Issue-Drug Policy
The Harm Reduction International Conference has come to an end: what happens next?
Civil society organizations have issued five calls for action on current global drug policy and its impact on people who use substances.
Read MoreA Historic Vote at the CND: Colombia Challenges the Global Drug Control System
Here’s how the battle for a historic resolution unfolded at CND68 in Vienna: Colombia challenged the consensus, faced resistance, and secured the first-ever approval of an independent external review of the international drug control system. This is the report on what happened.
Read MoreAre we moving forward or backward? The global debate on drugs at CND68
Drug policy remains at a permanent crossroads. CND68 will determine whether we move towards a human rights and public health approach or remain in prohibitionism. Colombia hopes to maintain its global leadership and push for reform of the system.
Read MoreEmerging debate inside drug policy: climate change and the right to a healthy environment
The UN system can no longer ignore calls to align its objectives on drug policy, climate change and the protection of the right to a healthy environment. Beyond building policies on “environment” or “climate change,” the focus should be on human rights, particularly the right to a healthy environment.
Read MoreCaptagon, Syria and armed conflict: another failure of the war on drugs
The CND 67 scenario led to conversations around this substance, a kind of amphetamine whose trafficking networks are of concern to several governments. The human rights approach is minimal in the understanding of the problem, and in Colombia, we already know the consequences of this mistake.
Read MoreJustice Is Setting Them Free: Women, Drug Policies and Incarceration in Latin America
“Justice condemns women with a double penalty for being a woman… especially as a low-income woman, you’re invisible in the system until you commit a crime. Then, they finally see you.” —Nora Laura Calandra, co-founder of La Rama de Libertadxs y Familiares.
Read MoreGlobal drug policy: the transition from “crime and punishment” to safeguarding human rights
We were in Geneva at the presentation of the report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. One of the recommendations was the responsible and progressive regulation of drug markets.
Read MoreFiscal policy in the regulation of adult-use cannabis in Colombia
Drugs are not the Devil, but nor are they child’s play. A drug policy that would be respectful of human rights and safeguard public health must lie at an intermediate point between full liberalization and the prohibition currently in place.
Read MorePunitive drug laws: 10 years undermining the Bangkok Rules
A set of 70 rules that seek to adapt world prison systems to the needs and experiences of women deprived of liberty are in risk by the punitive approach of many drug laws.
Read MoreFraught with Pain: Access to Palliative Care and Treatment for Heroin Use Disorder in Colombia
This books seeks to facilitate linkages between discussions on the right to health and discussions on drug policy reform. The populations we talk about here are the noes most in need of a change whereby drug culture measures cease to stand in the way of a life free from pain.
Read MoreSentences for drug traffickers from South America’s Pacific
The harshest sentences are served by transporters who, in most cases, are dispensable actors in the value chain of narco-trafficking, and who are committing the crimes because of the marginalized and impoverished conditions in which they live.
Read MoreThe Vienna Consensus is broken, and we’re not going to fix it
Continuing to strengthen the idea that people who grow, traffic, and use drugs are citizens and human beings like everyone else is the first substantial step in restoring rights to populations who have suffered the harm of prohibition.
Read MoreThe Cocalera Marches: An Expression of the Right to Demand Rights
The cocalero movements have helped to create the right to have rights, to be citizens and to receive attention by the State beyond a war against drugs.
Read MoreUsing regulation to repair the mistakes of drug prohibition
Recognizing the ethno-racial biases of marijuana prohibition, the opening of the legal market has involved a series of measures aimed both at compensating for damage caused over the course of prohibition, and at overcoming conditions of economic inequality.
Read MoreIndigenous Sovereignty and the Wars on Drugs in the Americas
As drug policy reform takes on new meaning and energy across the hemisphere, let us also remember the historic indigenous effort to retain sovereignty over territory and sustain communities, now challenged by both drugs and the wars against them.
Read MoreThe battle for differentiated criminal treatment for small growers continues
On March 20th, the Ministry of Justice issued a new version of the bill on differentiated criminal treatment for small coca, marihuana and poppy growers. The proposed changes aim to respond to the General Attorney’s criticisms, but have generated concern and distrust among communities.
Read MoreThe right to live and die without pain in the Americas
Living and dying without pain is a very important component of the right to health. Consequently, States have an obligation not only to remove obstacles that prevent patients from obtaining palliative drugs, but also to promote more flexible programs and policies that facilitate access to these medicines.
Read MoreDejusticia and more than 70 international organizations request urgent attention for people who inject themselves with drugs in Colombia
In Colombia, the suspension of services puts at risk the advances achieved in recent years. More than 1,000 people are unattended.
Read MoreCoca: the plant that takes a toll
On April 2017, we traveled to the department of Putumayo, Colombia to speak with a group of cocalera women about how the Crop Substitution Program should advance. This is the powerful testimony of one of them.
Read MoreSobredosis carcelaria y política de drogas en América Latina
El CEDD publica su estudio sobre los impactos de las políticas de drogas en el sistema penitenciario de 10 países de América Latina. El uso excesivo del derecho penal y de sanciones privativas de libertad, tiene consecuencias sobre la vida de las personas en los sistemas penitenciarios de Argentina, Bolivia, Brasil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Estados Unidos, México, Perú y Uruguay.
Read MoreThe reduction of penalties for small growers is necessary
The Ministry of Justice’s proposal, a bill that regulates the differential criminal treatment for small coca, marihuana and poppy growers, proposes a permanent reduction of penalties for the cultivation and conservation offenses. This reform is an urgent and necessary step towards drug reform policy.
Read MoreCoca, institutions, and development
This document aims to analyze the challenges that coca producing municipalities face in two crucial aspects in the future: the construction of a local State and the definition of a human development path that is both integral and participatory.
Read MoreA balancing act. Drug policy in Colombia after UNGASS 2016
This document is the result of a project developed by Dejusticia in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice and Law of Colombia and the British Embassy in Colombia, with funds from the United Kingdom through its embassy in Colombia.
Read MoreWorlds apart: Access to essential medicines for pain relief
We need to understand that the person battling addiction is facing an illness that needs public health policies just as much as those facing the end of life. The experience of pain, whether we experience it ourselves or we watch a loved one suffer, should remind us of the fragility of life and the need for compassion and empathy.
Read MoreUndue pressure in the wrong direction
Why let the United States continue to pressure the government to deal harshly with communities that plant coca, if the problem lies in the ban promoted by the U.S. and delays in rural development in Colombia?
Read MoreDrug crimes and prison overdose in Colombia
This research, carried out by Dejusticia and the Research Consortium on Drugs and the Law, assesses the impact of drug policy on the prison system and recommends, among other measures, to decriminalize the possession of a personal dose.
Read MoreDecree that created the National Comprehensive Program for Crop Substitution is constitutional
In an intervention before the Constitutional Court, Dejusticia argued that this norm conforms to the Constitution. However, the organization warned that the deadline to determine the beneficiaries should be reconsidered because it could leave out a group of peasants living in poverty.
Read MoreIntervention before the Constitutional Court in the revision of Decree-Law 249 of 2017, which regulates a specific hiring process for manual eradication for the implementation of the peace process
Dejusticia asked the Constitutional Court to declare invalid Decree-Law 249 of 2017 (DL 249/2017), for two reasons: in issuing this rule, the President of the Republic exceeded the special powers for peace because it did not demonstrate the strict necessity to regulate this subject by this extraordinary way; and the contracting procedure that regulates DL 249/2017 violates the constitutional principles governing public procurement.
Read MorePersons Deprived of Liberty for Drug Offenses
The research of the Collective on Persons Detained, Processed and Imprisoned presents statistical information about detention and imprisonment for drug offenses in Latin America and advocates for an overhaul of drug laws and their implementation in Latin America. — La evidencia existente muestra que, a nivel mundial, la política de drogas ha implicado diversos costos…
Read MoreArguments and pathways for the ratification of the American Convention on Protecting the Human Rights of Older Persons
On June 15, 2015, the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) adopted the text of the Inter-American Convention on Protecting the Human Rights of Older Persons (Convention on Older Persons).
Read MoreDejusticia presents on precautionary principle to the Constitutional Court in case of illicit crops fumigation with glyphosate
In a Constitutional Protection (tutela) case, Dejusticia argued for the precautionary principle to protect the rights to health, the environment, ethnic territories, peasant territoriality, and water resources in rural communities.
Read MorePalliative Care and its Status in Latin America
Dejusticia launched a report on the status of palliative care across eight countries in Latin America.
Read MoreWomen, Drug Policy, and Imprisonment: A Guide for Reforming Policy in Colombia
This guide diagnoses the impact of deprivation of liberty on women imprisoned due to drug offenses, and formulates recommendations to mitigate and prevent the disproportionate effects of incarceration.
Read MoreIntervention in Favor of the Nasa Community due to Glyphosate in Putumayo
Dejusticia intervened in the revision process of a writ of constitutional protection case due to the violation of the indigenous community Nasa’s right to prior consultation in Putumayo, resulting in the aereal fumigation with glysophate of illicit crops.
Read MoreWe Ask the Government to Immediately Suspend Glifosate Fumigations
We ask the Justice Ministry, as the President of the National Narcotics Council, the Technical Secretary of that organization, and the Anti-Narcotics Director of the National Police, to immediately suspend all glifosate spraying operations in the Colombian territory, in application of the precautionary principle.
Read MoreLetter regarding human rights and drug policies to governments participating in the OAS General Assembly in Guatemala.
More than fifty civil society organizations from the Americas presented a letter to the governments gathered this week in Guatemala, for the General Assembly meeting of the OAS. In the letter the organizations urgently call for putting human rights protection at the center of the debate over drug policies.
Read MoreIntervention regarding the constitutional prohibition of possession and consumption of narcotic substances.
Dejusticia intervened to challenge a legislative constitutional reform prohibiting the possession and consumption of drugs, which sought to replace jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court that interpreted the right to personal autonomy as permitting the possession of a personal dose of drugs.
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