the disastrous effects of this futile political gesture.
Secondly, the position taken by the committee in respect of the role of sentencing is frankly ridiculous. The HASC criticises the length of custodial sentences, stating that 47 months for the supply or intent to supply cocaine “may be tending to leniency”. This is at direct odds with the opinion of the Sentencing Advisory Panel (SAP), which last year highlighted that current sentencing for offences involving drugs was disproportionate when considering other more serious offences such as violent offences.
The SAP consultation paper compared the average sentence for importation and exportation of drugs (84 months) with a number of other offences including death by dangerous driving (44 months), GBH with intent to wound (50.1 months) and rape (79.7 months) – it is shocking that a violent sexual attack is treated less seriously than drug trafficking. Furthermore, SAP identified that the evidence shows lengthy sentences have little deterrent effect, especially considering the profits to be made from drug dealing. It is surprising, considering the level of academic and legal expertise on the Sentencing Advisory Panel, that HASC in their report paid no attention to the consultation paper on sentencing for drug offences.
Finally, and continuing on the sentencing issue, the HASC stated that: “We strongly believe that, if custodial sentences are handed down to cocaine users, they should be sufficiently long to ensure that the user can complete a treatment programme in prison.” There are so many things flawed about this statement but, most importantly, to suggest that one of the considerations of sentencing should be the completion of a treatment programme is frankly outrageous – people who need treatment for health problems should not be in prison, and that should have been the recommendation.
It is time that politicians realised the futility of pursuing the current strategy of prohibition – a strategy that has serious and harmful consequences for the whole of society. A proper debate must be had by the public, the media and politicians about how best to regulate and control all drugs. The HASC report dismisses the notion of legal regulation (which it incorrectly refers to as decriminalisation) but gives no good reason as to why this model should not be given serious consideration.