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Vancouver Safe Injection Site Saves Lives, Report Finds

Drug overdose deaths in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside fell dramatically after a safe injection site opened there, according to a study published online Monday in the British medical journal The Lancet. Fatal drug overdoses declined 35% in the vicinity of the Insite safe injection site in the two years after it opened, compared to only a 9% decline in the rest of the city.

Vancouver's Insite safe injection site on East Hastings Street (Image courtesy Vancouver Coastal Health)
"No one has ever been able to demonstrate a substantial reduction in overdose deaths due to the presence of a safe injection site, but we have done so," said Thomas Kerr of the Urban Health Research Initiative at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver and one of the authors of the study.

The study examined 290 drug overdose deaths between 2001 and 2005, 89 of which occurred within 500 meters of the Insite location. Insite opened in 2003. After Insite opened, the overdose death rate within 500 meters dropped from 253.8 per 100,000 to 165.1 per 100,000, a 35% decrease. In the two years prior to Insite opening, 56 neighborhood drug users suffered fatal overdoses; in the two years after, only 33 did.

Previous research had shown that Insite reduced behaviors that could lead to blood-borne infections like Hepatitis C and HIV and contributed to public order by getting IV drug use off the streets and into a clinical setting.

It is not that drug overdoses do not occur at Insite; in fact, there have been 2,000 of them at the facility, but no deaths. In addition to providing injection booths and clean syringes, Insite has nurses on staff who can and do revive users who have overdosed.

Despite previously demonstrated benefits of Insite and the strong support of provincial health authorities, Canada's Conservative government has sought repeatedly to shut it down. The Canadian Supreme Court next month will hear the government's appeal of British Columbia courts' rulings that denying injection drug users such a service violates their rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and that the province has jurisdiction in the case because Insite is providing a health care service, a provincial function.

For the study's authors, the conclusion was obvious: "Safe injection facilities should be considered where injection drug use is prevalent, particularly in areas with high density of overdose."

Vancouver
Canada

‘Shooting Galleries’ Take Aim at Illicit Drug Market

Localização: 
United Kingdom
Lately, a few British politicians have revived the idea of dispensing taxpayer-funded heroin. Spurred by successful trials in the U.K. and elsewhere in Europe, the idea that governments can reduce both addiction and street crime — and maybe bleed black markets dry — by managing drug distribution has gained momentum. "It is time to replace our failed war on drugs with a strict system of legal regulation," a British MP named Bob Ainsworth said at the end of last year. "We must take the trade away from organized criminals and hand it to the control of doctors and pharmacists."
Publication/Source: 
Miller-McCune (CA)
URL: 
http://www.miller-mccune.com/legal-affairs/shooting-galleries-take-aim-at-illicit-drug-market-27940/

Copenhagen Safe Injection Site Set to Open

A private safe injection site for heroin users is set to open in Copenhagen this week despite warnings from police and over the objections of neighbors. The harm reduction operation will be located in the city's Vesterbro district near Central Station. It will be the first in Denmark.

Copenhagen's Vesterbro district (Image via Wikimedia)
Police said they did not oppose the site's opening, but would shut it down if they find people using drugs there. "The room is not illegal per se, but possession of narcotics is illegal," Copenhagen Police spokesman Arne Wissing told the Copenhagen Post.  "We have no intention to sit passively and witness criminal acts, so if we see people in possession of illegal drugs, we will certainly act."

But safe injection site organizer Michael Lodberg Olsen said there was nothing illegal about it. "If that's the case, then they could just as well have shut down all of Vesterbro 30 years ago," he said, referring to needle exchange programs that have operated there for decades. "A report from the UN states that handing out clean needles to drug abusers is the same as establishing an injection room," he said.

Safe injection sites are already operating in Australia, Canada, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Spain. There are no safe injection sites in the US, although there has been talk about establishing one in San Francisco.

Copenhagen
Denmark

The Prospects for Drug Reform: California [FEATURE]

[Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of reports on the prospects for drug reform in a handful of states where the chances of legalizing marijuana are the strongest. But these reports will also look at medical marijuana, harm reduction, and sentencing reform prospects. They are a work in progress and will be revised. Look for reports on Colorado, Oregon, and Washington in coming weeks.]

California, viewed from space
The West Coast is a different world when it comes to progress on drug policy reform. Three of the four states most likely to see strong pushes for marijuana legalization in the next couple of years are on the West Coast (the other being Colorado). And medical marijuana is a fact of life from San Diego to Seattle, even if many bruising battles remain, and is certain to be an area of contention in coming years.

But it's not just pot politics that makes the West Coast different. The region has also been a pioneer in sentencing reform and harm reduction practices, even if countervailing forces remain strong and both policy areas remain contested terrain.

And the fact that all three states are initiative and referendum states adds another dimension to the politics of drug reform. In all three states, the initiative process has been an important vehicle for drug reform, although it has also been used for anti-reform efforts, most notably with Oregon sentencing initiatives.

Will the West Coast continue to be the drug reform vanguard? Here, we look at the prospects for reform in four broad areas -- medical marijuana, marijuana legalization or decriminalization, drug sentencing reform, and the enactment of harm reduction practices -- and assess where the reform movement can most productively apply its energies. We also attempt to identify areas and issues around which larger coalitions can be formed to advance drug policy and criminal justice reform objectives.

We begin with California, the first state to legalize medical marijuana and that state where advocates last year came within a handful of percentage points of winning voter approval for pot legalization. California is the nation's most populous state and has long been at the cutting edge of social change, but now it is also faced with a monstrous $25 billion budget deficit. How social change and fiscal crisis interact in the realm of drug reform policy-making will be a key issue for advocates as they attempt to deepen existing drug reforms and introduce new ones.

Marijuana Legalization

Last year saw efforts to legalize pot both in Sacramento and at the ballot box in November. Rep. Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) made history when his legalization bill was approved by the Assembly Public Safety Committee, but that bill later died. Ammiano is back at it again this year, but getting a legalization bill through the legislature will be a tough fight.

The tax and regulate marijuana legalization initiative led by Oaksterdam's Richard Lee managed to put together an impressive coalition of labor, civil rights, and other groups in the run-up to the November election, but that wasn't enough to get the measure over the top. Proposition 19 scored 46.5% of the vote. Legalization advocates are already laying the groundwork for another initiative; several hundred people gathered at a sold-out California NORML (CANORML) conference in Berkeley late last month in a bid to take the first steps toward consensus among the state's complex, variegated, and often fractious marijuana community.

While Prop 19 failed to win a majority, reformers see the coalition-building that took place around it as a basic building block toward eventual victory. For the first time, pot legalization enjoyed organized support from outside the marijuana community.

"Prop 19 has opened up everything and moved marijuana legalization into the mainstream of American politics, particularly in the Western states," said Steve Gutwillig, California state director for the Drug Policy Alliance. "Its defeat was at most a speed bump, and the Prop 19 campaign process itself accelerated the marijuana reform movement. It created unprecedented mainstream media coverage, educated millions of voters, and forged a new coalition that is poised to be recreated and expanded on in California and other states in 2012," he said.

Winning a legalization vote in California means continuing to mobilize labor and civil rights groups, he said. And the stars are aligning.

"Organized labor has to be at the table of what is clearly a burgeoning industry with thousands of viable jobs from agriculture to retail. For mainstream civil rights organizations, the racial profiling that is at the center of marijuana enforcement is an issue that intersects with groups with whom they are naturally allied on other issues. We're seeing a confluence of economic and racial justice issues at a time when mainstream voters are expressing a fatigue with the drug war in general and a contempt for marijuana prohibition in particular," Gutwillig argued.

"The SEIU's endorsement of Prop 19 in California opened the door to a serious conversation with the service employee unions all across the country, said Gutwillig. "The SEIU also took a long look at the Washington initiative, but didn't think the numbers were there. But even that examination was significant. The SEIU thought the timing wasn't right last year, but all of this will be in play again and all of this represents real progress in coalition building. This conversation is taking place in a way that was unimaginable five years ago."

Gutwillig identified one more constituency reformers will be working to draw closer: the Democratic Party and its voters.

"The California Democratic Party took a neutral position, but a majority of county Democratic committees endorsed Prop 19," he noted. "That signals that there will be real conversations about what role marijuana legalization will play in terms of turnout among traditional Democratic voters."

Long-time CANORML head and veteran scene-watcher Dale Gieringer doesn't think winning outright marijuana legalization is going to be easy despite the coalition-building. Instead, he is talking about getting to the Promised Land through small steps and by broadening the existing medical marijuana system with its population of legally sanctioned adult users and providers.

Gieringer wants to down-grade minor marijuana distribution and cultivation offenses from felonies to misdemeanors, legalize private adult use, and establish a legally-regulated production system that includes manufacturing, processing, delivery, and legal sales to legally authorized users, namely anyone who has a medical marijuana recommendation.

"That would leave room for local governments to expand the universe of authorized users" without explicitly legalizing non-medicinal sale to adults, Gieringer said. "Taking on adult sales at this moment is premature, but we can write a law that opens the door to adult sales without explicitly doing it immediately."

Medical Marijuana

Using California's existing medical marijuana program as a segue to adult legalization, however, requires something the state still lacks: clarity about what is and is not allowed by Proposition 215 and the legislature's attempt to clarify it, SB 420. Some state prosecutors insist that no medical marijuana sales are legal, and the courts have yet to provide rigorous guidance. Cases have been and are being prosecuted in those counties, meaning that access to medical marijuana depends to a great extent on where one lives within California.

"Fixing the medical marijuana system has to be integral and a number one priority," said Gieringer. "We have to make changes to the medical marijuana system. The public is not happy with the current situation and would like something that is better regulated. A lot of operators feel the same way, but have differing opinions about what would be nice."

While a fix could come through the legislature, Gieringer was leery. "I can't see the legislature passing anything we would like," he said. "Given the level of support we have in Sacramento, we could probably get a bill to clearly allow medical marijuana sales, but it would also likely be loaded down with things we would find unacceptable, like 1000-foot provisions, no on-site smoking, no sale of edibles and the like," he predicted.

"They dickered around with it last year, but it was mainly about extracting money from everybody," Gieringer continued. "What's really needed is to clarify what's legal and what isn't."

Gieringer suggested that the people working on marijuana legalization initiatives include clarifying medical marijuana sales. "I think we could get something better through a vote of the people," he said. "I am hoping that medical marijuana reform will be part of the next legalization effort if there is one."

Such a strategy also has the potential of blunting opposition to a legalization initiative within the medical marijuana community. Some dispensary operators and medical marijuana patients were among the harshest critics of Prop 19.

Job protection for medical marijuana users is another area with the potential for coalition-building. State Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) has introduced a bill to prevent most employers from firing medical marijuana users who test positive for the drug. Perhaps unions, who, after all, represent workers, would be amenable to working on the issue.

Sentencing Reform

California's bloated prison system, with its insatiable, dollar-gobbling budgetary demands has seen some sentencing reform, most notably the passage by initiative of the "treatment not jail" Proposition 36. But the prisons remain full, and with no state money for the treatment end of Prop 36, it's only the law enforcement side of the equation that is fully functioning.

In announcing his budget proposal last month, Gov. Jerry Brown (D) including diverting people convicted "nonviolent, non-serious, non-sex offenses, and without any previous convictions for such offenses" to county jails instead of the state prison system. That includes first-time drug offenders. 

"Governor Brown set an important tone and made it clear that our expensive state prisons should be reserved for people convicted of serious offenses, not for everyone who's ever made a mistake,"  said Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, DPA deputy state director for Southern California. "California is expected to save $500 million a year by handling more petty offenses, including low-level drug possession, at the county level. We think the savings would be even greater if drug treatment were made more available in the community. Under the plan, counties would have that option."

An opportunity to save big bucks and reduce the yawning budget gap could appeal to fiscal conservatives, but in California, conservatives have a long tradition of using tough on crime politics to fill the prisons. Whether they could swallow a measure that to some degree empties them remains to be seen.

"The challenge is finding fiscally conservative Republicans who are willing to publicly challenge the drug war orthodoxy that has long been a mainstay of the Republican Party," said Gutwillig. "There are plenty of Republicans who are willing to say privately they know the mass arrests and incarceration of low-level drug offenders is not a good use of scarce resources, but they have a hard time breaking ranks with a GOP leadership that still needs inflexible tough on crime rhetoric to beat up on the substantial Democratic majorities in both houses of the legislature. It's one of their main tools to undermine the Democratic reform instinct.

Still, the continuing budget crisis may allow reformers to peel off a conservative or two, Gutwillig said. "The economics of the state are in such open-ended crisis that no one can deny the reality that we can no longer afford the blank check we perpetually give to law enforcement and the corrections system."

A 2008 sentencing reform initiative, the Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act (NORA) would have deepened and vastly broadened the Prop 36 reforms, but was defeated thanks to last minute attacks by prison guards and politicians. The time could be approaching for another effort on that front, either in the legislature or via the initiative process. 

Harm Reduction

Access to clean needles, preventing not only heroin, but, increasingly, prescription opioid overdose deaths, and opening a safe injection site in San Francisco are some of the issues facing California's harm reduction community. As in other reform areas, the perpetual budget crisis means if anything is going to happen, it better be inexpensive.

"We can't do anything this year that costs money, so we have to be about erasing some of the rules and barriers that exist," said Hilary McQuie, Western director of the Harm Reduction Coalition. "Jerry Brown is pretty good on these issues, and we have a solidly Democratic government, so we should be able to get some of these things through as long as there is no fiscal impact."

Brown's predecessor, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), wasn't so good on harm reduction issues. Last year, he failed to sign two bills that would have eased access to syringes. One expanded a pilot pharmacy syringe sales program statewide; the other expanded access to needle exchanges statewide.

"It looks like those bills will be reintroduced this year," said McQuie.

Overdose prevention continues to be a key harm reduction issue. Last year, a bill extending liability protection for the opioid antagonist naloxone to peer providers passed, but it only applies in a limited number of counties.

"We would like to see Naloxone made more easily available to people," said McQuie. "Maybe pharmacists could prescribe it along with opiates."

McQuie mentioned prescription opiates because that's where the action is now. And that means harm reductionists have to adapt their tactics to new clienteles. With prescription drug overdoses rising dramatically, programs aimed mainly at injection heroin users must now broaden their focus.

"Most of our overdose education happens through needle exchanges and other sites that reach injection drug users, but the trend in overdoses is toward prescription drugs," said McQuie. "We hope we can build coalitions with pharmacists, drug treatment people, and medical associations around peer intervention for overdose prevention among prescription drug users."

But coalition-building with drug and alcohol treatment providers means harm reductionists come up against abstinence-based advocates. "It is a long-term project for us to get them to recognize that they are serving people who are currently using rather than just addressing needs of people in treatment," McQuie sighed. "That will be really important for us. We need a bigger coalition in place."

And then there's the San Francisco safe injection site. At this point, it's little more than a gleam in the eye of harm reductionists, although the creation of such a site has been recommended first by the San Francisco HIV planning council and just last month by the mayor's Hepatitis C Task Force.

But given budgetary constraints, as well as morality-based opposition certain to emerge, if a safe injection site is going to happen, it's most likely to happen from the ground up. Vancouver, where drug users organized themselves and started their own safe injection site, could be a possible model, said McQuie.

"It's out on the horizon, and we're going to try," she said. "But nobody has the staff, resources, and willingness to risk their program sites and funding for this project. The way this could happen is if one of the agencies or drug user groups just starts doing it. It seems unlikely they would get prior permission."

Given the strain that existing harm reduction programs are under, maybe a new, expensive safe injection site program isn't the highest priority right now, McQuie. "But what this proposal does is open up a bigger conversation about harm reduction. Still, we need to set the stage for when the economy rebounds, and also to be prepared to step up and support whoever starts doing it."

California is fertile terrain for drug policy reform. It is also fiercely contested terrain. The coming years will tell whether the forces of reform can forge the alliances they need to emerge victorious on any number of fronts.

CA
United States

SF Mayor's Hep C Task Force Recommends Supervised Injection Facilities (Press Release)

For Immediate Release: February 9, 2011                                   

Contact: Laura Thomas at (415) 283-6366 or Tommy McDonald (510) 229-5215

SF Mayor’s Hepatitis C Task Force Issues Recommendations for Fighting Epidemic, Including Supervised Injection Facilities (SIF)

SIF Allow People to Consume Their Drugs with Sterile Equipment in Presence of Medically-Trained Staff; Reduce HIV, Overdose Deaths and Public Drug Use, While Not Increasing Drug Use

SF Elected Officials Need to Embrace Science and Public Health Approach


The San Francisco Mayor’s Hepatitis C Task Force issued its report a few weeks ago, with strong recommendations for how San Francisco can better address the hepatitis C epidemic here. There are an estimated 12,000 people living with hepatitis C in San Francisco, most of whom do not know that they are infected. San Francisco has the opportunity to ensure that everyone knows their risk, knows their status, has access to hepatitis C treatment and support if they need it, and has the tools and information that they need to protect themselves from hepatitis C. One of those tools, as recommended by the Task Force, is a supervised injection site, where people could consume their drugs with sterile equipment in the presence of medicallytrained staff.

“Supervised injection facilities reduce HIV and overdose deaths without increasing drug use,” says Laura Thomas, deputy state director, San Francisco for the Drug Policy Alliance. “This has been done around the world and it has been proven to work effectively.”

Supervised injection facilities (SIFs) are operating in many countries around the world. They are not a new idea and the science has shown that they work. Insite, in Vancouver, British Columbia, has been extensively evaluated and has shown that a SIF can reduce public drug use, hepatitis C and HIV risk behaviors, overdoses, and other health problems, while not increasing crime or drug use.

In fact, Insite increased the number of people entering treatment for their problematic drug use. SIFs are a serious and well-researched approach to a significant problem. Politicians who are committed to reducing the harms that drugs create for our communities would be well served by paying attention to the evidence.

“San Francisco has led the way in dealing with HIV. The City needs to take these recommendations seriously and begin to address hepatitis C with the same courage and leadership it has shown for HIV,” Thomas added. “Politics can’t trump science in this case. There are too many lives on the line and here will be a serious price for slow learning curve.

“We need elected officials who are not afraid to do the right thing, and who are willing to put all of the options on the table as we fight the spread of hepatitis C and HIV.”

Localização: 
San Francisco, CA
United States

San Francisco 30-Member Task Force Unanimously Backs Legal Intravenous Drug Center

Localização: 
San Francisco, CA
United States
A San Francisco task force charged with devising strategies for reducing Hepatitis C infections has recommended making the city the first in the U.S. with a drop-in center where intravenous drug users can obtain needles and shoot up.
Publication/Source: 
San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
URL: 
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fn%2Fa%2F2011%2F02%2F06%2Fstate%2Fn121708S00.DTL

Perspective: To Prevent AIDS in Russia, Drug Addicts Need Care

Localização: 
Russia
Russia has one of the fastest spreading HIV epidemics in the world, driven largely by the government's refusal to institute measures to treat the country's drug addicts — measures that have dramatically reduced HIV infections in drug addicts in other countries, including the U.S.
Publication/Source: 
TIME (US)
URL: 
http://healthland.time.com/2011/01/18/perspective-to-prevent-aids-in-russia-drug-addicts-need-care/

Safe Shooting: Downtown Needle Exchange Cactus Montreal Says It Will Open A Safe Injection Site Next Year, With Or Without Provincial Approval

Localização: 
Montreal, QC
Canada
If a Montreal needle exchange has its way, Quebec will soon become the second Canadian province to offer a safe-injection site — whether the provincial government wants it or not. Cactus Montreal, announced last week that it will offer IV drug users space to inject drugs under medical supervision at their office on Ste-Catherine E. and Sanguinet. Their goal is to reduce HIV and hepatitis C infection and prevent accidental overdose deaths.
Publication/Source: 
The Mirror (Canada)
URL: 
http://www.montrealmirror.com/wp/2010/12/09/news/safe-shooting/

Portuguese Drug Reformers Look Beyond Decriminalization [FEATURE]

The Portuguese government has garnered well-earned plaudits for its nine-year-old policy of the decriminalization of drug possession, first last year from Glenn Greenwald in a White Paper commissioned by the Cato Institute, and just last month in a new academic study in the British Journal of Criminology. But while they applaud the Portuguese government for embracing decriminalization, some drug user advocates there are saying there is more to be done.

Lisbon, capital of Portugal
Portugal broke new ground back in July 2001 when it decriminalized the possession of up to a 10-day supply of all illicit drugs. Under the new policy, drug users caught with drugs are not arrested, but are instead referred to regional "committees for the dissuasion of addiction." Those committees are empowered to impose warnings or administrative penalties, including fines, restrictions on driving, and referral to treatment.

But in most cases, the committees simply suspend the proceedings, meaning that, in effect, no punishment is meted out. The decriminalization policy has been accompanied by increased investment in treatment and harm reduction services, including methadone maintenance for people addicted to heroin.

As Greenwald found last year, and researchers Dr. Caitlin Hughes and Professor Alex Stevens last month, decriminalization is working. Hughes and Stevens found that while there had been a modest increase in drug use by adults, it was in line with increases reported by other southern European countries.

While drug use increased modestly, Hughes and Stevens were able to report that the harms associated with drug use had decreased under decriminalization. They found a reduction in the rate of spread of HIV/AIDS, a reduction in drug-related deaths, and a reduction in drug use by adolescents. They also found that drug seizures had increased under decriminalization.

"Contrary to predictions, the Portuguese decriminalization did not lead to major increases in drug use," the researchers concluded. "Indeed, evidence indicates reductions in problematic use, drug-related harms and criminal justice overcrowding.”

For Hughes and Stevens, the Portuguese experiment was also significant because it showed that decriminalization reduces harm for all drugs, not just marijuana. "Such effects can be observed when decriminalizing all drugs," they wrote. "This is important, as decriminalization is commonly restricted to cannabis alone."

Speaking in New York last week, Stevens elaborated: "The evidence from Portugal suggests that we could end the criminalization of users of all types of drugs -- and not just marijuana -- without increasing drug use and harms. It also shows the importance of continued investment in treatment services and harm reduction to reduce drug-related deaths and HIV."

But while Portugal's decriminalization is gathering praise from abroad, the view from the ground is a bit more nuanced. Decriminalization has improved the lives of drug users, but much remains to be done, said Jorge Roque, a Portuguese attorney who works with the European Coalition for Just and Effective Drug Policies (ENCOD), the International Network of People Who Use Drugs (INPUD), and the Portuguese group Diferenca Real, which attempts to improve conditions for drug users there.

"Decriminalization allowed drug users to stop being persecuted by the police and helped many of them realize they are not criminals simply because they chose to use drugs," said Roque. "And many people are now receiving help from the drug attendance centers," where addicted drug users may be sent after being caught. "Many drug users are trying hard to stay within the law, because if one isn't a criminal just for using drugs and one can pay for his drugs through his job, he doesn't want to be identified as a criminal, which was impossible before decriminalization."

Decriminalization has also led to changes in policing, said Roque. "After some time, the police shifted from arresting drug users to going after small-time dealers," he noted. "The police realized that arresting the small-timers is the best way to catch the big sharks," he said, alluding to the continuing black market drug trade. "The black market remains. Decriminalization didn't stop that," Roque said.

"The majority of drug-related crime wasn't caused by using a drug," the attorney continued, "but by committing an offense to buy drugs. Decriminalization is an important step, but it is only a step. Drug distribution is still forbidden in Portugal, and that means traffickers have a monopoly on the drug supply, and as a result, the prices are very high. So many people commit small thefts to buy their drugs, and the police try to control them and the drug neighborhoods with all the usual abuses."

The Portuguese government should not be sitting on its laurels, Roque said. While it deserves praise for what it has done, it has not done enough, he said.

"We are completely happy that the government decriminalized drug use, but the drug situation is very complex and touches on many different aspects -- legal, political, health, social, economic, morality -- and we have some demands that we think the government is not addressing because it is satisfied with what it has done with decriminalization," said Roque.

That point was echoed by Joep Oomen, head of ENCOD. If the Portuguese government stops with just decriminalization, it will be just as hypocritical as any other government, he said.

"By decriminalizing the use and possession of small quantities of illegal drugs, Portugal has reduced the immediate damage of drug prohibition," Oomen said. "The police don't persecute users and petty dealers as much, and problematic users find their way to health services. But decriminalization has not solved the main problem of prohibition: Drugs continue to be distributed by traffickers who inflate the price, impose criminal marketing methods, and have minimal concern for product quality or the safety of consumers. If Portuguese authorities do not take the next step toward legal regulation of the market, their policies will remain as hypocritical as those of any other country," he said.

But that's unlikely any time in the near future, said Roque. Even other drug reforms this side of ending prohibition are now stalled, he said.

"After all the international news reporting on the success of decriminalization in Portugal, the politicians' egos are so big they think they don't need to do anything else," said Roque. "But many drug users want to see safe injection sites, heroin maintenance programs, and the like, instead of just decriminalizing use. Similarly, the cannabis reform bill is still stuck in parliament waiting for approval. The government says it is busy with the international financial crisis and now our own public deficit, and can't do anything, even though this could mean revenues for the government."

With its drug decriminalization policy, Portugal has indeed become a beacon to the world, a model of progressive drug reform that could and should be emulated elsewhere. But as Roque and Oomen make clear, decriminalization is only half the battle.

Portugal

Canadian Coalition Calls for Injection Site for Drug Users

Localização: 
Montreal, QC
Canada
Saying the billions spent on the war on illegal drugs have done nothing other than fuel the transmission of HIV and hepatitis C, a coalition of Quebec addiction support centers is calling for the creation of a supervised injection site for drug users in Montreal.
Publication/Source: 
The Gazette (Canada)
URL: 
http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/Group+calls+injection+site+drug+users/3902154/story.html

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