The beginning of the new academic year in October heralded another run-out for Dave’s GDPO related MA module ‘The Global Governance of Drugs: Power (Geo)Politics and Narco-diplomacy’. Later in the term the class was very pleased to welcome the Executive Director of Observatory partner the International Drug Policy Consortium, the brilliant Ann Fordham, to speak to the group on the role of civil society organisations in policy formulation. Continuing the teaching theme, in November Dave also had the privilege of co-delivering with former GDPO/Swansea University Research Fellow, Dr Khalid Tinasti, an online session on ‘Pathways to Harm Reduction Policy in Hong Kong and East & South East Asia: Process and Practice Annual Training.’ Organised by the University of Hong Kong (Centre for Criminology) and The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, the training involved over 20 participants from a range of organisations (government and NGO) within the region. In a similar vein, having secured funding for several Swansea University SPIN interns, in December Matt and Dave were pleased to launch a new GDPI related initiative to measure the impact of the Index upon ‘end-user’ civil society organisations. The GDPO was also pleased this quarter to formally welcome Joe Janes onboard as a Swansea University Associate Member, and new lead on the Harm Reduction Project. In that capacity, he presented research findings on the Spike on a Bike initiative at the Rural Health and Care Wales conference in Builth Wells in November. This was as part of a panel on the delivery of Integrated Health Care Services in Rural Areas, including cross-sector, multi-agency and/or multi-disciplinary working.
Where GDPO related publications were concerned, the quarter was pleasingly productive in terms of substantive contributions to the growing drug policy literature. To be sure, December saw Routledge publish the innovative Towards Drug Policy Justice: Harm reduction, Human Rights and Changing Drug Policy Contexts. Edited by Damon Barrett and Rick Lines, in addition to Rick’s contribution, the GDPO was well represented, including a co-authored chapter by Ediomo and chapter by Eliza. Elsewhere, Ediomo was also co-guest editor of an important Special Edition of Drugs, Habits and Social Policy (Vol. 24 Issue. 4) on prescription opioids.
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With the University largely shifting from teaching to research mode, GDPO team members continued a steady range of activities across our project portfolio. These included Joe’s evaluation of the excellent Spike on a Bike project (Harm Reduction Project), Dave’s research on the Regime Reform and Modernisation (R2M) project – including collaboration with project partners TNI and WOLA-, and Matt and Dave’s ongoing work around the Global Drug Policy Index. As ever, Ediomo worked tirelessly on several activities relating to the Drugs and Africa Project across the quarter. Highlights included his involvement in August in the 6th National Symposium on Drugs and Drug Control Policy in Nigeria, organised by the Centre for Research and Information Abuse (CRISA). Among Ediomo’s contributions to the conference was as a panellist on ‘Cannabis Policy in Africa: Past, Present and Future’. This excellent session was part of the University of Bristol’s ground-breaking ESRC funded Cannabis Africana: Drugs and Development in Africa, which GDPO has been happy to support in various ways.
Meanwhile, back in the UK, late August also saw Heloisa pass through London. Having been officially awarded her doctorate earlier in the summer at a ceremony in Swansea (many congratulations!), a few days in the capital allowed Dave to catch up and discuss Heloisa’s ongoing work with the Observatory, particularly in relation to her specialist subject, access to controlled medicines. Indeed, we are pleased to welcome her as a fully-fledged Research Associate.
Between April and June (inclusive) the members of the Observatory team continued engagement with several ongoing projects and related activities. Key among these was work concerning the amazing Spike on a Bike initiative offered by Dyfed Drug and Alcohol Service. With Dave and Rick continuing their membership of the project’s Steering Group, activities also involved the start of an evaluation process, led by Dr Joe Janes of the Department of Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy, within the School of Social Sciences (SoSS) at Swansea University. Having been drawn into the GDPO’s orbit with his work on drones and remote warfare, Luca Trenta’s May conference on ‘State-Sponsored Assassinations in International Politics, History and Law,’ also included a drug policy element. Run under the auspices of the International Studies, Conflict and Security research group within the Department of Politics, Philosophy, and International Relations, also based in SoSS, the excellent two day event incorporated a session on ‘Assassination, COIN and the ‘War on Drugs’, which Dave chaired. This tied in nicely with his guest lecture on Luca’s level three undergraduate module, ‘Shadow Wars: US Presidents and Covert Action from the Cold War to Trump’, ‘The CIA and the ‘War on Drugs.’
While not departing entirely from a focus on drug policy metrics, including ongoing work around the Global Drug Policy Index, June saw the Observatory co-organise, with partner organisation the TNI (Drugs and Democracy team), a Chatham House Rules expert policy seminar. Held in Amsterdam, linking directly to the GDPO’s Regime Reform and Modernisation (R2M) project and generously supported by ‘Impact’ funding from Swansea University’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, this focused on the increasingly pressing issue of cannabis regulation in the EU. Working closely with Martin Jelsma, Director of the Drugs and Democracy programme and GDPO Senior Research Associate, it is the expectation that there will be a series of follow up events, including a grey literature publication and a workshop in Swansea in 2024. The same month also saw Rick participate as an expert in an Academic Roundtable on ‘Drug Policy, Sentencing Practices and Its Impact on Vulnerable Groups’, which was a meeting with a delegation of legal academics from China on the topic of sentencing guidelines on drug offences and the death penalty for drugs. The event was hosted by the Great Britain-China Centre and Harm Reduction International.
And finally, in terms of publications, Ediomo (Africa Project Lead), co-published yet another high quality article, ‘Tramadol Regulation, illegal markets and consumption practices’ in Drugs, Habits and Social Policy.
Following the Christmas vacation, the GPDO, like many organisations working within the field of drug policy, set its sights on the 66th session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs. The annual meeting of the central policy-making body of the United Nations system took place in Vienna, 13-17 March. Before attention shifted to Austria and related activities, however, the academic calendar continued with Dave’s MA module, The Global Governance of Drugs, including an excellent guest seminar from Dr Khalid Tinasti, former GDPO-Swansea University Honorary Research Fellow and research associate at the Geneva Graduate Institute . Focusing on "Great Powers’ and the IDCR: The United States and the Russian Federation – Reversing Roles?" Khalid’s on-line session fittingly touched upon many of the debates and issues that were to be seen in at the CND the following month. A few weeks later the GDPO also welcomed, this time in person, John Walsh, Director for Drug Policy and the Andes at the Washington Office on Latin America. During his time in Wales, John not only met with the team on future collaborations but also spoke with MA students on the role of civil society within the international drug control regime.
Building to some extent upon our previous work on the intersection between drug policy and the environment, the week before the CND saw the Observatory run a scoping workshop in London. Funded by a Swansea University Natural Environment Research Council ‘Discipline Hopping’ grant, ‘Counter-Narcotic Policy in Colombia: Developing a Biodiversity Risk Assessment Framework,’ was co-hosted with GDPO partner organisation Corporación VisoMutop en Colombia and involved as co-PIs Dave and Professor Luca Borger of the Department of Biosciences, Swansea University. Participants involved a range of experts from drug policy analysis, remote sensing, and ecology, including in terms of the latter from the Natural History Museum, as well as representatives of coca farmers in Colombia. After a productive and stimulating event, it is the intention that follow-on activities will include a number of publications, fieldwork in Colombia and further grant capture activities.
Pedro Arenas, Visomutop, presenting at the London scoping workshop, March 8th 2023.
The following week the GDPO was pleased to be a co-sponsor of a related side-event at the CND. Well attended by a range of diplomats, international civil servants, and members of civil society, ‘Aligning Drug policy with Environmental Protection’ included Dave’s presentation, ‘Regime Complexity: Implications for Drug Policy and Biodiversity’. With opening and closing comments from representatives of the governments of Colombia and Brazil, a recording of the entire event can be found here
Analysis of the UN multilateral system was also the focus of several publications over the course of the quarter. These included in January Dave’s The Spectre of Article 14: The INCB Report for 2021, Regulated Cannabis Markets and the Board’s Potential Enforcement Measures, (a co-branded IDPC-GDPO report) and in March his contributions to a TNI-WOLA Long Read/Commentary. Co-authored with Tom Blickman and Martin Jelsma (TNI) and John Walsh, Wilful Blindness: INCB Can Find Nothing Good to Say on Cannabis Legalisation is a brief response to the INCB’s Annual Report for 2022. On a related issue, we were pleased to see the publication of a GDPO supported piece of work focusing on the dilemmas of cannabis regulation within the European Union. The very timely ‘Cannabis Regulation Through the “Without Right” Clause in Article 2(1) of EU Framework Decision 2004/757/JHA on Illicit Drug Trafficking,’ by Piet Hein van Kempen and Masha Fedorova (Radboud University, The Netherlands), was published in the European Journal of Crime, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice. Another long in gestation output was the GDPO Drugs and Conflict Project Policy Brief, ‘From Bad to Worse? Drug Use and Treatment in Afghanistan.’ With the original idea for the Brief dating back to the GDPO-TERI-AREU Executive Programme in New Delhi in March 2020, this was co-authored by Dave, Ross Eventon (GDPO Research Associate/Drugs and Conflict Project Lead and PhD candidate, University of Rosario, Colombia) and Mat Southwell (Drug user organiser and technical support consultant on harm reduction and community mobilisation with people who use drugs). Research for the Brief drew not only on online interviews with treatment providers within Afghanistan, but also data gleaned from Mat’s work in Kabul in January 2023.
In relation to our Africa Project and within the academic realm, Ediomo-Ubong published ‘Police Extortion and Drug Dealers’ Negotiation Strategies: Exploring the Accounts of Street-Level Dealers in Nigeria’ in International Criminal Justice Review in February. Also of note during the quarter was his important Comment piece in The Lancet Global Health the systematic review of global coverage of interventions to prevent and manage drug-related harms among people who inject drugs.
