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Drug Policy Reform in Practice
Experiences with alternatives in Europe and the US
Tom Blickman Martin JelsmaNueva Sociedad No 222
July-August 2009The academic journal Nueva Sociedad recently released an issue to promote the debate in Latin America on drug policy reform. TNI contributed with the article Drug policy reform in practice: Experiences with alternatives in Europe and the US. The article aims to give inputs for the Latin American debate providing an overview of European drug policy practices regarding harm reduction, decriminalization of consumption and possession, and more tolerant policies towards cannabis, particularly in The Netherlands and several states in the US.
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From Golden Triangle to Rubber Belt?
The Future of Opium Bans in the Kokang and Wa Regions
Tom KramerTNI Drugs Policy Briefing Nr. 29
July 2009In the Kokang and Wa regions in northern Burma opium bans have ended over a century of poppy cultivation. The bans have had dramatic consequences for local communities. They depended on opium as a cash crop, to buy food, clothing, and medicines.
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Download the briefing (PDF)Coca Myths
Anthony Henman Pien MetaalTNI Drugs & Conflict Debate Paper 17
June 2009The coca leaf has been used and misused for many ends, each of them suiting different interests and agendas. Even its very name has been appropriated by a soft drinks producer, which still has difficulties in admitting that the plant is used to produce its "black gold". Every day press accounts around the world use the word coca in their headlines, when they refer in fact to cocaine.
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READ MORE...Pardon for Mules in Ecuador
A Sound Proposal
Pien MetaalSeries Legislative Reform of Drug Policies Nr. 1
February 2009At the end of 2008, about 1,500 persons were released who were in Ecuadorian prisons sentenced for drug trafficking. The measure, known as “pardon for mules,” singled out a specific group of prisoners who were victims of indiscriminate and disproportionate legislation that was in effect for many years.
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Download the briefing (268KB)Withdrawal Symptoms in the Golden Triangle
A Drugs Market in Disarray
Transnational Institute (TNI)
January 2009Drug control agencies have called the significant decline in opium production in Southeast Asia over the past decade a 'success story'. The latest report of the Transnational Institute (TNI). based on in-depth research in the region, casts serious doubts on this claim noting that Southeast Asia suffers from a variety of 'withdrawal symptoms' that leave little reason for optimism.
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The ATS Boom in Southeast Asia (PDF)
Conclusions and recommendations (PDF)
Download press release (PDF)Alternative Developments, Economic Interests and Paramilitaries in Uraba
Moritz TenthoffTNI Drug Policy Briefing Nr. 27
September 2008The following document analyses how the Forest Warden Families Programme and the Productive Projects of the Presidential Programme Against Illegal Crops in Colombia have been used to legalise paramilitary structures and implement mega agro-industrial projects in the Uraba Region.
READ MORE...Download the briefing (PDF)U.S. Drug Policy: At What Cost?
Moving Beyond the Self-Defeating Supply-Control Fixation
John WalshStatement before the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress
June 19, 2008My point in reviewing the experience with forced eradication is that a stiff dose of historical perspective is in order as policy makers contemplate the scope of the drug trade today, and engage in a critical examination of how to improve U.S. drug policies.
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READ MORE...Rewriting history
A response to the 2008 World Drug Report
TNI Drug Policy Briefing Nr. 26
June 2008The world today is not any closer to achieving the ten-year targets set by the 1998 UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on drugs. These goals were “eliminating or significantly reducing the illicit cultivation of coca bush, the cannabis plant and the opium poppy by the year 2008.” Instead global production of opiates and cocaine has significantly increased over the last ten years. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) global illicit opium production doubled from 4,346 tons in 1998 to 8,800 tons in 2007. This is mainly due to the massive increase in opium production in Afghanistan. The estimated global cocaine production increased from 825 tons in 1998 to 994 tons in 2007, an increase of 20%.
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READ MORE...The current state of drug policy debate
Trends in the last decade in the European Union and United Nations
Martin JelsmaArticle submitted as support material for the First Meeting of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy
Rio de Janeiro, April 30, 2008Martin Jelsma, from the Transnational Institute, prepared an analysis for the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, explaining the drug policy situation in the European Union and the current state of debate in the United Nations agenda. The commission is an initiative born of former presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso, from Brazil, César Gaviria, from Colombia and Ernesto Zedillo, from Mexico, to respond to concerns related to the problems of drug consumption and traffic in Latin America. The idea to constitute a commission capable of consolidating a debate concerning this problematic also responds to the necessity of reviewing the world drug policies in the scope of the United Nations, which began in March 2008.
READ MORE...Missing Targets
Counterproductive drug control efforts in Afghanistan
Martin Jelsma Tom KramerTNI Drug Policy Briefing Nr. 24
September 2007Despite efforts by the Afghan government and the international community to reduce poppy cultivation, opium production in Afghanistan has once again reached record levels in 2007. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) annual survey estimates that 193,000 hectares is under poppy cultivation, a 17 per cent increase on the record levels of 2006, yielding a harvest of 8,200 mt (an increase of 34 per cent). The main policy instruments to bring down these figures - eradication of opium poppy fields and implementing alternative livelihoods projects - are missing their targets.
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Drugs in the News
- German Health Minister lays out next steps for cannabis legalisation
17.08.2022 - Most Texans support legalizing pot for recreational or medical use, new poll finds
15.08.2022 - Colombia’s first leftist president says war on drugs has failed
08.08.2022 - Senate Democrats roll out long-awaited bill to legalize marijuana
21.07.2022 - Council of State opposes plan to ban sale of laughing gas
18.07.2022 - Brussels Mayor: ‘Police repression does not work, decriminalise cannabis now’
18.07.2022
Hilites
Balancing Treaty Stability and Change
Inter se modification of the UN drug control conventions to facilitate cannabis regulation
Connecting the dots...
Human rights, illicit cultivation and alternative development
Morocco and Cannabis
The Rise and Decline of Cannabis Prohibition
The History of Cannabis in the UN Drug Control System and Options For Reform