Children of the Drug War: Specialty Seminar at LSE

The Mannheim Centre for Criminology is holding a speciality seminar to mark the publication of Children of the Drug War by Damon Barrett.

When? Tuesday, November 22, 2011, 6 :00-7 :30 pm.

Where? Moot Court Room, 7th floor, New Academic Building, Lincoln’s Inn Fields

Chaired by Damon Barrett

Speakers: Jennifer Fleetwood – Mothers and Children of the Drug War : A View from a Women’s Prison in Quito, Ecuador.

Steve Rolles – After the War on Drugs : How Legal Regulation of Production and Trade Would Better Protect Children

Michael Shiner – Taking Drugs Together: Early Adult Transitions and the Limits of Harm Reduction in England and Wales

About the book

Children of the Drug War is a unique collection of original essays that investigates the impacts of the war on drugs on children, young people and their families. With contributions from around the world, providing different perspectives and utilizing a wide range of styles and approaches including ethnographic studies, personal accounts and interviews, the book asks fundamental questions of national and international drug control systems:

•What have been the costs to children and young people of the war on drugs?
•Is the protection of children from drugs a solid justification for current policies?
•What kinds of public fears and preconceptions exist in relation to drugs and the drug trade?
•How can children and young people be placed at the forefront of drug policies?

For further details see http://www.childrenofthedrugwar.org/

About the speakers

Damon Barrett is Senior Human Rights Analyst at Harm Reduction International.

Jennifer Fleetwood Is Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Kent.

Steve Rolles is Senior Policy Analyst at the Transform Drug Policy Foundation.

Michael Shiner is Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Social Policy at the London School of Economics.

RSVP: If you are planning to attend please let Michael Shiner know (m.shiner@lse.ac.uk)

‘Narco-Terror: Conflating the Wars on Drugs and Terror’, P. Gallahue, Essex Human Rights Review, Vol. 8 No. 1, October 2011

The following article is a fascinating insight into the increasing conflation of the wars on drugs and terror and the implications for human rights.

It appears in the current special edition of the Essex Human Rights Review, which focuses on ‘Balancing Counter-Terrorism Efforts with Human Rights a Decade After 9/11′

All article are free to read online.

Abstract

Following 11 September 2001, the United States found itself at war with the Taliban, an enemy that heavily exploits the drug trade, narrowing the divide between the war on drugs and the war on terror  in both rhetoric and tactics, with dangerous implications for human rights. This paper discusses the implications of including drug offenders in the war on terror on fair trial norms, the right to liberty and security of person and the right to life, among other human rights protections. Even before the 2001 attacks on the United States, drug-related offences in countries such as Malaysia and Egypt had been included in emergency legislation meant to deal with threats to the State. Counter-terrorism legislation introduced since launching the  war on terror further blurs the distinction between drug-related offences and terrorism, thus leading to the diminution of human rights protections. The war on terror has presented many challenges to international human rights law. Conflating terrorism with new subjects such as drugs therefore has the potential to do further damage to recognised human rights norms.

Read the full article

‘Children of the Drug War: Perspectives on the impact of drug policies on young people’ Damon Barrett (ed)

‘Children of the Drug War’ is a unique collection of original essays, edited by Damon  Barrett (Project Director at the International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy), that investigates the impacts of the war on drugs on children, young people and their  families. With contributions from around the world, providing different perspectives and utilizing a  wide range of styles and approaches including ethnographic studies, personal accounts and  interviews, the book asks fundamental questions of national and international drug control systems:

• What have been the costs to children and young people of the war on drugs?
• Is the protection of children from drugs a solid justification for current policies?
• What kinds of public fears and preconceptions exist in relation to drugs and the drug trade?
• How can children and young people be placed at the forefront of drug policies?

Four thematic sections address:

• Production and trade
• Race, class and law enforcement
• Families and drug policy
• Drug use and dependence

The book is published by the International Debate Education Association (iDebate Press). It is available for purchase in hard copy from amazon.com, amazon.co.uk and other outlets.

A pdf of the full book and pdfs of each of its four sections are available for free download. It may also be read online.

Amicus curiae brief to Colombian Constitutional Court: Decriminalisation, the UN drug conventions and the Convention on the Rights of the Child

Is the decriminalisation of possession of controlled substances for personal use consistent with international law?

Damon Barrett, Project Director of the International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy, has submitted an amicus curiae brief to the Constitutional Court of Colombia (Docket D-8371) in a case challenging the criminalisation of possession for personal use.

The submission (jointly with the International Harm Reduction Association, where Damon is senior human rights analyst) asks whether decriminalisation of personal possession of controlled drugs is permissible in international law, looking at the three core international drug conventions and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. They are treaties that are sometimes seen as precluding decriminalisation or moves away from ‘restrictive’ drug policies. Upon analysis, however, this is not the case. Four broad conclusions are made:

• There is nothing in international law to prohibit Colombia decriminalising possession of small quantities of drugs for personal use if it were found that to criminalise such possession would be unconstitutional
• The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child does not require criminalisation and there is a question mark about whether criminalisation for personal possession is an ‘appropriate measure’ for the purposes of the Convention.
• Tests of proportionality and arbitrariness require scrutiny of criminal laws applied to drug use.
• The burden of proof is on the State to justify criminalisation.

¿Es la despenalización de la posesión de sustancias controladas para uso personal consistente con el derecho internacional?

Este informe se centra en las convenciones internacionales sobre drogas y la Convención de las Naciones Unidas sobre los Derechos del Niño. Son tratados que en ocasiones se interpretan como que prohíben la despenalización o las acciones que se distancien de las políticas “restrictivas” de drogas. Sin embargo, al analizarlas se demuestra que este no es el caso. Cuatro grandes conclusiones se han extraído de la discusión que sigue:

• No existe ninguna disposición en el derecho internacional que le prohíba a Colombia despenalizar la posesión de pequeñas cantidades de drogas para uso personal, al determinarse que la penalización de dicha posesión es inconstitucional.
• La Convención sobre los Derechos del Niño no exige la tipificación penal y existe duda acerca de si la penalización de la posesión para uso personal podría considerarse como una “medida adecuada” a la luz de los propósitos de la Convención.
• Los test de proporcionalidad y arbitrariedad requieren el escrutinio de las leyes penales aplicadas al uso de drogas.
• La carga de la prueba recae sobre el Estado para justificar la penalización.

UN child rights committee calls for drug law reform and specialised harm reduction for children at risk

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child last week issued strong recommendations calling for “specialised and youth-friendly drug dependence treatment and harm reduction services for children and young people” and amending “laws that criminalise children for possession or use of drugs” which may “impede access to such services”.

The recommendations were made to the Government of Ukraine during the country’s periodic review process at the 56th session of the Committee. The Concluding Observations, reproduced below (and available at the Committee’s website) are an important addition to jurisprudence relating to children and drug use.

UN Doc No CRC/C/UKR/CO/4, paras 59 & 60

Drug, tobacco, alcohol and other substance use

59.       The Committee is deeply concerned at the increasing practice of drug injection among children, affecting in particular children in prison, children left behind by migrating parents, children in street situations, and that drug use constitutes a main reason for HIV infection. It is deeply concerned at the lack of specialized youth-friendly services aimed at treatment and rehabilitation for these at-risk children, and that legal and attitudinal barriers impede access to such services (such as order of the Drug Enforcement Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs no. 40/2/1-106 of 18 January 2011). The Committee is also concerned that the State party’s drug strategy 2010-2015 fails to take these issues sufficiently into account and that new regulations relating to personal possession of drugs may bring more at risk adolescents into contact with the criminal justice system. In addition, the Committee is deeply concerned at the very high proportion of and early initiation age of tobacco and alcohol use among children, related in part to the ineffectiveness and weak enforcement of existing legislation prohibiting the sale of cigarettes and alcohol to children.

60.       The Committee recommends that the State party, in partnership with non-governmental organizations, develop a comprehensive strategy for addressing the

alarming situation of drug abuse among children and youth and undertake a broad range of  evidence-based measures in line with the Convention, and to:

(a) Develop specialised and youth-friendly drug dependence treatment and harm reduction services for children and young people, building on recent legislative progress on HIV/AIDS and the successful pilot programmes for most at risk adolescents initiated by UNICEF;

(b) Ensure that criminal laws do not impede access to such services, including by amending laws that criminalise children for possession or use of drugs;

(c) Ensure that health and law enforcement personnel working with at-risk children are appropriately trained in HIV prevention and that abuses by law enforcement against at risk children are investigated and punished;

(d) Intensify enforcement of the prohibition of the sale of alcohol and tobacco to children and to address root causes to substance use and abuse among children and youth.

Amnesty International cautions Rio police as death toll mounts in latest operation against drug gangs

In a week that has now seen almost 50 people killed amidst the latest violence between police and drug gangs in Rio, Amnesty International has called for an end to short term repressive measures by police and a focus on longer term structural and criminal justice reform.

Acknowledging the “unacceptable” violence inflicted on communities by the gangs, Amnesty said that the police response had put communities at risk. The orgnisation called for proportionate responses that respect the rule of law. So far this year police in Rio have killed 500 people.

Amnesty’s full statement is reproduced below.

Brazil: Violence in Rio De Janeiro Condemned

26 November 2010

Amnesty International today urged the Brazilian authorities to act proportionately and within the law in their response to the wave of criminal gang violence that has swept Rio de Janeiro over the last week.

A wave of criminal violence has seen attacks on police posts, intimidation of residents and the burning of almost 100 vehicles.

More than thirty people have died during military and civil police operations against gang members, including a 14-year-old student hit by a stray bullet in her home in the community of Vila Cruzeiro.

“This violence is totally unacceptable but the police response has put communities at risk. The authorities must ensure that the security and well-being of the broader population comes first and foremost in any operation carried out in residential areas,” said Patrick Wilcken, Amnesty International’s Brazil researcher.

According to the Municipal Education Secretary, 17 schools and 12 creches have been closed in Rio this week, leaving more than 12,000 children without education. Thousands across the north zone of the city have been unable to go to work and large numbers of residents have been left without water or electricity.

“The current wave of criminal violence is symptomatic of wider failures throughout the criminal justice system,” said Patrick Wilcken.

“This week’s attacks are a wake up call for the incoming Federal and State administrations.”

Media reports suggest that the current wave of attacks was ordered by a gang leader incarcerated in a federal prison in Rôndonia, exposing weaknesses within the federal prison system.

Amnesty International fears that the current security operation being mounted around a group of communities known as the Complexo do Alemão will lead to further bloodshed. Residents are now confined to their homes, businesses have closed and gunfire is being reported.

In a similar 2007 “mega-operation” in Complexo do Alemão, 19 people were killed by police. Despite subsequent allegations from the state human rights commission of summary executions, the killings were never adequately investigated. The operation had no long-term positive impact on the security of the community, which has continued to be dominated by the Comando Vermelho drug faction.

Other than specialised Police Pacification Units (Unidade Polícia Pacificadora, UPP), which have significantly reduced violence in some dozen communities, policing in Rio de Janeiro continues to depend on repressive methods.

Rio police have killed over 500 people so far this year in so-called “acts of resistance”. Large swathes of the city continue to be dominated by paramilitary police groups.

Amnesty International calls on president-elect Dilma Rousseff to stand by her promise to make public security a priority during her forthcoming term in office.

The organisation also urges the Rio authorities to abandon short term repressive approaches and focus on long-term, structural reform of the criminal justice system, and guaranteeing security with policing based on violence-reduction and respect for human rights

Thematic Factsheets on the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights

The Press Service of the ECHR has compiled Factsheets by theme on the Court’s case-law and pending cases. These are very useful resources, including links to the cases referred to.

Of particular interest from a drug policy perspective are:

Police arrest

Prisoners’ health rights

Detention and mental health

Prison conditions

Child protection

Death penalty abolition

Mental health

Data protection

For regular updates and commentary on the ECHR, see ECHR Blog.

Orphans of Mexico’s Drug War

Special Report: Catherine Bremer, Reuters, 6 October 2010

Neither Mexico’s government nor the various independent groups studying organized crime keep track of the number of children dubbed ”narco orphans,” who have lost one or both parents to the drug war.

The Vienna Declaration: A Global Call to Action for Science-based Drug Policy

In Lead Up to XVIII International AIDS Conference, Scientists and Other Leaders Call for Reform of International Drug Policy and Urge Others to Sign-on

28 June 2010 [Vienna, Austria] – Three leading scientific and health policy organizations today launched a global drive for signatories to the Vienna Declaration, a statement seeking to improve community health and safety by calling for the incorporation of scientific evidence into illicit drug policies. Among those supporting the declaration and urging others to sign is 2008 Nobel Laureate and International AIDS Society (IAS) Governing Council member Prof. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, co-discoverer of HIV.

The Vienna Declaration is the official declaration of the XVIII International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2010), the biennial meeting of more than 20,000 HIV professionals, taking place in Vienna, Austria from 18 to 23 July 2010.

“Many of us in AIDS research and care confront the devastating impacts of misguided drug policies every day,” said AIDS 2010 Chair Dr. Julio Montaner, President of the IAS and Director of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. “These policies fuel the AIDS epidemic and result in violence, increased crime rates and destabilization of entire states – yet there is no evidence they have reduced rates of drug use or drug supply. As scientists, we are committed to raising our collective voice to promote evidence-based approaches to illicit drug policy that start by recognizing that addiction is a medical condition, not a crime.”

The Vienna Declaration describes the known harms of conventional “war on drugs” approaches and states:

“The criminalisation of illicit drug users is fuelling the HIV epidemic and has resulted in overwhelmingly negative health and social consequences. A full policy reorientation is needed…Reorienting drug policies towards evidence-based approaches that respect, protect and fulfill human rights has the potential to reduce harms deriving from current policies and would allow for the redirection of the vast financial resources towards where they are needed most: implementing and evaluating evidence-based prevention, regulatory, treatment and harm reduction interventions.”

Outside of sub-Saharan Africa, injecting drug use accounts for approximately one in three new cases of HIV. In some areas of rapid HIV spread, such as Eastern Europe and Central Asia, injecting drug use is the primary cause of new HIV infections. Legal barriers to scientifically proven prevention services such as needle programmes and opioid substitution therapy (OST) mean hundreds of thousands of people become infected with HIV and Hepatitis C (HCV) every year. The criminalization of people who inject drugs has also resulted in record incarceration rates placing a massive burden on the taxpayer. HIV outbreaks have also been reported in prisons in various settings internationally. This emphasis on criminalization produces a cycle of disease transmission, along with broken homes and livelihoods destroyed. Yet these costs, along with the more direct costs of the ‘war on drugs’, produce no measurable benefits.

“The current approach to drug policy is ineffective because it neglects proven and evidence-based interventions, while pouring a massive amount of public funds and human resources into expensive and futile enforcement measures,” said Dr. Evan Wood, founder of the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy (ICSDP) and Clinical Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia. “It’s time to accept the war on drugs has failed and create drug policies that can meaningfully protect community health and safety using evidence, not ideology.”

The Vienna Declaration calls on governments and international organizations, including the United Nations, to take a number of steps, including:

• undertake a transparent review the effectiveness of current drug policies;
• implement and evaluate a science-based public health approach to address the harms stemming from illicit drug use;
• scale up evidence-based drug dependence treatment options;
• abolish ineffective compulsory drug treatment centres that violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and
• unequivocally endorse and scale up funding for the drug treatment and harm reduction measures endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations.
• The declaration also calls for the meaningful involvement of people who use drugs in developing, monitoring and implementing services and policies that affect their lives.

“As a scientist, I strongly support drug policies that are based on evidence of what actually works,” said Prof. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, Director of the Regulation of Retroviral Infections Unit at the Institute Pasteur, IAS Governing Council member and recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Medicine. “I join with my colleagues around the world today to sign the Vienna Declaration in support of science-driven policies and human rights.”

The effectiveness of opioid substitution therapy (OST) and needles and syringe programmes is well-documented, though access to such interventions is often limited where HIV is spreading most rapidly. According to various scientific reviews conducted by WHO, the US Institutes of Medicine and others, these programmes reduce HIV rates without increasing rates of drug use. These cost-effective interventions also produce significant savings in future health care costs, and help people who use drugs access health care and drug treatment. No evidence exists demonstrating negative consequences of use of these programmes.

“Reflecting the AIDS 2010 theme of Rights Here, Right Now, the Vienna Declaration is rooted in the belief that global drug policy must respect the human rights of people who use drugs if it is to be at all effective,” said AIDS 2010 Local Co-Chair Dr. Brigitte Schmied, President of the Austrian AIDS Society. “No one who is familiar with addiction would deny the negative impacts it has on individuals, families and entire communities, but those harms do not justify human rights violations. People addicted to illicit drugs have the right to evidence-based drug treatment, to interventions to prevent infection, and, if they are living with HIV, to antiretroviral treatment.”

The Vienna Declaration was drafted by an international team of scientists and other experts, many of whom will participate in AIDS 2010 next month. It was initiated by the International AIDS Society (IAS), the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy (ICSDP), and the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS based in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Those wishing to sign on may visit www.viennadeclaration.com, where the full text of the declaration, along with a list of authors, is available. The two-page declaration references 28 reports, describing the scientific evidence documenting the effectiveness of public health approaches to drug policy and the negative consequences of approaches that criminalize drug users.

Human Rights Watch: Thailand, Investigate Killing of Handcuffed Drug Suspect

For Immediate Release

Thailand: Investigate Killing of Handcuffed Drug Suspect
Recent Cases Raise Concerns of a Return to Thaksin’s Brutal ‘War on Drugs’

(New York, July 1, 2010) – Thai authorities should immediately investigate the shooting death of a suspected drug trafficker and murder suspect while he was handcuffed and in police custody, Human Rights Watch said today.

Manit Toommuang, alias Tong Donsai, was in the custody of police from Ratchaburi provincial command and the Bang Pae district station when they shot him on June 26, 2010. The police said they had arrested Manit and had taken him to his apartment in Potharam district to search for methamphetamine pills. The police claimed that while they were searching his room, the handcuffed Manit struggled, grabbed an 11 mm pistol from one officer, and fired one round, causing a policeman to shoot and kill Manit in self defense.

“The killing of a handcuffed criminal suspect in police custody requires a real investigation, not a hasty justification by the officers involved,” said Elaine Pearson, acting Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Thai police will only make progress in combating Thailand’s surging drug problem if they themselves abide by the law instead of running roughshod over it.”

Police said Manit was listed among the most wanted criminals in Ratchaburi province, in Western Thailand. They said that on June 25, Manit rode his motorcycle through a police checkpoint in Bang Pae district. Police at the checkpoint opened fire and killed Manit’s girlfriend, Suwisa Upan, who was riding on the seat behind him. During his escape, Manit allegedly shot and killed police Sgt. Maj. Suvit Kwanmuang. Police captured him the next day.

Police said Manit was a member of a drug trafficking network headed by Wisan Sansoy, who was killed by police together with his wife, Wassana Chanhom, on June 4 when they allegedly tried to flee a police raid on his forest hideout in Pak Tho district. The police reported that members of this network have a history of killing and wounding many police officers.

International human rights law prohibits the ill-treatment of persons in custody. Thai police have a long history of using unlawful violence against criminal suspects in custody, particularly suspected drug traffickers and users. Human Rights Watch documented extrajudicial killings and other serious human rights violations in the context of Thaksin Shinawatra’s “war on drugs” in 2003 and 2004, when he was prime minister. Many of those killed had been blacklisted by police as suspected drug traffickers. Frequently, the victims were killed at police checkpoints or soon after being summoned to police stations for questioning, implicating the police in the killings.

Human Rights Watch’s findings were echoed by the 2007 Independent Committee for the Investigation, Study and Analysis of the Formation and Implementation of Drug Suppression Policy (ICID), chaired by former Attorney General Khanit na Nakhon. The committee concluded that the “war on drugs” was formulated and implemented by the Thaksin government without respect for human rights or due process of law. The committee found that 2,819 people had been killed during the three-month “war on drugs” between February and April 2003. Of those killed, 1,370 were related to drug dealing, while 878 were not. Another 571 people were killed without apparent reason. Human Rights Watch is unaware of any prosecutions of police officers for these killings.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva announced on June 9 that his government would renew the ICID and bring to justice those responsible for human rights violations in the context of Thaksin’s “war on drugs.” Human Rights Watch urged the committee to examine similar abuses by the security forces since that period.

“Thaksin’s ‘war on drugs’ was a brutal and dark period for human rights in Thailand,” Pearson said. “To ensure that the country does not go down that road again, Abhisit should immediately investigate allegations of police brutality in anti-drug operations and prosecute abusive officers.”

For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Thailand, please visit:
http://www.hrw.org/en/asia/thailand

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