It was no great surprise that the ongoing pandemic pushed back the main annual meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) a few weeks from its usual March date.  And as such, while typically in a state of post-Vienna recovery, April saw many in the drug policy field, including the GDPO, engage with the multilateral session in a COVID-19 induced ‘hybrid’ format.  The Observatory’s key activity at this year’s session was the co-hosting, with partner organisations the Transnational Institute (TNI) and the Interdisciplinary Centre for Cannabis Research, The University of the West Indies, Jamaica (ICCR), of an on-line side-event.  Moderated by Dave and with an audience of more than 100, ‘The Future of Cannabis in the Caribbean’ comprised a panel involving Jerrol Thompson (Executive Director Medicinal Cannabis Authority, St Vincent and the Grenadines), Faith Graham (Acting Chief Executive, Cannabis Licencing Authority Jamaica), Vicki Hanson (ICCR) and Pein Metaal (TNI).  

April also saw the Observatory team involved with several other on-line events.  The first of these was in relation to the Global Drug Policy Index (GDPI) project. Here, with International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) colleagues, Dave presented the GDPI to the GIZ’s Global Partnership on Drug Policies and Development (GPDPD) team as part of their ‘Quick Academy Series’.   Second, Observatory team members Dave, Luca and Dennis took part in the initial meeting of the GDPO’s ‘Drones and counter-narcotics in Latin America’ project. While ticking over for some time, this was the project’s formal kick-off with Ross Eventon and project partners from the Colombian Observatory of Organized Crime (OCCO) at the University of Rosario, Bogota.  It is our pleasure to welcome to the research team Delina Goxho  and Jochen Kleinschmidt  The work stream will involve several publications and related workshops and dissemination events.

During May, GDPO Research Associate Constanza Sanchez Aviles participated at the Social and Family Affairs Committee at the Malta Parliament to provide input on the cannabis decriminalization initiative that is currently underway. Constanza spoke about Cannabis Social Clubs in Spain and in so doing drew on research from her 2018 Observatory Report, Better to Ask Forgiveness Than Permission: Spain’s Sub-national Approach to Drug Policy.  You can read more about the Committee session here. GDPO research was also evident in several other media stories, including Ross’s work on aerial fumigation of coca crops in Colombia and Dave’s on cannabis policy reform.

In relation to more recent research, June saw the publication of a GDPO Policy Report by Martin Horton-Eddison, Patrick Shortis, Judith Aldridge, and Fernando Caudevilla. Drug Cryptomarkets in the 2020s: Policy, Enforcement, Harm, and Resilience builds upon some of the work presented at a side-event at the 2020 CND in Vienna and represents the beginnings of stronger research collaborations with colleagues in the Department of Criminology at The University of Manchester.  The Brief is also accompanied by a video explainer. 

Finally, the quarter saw some restructuring and changes in personnel, both at the GDPI and among partners.  Regarding the latter, in April the David F Musto Center for Drug Policy Studies (Shanghai University) became the International Center for Drug Policy Studies.  The GDPO was please to send a congratulatory video for the inaugural opening ceremony.  Closer to home, Axel’s formal relationship with the Observatory came to an end.  We wish him all the best in his new role as Project Coordinator, Support to West Africa Integrated Maritime Security, ECOWAS, and thank him for all his contributions to and support for the GDPO since its establishment.   However, we also welcome as a new member of the team one of Axel’s African colleagues, Ediomo-Ubong Nelson.  Based in Nigeria Ediomo-Ubong (also known as Nelson) is Alcohol and Drug Policy Advocacy Officer at the International Blue Cross and, under the leadership of Prof. Isidore Obot,  Associate Researcher at the Centre for Research and Information on Substance Abuse.  We look forward to working with Nelson as lead on our Africa project.

Operating within the confines of the ‘new normal’, the GDPO team remained busy over the first quarter of 2021, although admittedly some more than others.  Indeed, with the release of the co-edited (open access) Brill book Drug Policies and Development: Conflict and Co-existence, also published as a special journal edition of International Development Policy, Julia had an especially hard-working few months involved as she was in a number of related panels and launch events.  These included those in Switzerland (chaired by former President of Switzerland Madame Ruth Dreifuss and with Dr. Shannon Hader, Deputy Executive Director UNAIDS Programme, and Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations as a panellist), Shanghai, China at the David F. Musto Center on Drug Policy Studies at Shanghai University, Morocco  at the Policy Center for the New South in Rabat (chaired by Mohamed Loulichki, former President of the UN Security Council), South Africa with medical colleagues in Cape Town (chaired by Dr. Andrew Scheibe, Technical Advisor for TB HIV Care and researcher at the University of Pretoria’s Department of Family Medicine, South Africa and with concluding remarks from Prof. Quarraisha Abdool Karim, the Associate Scientific Director of the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa) and in Ireland (chaired by Prof. Catherine M. Comiskey, Professor of Healthcare Modelling and Statistics, Trinity College Dublin).  

Julia also participated in a panel for her other recent co-edited and open access collection, with G Margo and L Burger, The Impact of Global Drug Policy on Women: Shifting the Needle (Emerald 2020) which can be viewed here. Additionally, she recorded a podcast with the book's publisher that can be accessed here.  Having clearly mastered the art of the podcast, Julia recorded two others for forthcoming release with Prof David Nutt at Drug Science and with Arun Sridhar at the science based SKRAPS Podcast, as well participating in a TEDx University of Machester panel on psychedelic medicines.  Chris also recorded a piece for the SKRAPS series, with his contribution focusing on the cultural and historical context of drugs and therapeutic use of psychedelics.  An introduction to the SKRAPS project can be found here.  Speaking on a related issue, Axel moderated a webinar, ‘From Menace to Medicine’ on cannabis.  This was part of the series 'People and Psychoactive Plants' at the Centre of Bio-cultural Diversity, University of Kent and was held very pointedly on April Fool’s day.  Chris, meanwhile, was involved with the online event ‘Sixty Years of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs’.  Organised by the Haldane Society  other speakers included Kojo Koram, legal academic and editor of The War on Drugs and the Global Colour Line (2019, Pluto Books) and Judy Chang, Executive Director of the International Network of People who Use Drugs (INPUD).   Still within the virtual realm, Dave was an invited participant in a OHCHR Working Group on Arbitrary Detention expert consultation.  This was in relation to the Group’s Study on Drug Policies and Arbitrary Detention, which is to be presented to the Human Rights Council during its forty-seventh session in June-July this year.

 Back ‘in’ Swansea, Matt and Dave continued work on the Global Drug Policy Index project.  This involved the recruitment, via a competitive SPIN internship programme call, of two Department of Political and Cultural Studies Masters students to work as data coders: Daisy Evans and Ladislav Zeman.  The coding team was also joined by Fin Oades, who having completed his degree in Sociology at Cambridge last year is pursuing an internship with the GDPO before taking up a Masters at UCL in September. We welcome all three of them to the project.  The quarter also saw the first meeting of the GDPI’s Scientific Advisory Group (SAG).  Comprising leading experts from the world of statistics as well as drug policy, the SAG will be providing guidance and feedback on the construction of the index over the next few months.

And finally, there was good news from Scotland.  Allan Gillies was appointed as a lecturer in Global Economy in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow, no mean feat within the particularly parlous climate that characterizes the UK higher education sector.  Huge congratulations go to Allan.  We look forward to continuing collaborations within his new role. 

As with just about every organization in the world, the pandemic continued to have an enormous impact on GDPO’s activities over the past quarter.  While this was the case, however, the team was busy in a variety of areas, although all of them - alas - desk based and as inhabitants of Planet Zoom.

Part of the Observatory’s work towards developing teaching programmes across and beyond the University, October saw Dave rollout a new Masters module, The Global Governance of Drugs: Power, (Geo)Politics and Narco-diplomacy.   Adopting a predominantly International Relations perspective, the module not only aims to critique international drug policy, but also help students better recognise and understand the role of, and interactions between, different transnational actors and institutional bodies in creating, shaping, and implementing drug policy at various levels of governance.  It covers a range of topics including: Theories, Approaches and Contemporary Challenges to Global Governance and International Organisation; The ‘Global Drug Prohibition Regime’: Evolution and Operation;  Contemporary challenges to and tensions within the GDPR; The United States: The Driving Force?; Multilateralism, Regional Organisations and Group politics; The EU and Multilevel Governance; Russia and the BRICS; Regime Apparatus, Knowledge, and the Frankenstein Problem, Transnational Civil Society and Regime Complexes: Drug Policy, Human Rights and Development.  With module feedback overwhelming positive and the students producing some excellent work, it will certainly be run again next academic year.

Speaking of excellent scholarship, in November Dave had the privilege, along with Julia Buxton and Alfred McCoy among others, to be on the full Doctoral Committee for Eric Gutierrez.  Eric received the award of doctorate Cum Laude distinction from the University of Rotterdam for his thesis Criminals Without Borders: Resilience and Interdependency in Opium and Coca Commodity Chains. As everyone on the Committee agreed, the study is worthy of publication as a monograph and we look forward to seeing it in bookshops soon. To be sure, do keep an eye open for all of Eric’s work.

In terms of publication, November saw  - as part of a Global Challenges Research Fund project - Rick publish a co-authored article in Harm Reduction Journal,  ‘New psychoactive substances in Eurasia: a qualitative study of people who use drugs and harm reduction services in six countries’ and take part in an online seminar to discuss the study. The same month Ross published the GDPO’s 15^th Policy Brief ‘Drug Policy and the Development Fallacy’ as well as a supporting blog Notes on Criminal Economics.  And, of particular note, Julia’s co-edited The Impact of Global Drug Policy on Women: Shifting the Needle was released. Published by Emerald books in both paperback AND as an Open Access ebook, this amazing collection is really worth a look, including as it does an incredibly wide ranging and rich set of 30 chapters examining various aspects of the impact of drug criminalization on a ‘previously overlooked demographic.’  In December Dave published the latest in the IDPC-GDPO series of responses to the INCB Annual Report: The International Narcotics Control Board on Human Rights: A critique of the Report for 2019.

In relation to activities, it was also encouraging to see the GDPO’s Jamaican partners, the Interdisciplinary Centre for Cannabis Research (ICCR), support the ground-breaking eight part webinar series,  ‘A World with Drugs: Legal Regulation through a Development Lens'.  Finally, congratulations must go to Axel on swapping Covid infested Kent for sunny Abuja as he takes up his new in-country post with West Africa Integrated Maritime Security.  From what we gather, among a range of other notable activities, he is even able to go to bars and restaurants…

With the pandemic still affecting all aspects of life, the GDPO’s activities over the past quarter continued in a somewhat restructured and exclusively online manner. That said, and despite the usual quieter summer period, there remains much to report, including changes within the composition of the Observatory team.

After four incredibly productive years, Khalid’s term as an Honorary Research Fellow at Swansea University came to end. We would like to express our great thanks to Khalid for all his valued contributions and wish him well in future endeavours. To be sure, we look forward to continuing working with him on a range of projects, including with the Global Studies Institute at the University of Geneva where he remains a Visiting and Teaching Fellow. Nearer to home, Julia left CEU and moved to the Department of Criminology at the University of Manchester after success in a British Academy Global Professorship grant application. The grant funds four years of research that will variously examine the impact of Brexit on illicit drug markets in the UK, and the extent to which drug policy reform in other countries has enabled a wider diversity of stakeholders to engage with drug policy processes. A huge congratulations go to Julia on this significant award. Discussion is already underway regarding continuing research synergies with her at Manchester where, among others, she will be working with friends of the GDPO, Professor Judith Aldridge and Patrick Shortis. The quarter also saw Axel, who is currently working on maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea as the Project Coordinator for the Support to West Africa Integrated Maritime Security (SWAIMS) project, become a member of the Global Initiative on Transnational Organised Crime network of experts.

As part of the GDPO Metrics project, September saw work begin on an ambitious new proof of concept project to develop a Global Drug Policy Index. This is funded by a grant from the Robert Carr Fund to the Harm Reduction Consortium. Joining the Consortium on the project as the ‘technical partner’ for development of the Index, the GDPO has consequently expanded to include Swansea University colleagues with appropriate quantitative expertise. As such, we’re pleased to welcome on board Dr Matt Wall and Jack Tudor. September also saw GDPO PhD student Heloisa Broggiato present her research at the College of Arts and Humanities annual PGR conference. As part of an excellent panel titled ‘Perspectives on Pain’, she spoke on ‘Untreated Pain: A Side Effected of the International Drug Control System.’

On the publication front, in late August Julia's latest publication was released. An edited collection by International Development Policy, this explores the relationship between international drug policy and development goals, both current and within a historical perspective. Contributions address the drugs and development nexus from a range of critical viewpoints, highlighting gaps and contradictions, as well as exploring strategies and opportunities for enhanced linkages between drug control and development programming. Criminalisation and coercive law enforcement-based responses in international and national level drug control are shown to undermine peace, security, and development objectives. Co-edited with Khalid Tinasti and Mary Chinery-Hesse, the collection includes contributions from leading academic and practitioners in the field of drug policy, including the GDPO’s Director, Dave Bewley-Taylor and Senior Research Associate, Martin Jelsma. It is available as an Open Access download.

The following month saw the publication of another long in the making edited collection, the Edward Elgar Research Handbook on International Drug Policy. Analysing arguably one of the most controversial areas in public policy, this pioneering Research Handbook brings together contributions from expert researchers to provide a global overview of the shifting dynamics of drug policy. Emphasising connections between the domestic and the international, contributors illustrate the intersections between drug policy, human rights obligations and the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, offering an insightful analysis of the regional dynamics of drug control and the contemporary and emerging problems it is facing. With a foreword by the Hon. Louise Arbour (former UN High Commissioner on Human Rights) and co-edited by Dave and Khalid - the latter also contributing a chapter - the collection involved several other members of the GDPO team; Christopher Hallam, Julia Buxton, Constanza Sánchez Avilés and Rick Lines.

Reflecting upon a recently completed project and the ongoing work of GDPO partner organisation, the Interdisciplinary Centre for Cannabis Research at the University of West Indies, Branwen Lloyd’s blog ‘Cultivating Change: The Contemporary Challenges of Studying Cannabis Regulation in Jamaica’ was published in mid-September. Representing the activities of another new partnership, late September saw the publication of the first in the Colombian Organized Crime Observatory’s (OCCO), (Insight Crime Foundation-University of Rosario, Faculty of Political Science, Government and International Relations), working paper series. Coca and Its Medical Applications: Prospects, Obstacles and Lessons Learned, was co-authored by GDPO Research Associate and OCCO Research Fellow, Ross Eventon, David Restrepo (University of the Andes) and Dave Bewley-Taylor.

Click here to view the Quarterly News archive