News Alerts
We send out a monthly Alert with news items, updates on the latest publications in our library and upcoming drug policy events. These Alerts are distributed by email and reach more than 10,000 policymakers, academics and practitioners in over 100 countries. The previous Alerts can be downloaded from our site in both English and Spanish through the 'Archived Alerts' box on the left.
News items regarding IDPC or our members are listed below and can be accessed by relevant month on the top left of this page.
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In this video, HCLU interviewed drug users, professionals and researchers about HIV and harm reduction in Lebanon.
In response to the ban on the use of federal funds to support needle and syringe exchange programmes, advocates have drafted a Position Statement condemning the ban, while emphasizing the efficacy and effectiveness of these programmes.
A drug project plans to set up the country’s first consumption room to allow users inject drugs under medical supervision. Such a facility is currently illegal under Irish law, but the Anna Liffey project wants to open one by the end of 2014.
Bolivia has signed an agreement with the US and Brazil to help reduce the production of illegal cocaine. The US and Brazil will provide technical assistance, including satellite monitoring of coca crops.
The purpose of the current evaluation is also to help define priorities for the next EMCDDA work programme starting in 2013. Read more.
In keeping with the regressive turn that the Dutch drug policy has taken under its conservative coalition government, the government said it will ban khat, a plant used by people from the Horn of Africa and the Arabian peninsula for its mild stimulant properties.
Ricardo Soberon, the reformist head of DEVIDA, the Peruvian drug agency, has been fired and replaced. Soberon made waves last August when he implemented a temporary ban on forced eradication of coca plants, taking the US Embassy by surprise, but that was soon reversed on the orders of his boss, Interior Minister Oscar Valdes.
For the past few months, the Civil Society Forum on Drugs has been drafting a list of recommendations to guide the European Commission in drafting the new EU Drug Strategy.
Initiative for Health, a harm reduction NGO, organised the first street action in Bulgaria to promote drug policy reform. The event was part of a coordinated international advocacy campaign of the European Drug Policy Initiative.
On December 5, 2011, the Romanian Government issued a new Emergency Ordinance which amends the current legislation on drugs. The new provision simplifies the procedures for amending the lists with controlled substances: from now on it will be easier to criminalise a new substance, once identified.
