GDPO Quarterly News

Early in February Khalid was busy attending a number of conferences and meetings, including Cannabis Europa in Paris and the 4^th Brandenburg Forum on Drugs and Development Policies, in Liebenberg (Germany), as well as lecturing on the international drug control regime to a group of students from the state universities of Saint Petersburg and Moscow visiting Geneva as part of the programme of the Alexander Griboyedov Foundation. The beginning of the month also saw  the first formal event organised by Cannabis Innovate, a new initiative built on a partnership between GDPO and Equinox International, with some activities undertaken in collaboration with the Transnational Institute.  The Chatham House Rule workshop, ‘Fair Trade Options for the Cannabis Market’, was held in London 4-5^th February and brought together about 25 academics and practitioners from the fields of international drug policy, fair trade and agrarian justice, and included colleagues from the Caribbean.  From the equally tropical Swansea, the very successful and productive event was attended by Dave, Branwen Lloyd, our recently appointed project coordinator, and Martin Jelsma, GDPO Senior Research Associate and Director of the TNI Drugs and Democracy Programme.   Later in the month, the focus of GDPO activity shifted to another important core project, Crypto Drug Markets. As part of the Department of Political and Cultural Studies seminar series, Martin Horton-Eddison presented ideas from his current research, ‘Regime Theory, Crypto-Drug Markets, & the ‘Post-State Concept: A Theoretical Discussion.’

Poster for Regime Theory, Crypto-Drug Markets, & the ‘Post-State Concept: A Theoretical Discussion

As is normally the case, activities in March were dominated by the Commission on Narcotic Drugs at the UN in Vienna, and this year, its High Level Ministerial Segment.  The GDPO was active on several fronts.  Along with the governments of Canada, Mexico, Switzerland, the International Drug Policy Consortium and  the Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation, it co-organised a side-event on metrics: ‘Aligning Data Collection and the UNGASS Implementation and the Sustainable Development Goals: Recommendations  for a Review of the Annual Report Questionnaire. Featuring speakers from the Governments of Switzerland, Canada and Mexico as well as the EMCDDA and IDPC, the well-attended event raised important and timely issues regarding the ARQ review process.  As part of the Cannabis Innovate initiative, GDPO was also involved with a side-event organised by TNI and the Government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.  Including presentations  from representatives from CARICOM and the government of Jamaica, the event saw Dave launch a new Cannabis Innovate Policy Report, Fair(er) Trade Options for the Cannabis Market, authored by Martin Jelsma, Sylvia Kay (TNI Agrarian and Environmental Justice project) and Dave.  Meanwhile, Axel presented some of his own current research, ‘Tramadol: drug problem or medicrime’, at a side event titled ‘Researching Drugs and Development Policies: Understanding the Development Implications if Illicit Economies’ organised by the Government of Germany, the London School of Economics and Political Science, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit and the Mae Fah Luang Foundation under Royal Patronage.

The panellists at the CARICOM Marijuana Commission and fair-trade options for the cannabis market side event.

The quarter was relatively busy in terms of publications, including newspaper OP-Eds of which Khalid authored three: Le Temps (Switzerland): Pour en finir avec la guerre contre les drogues,  L’Economiste (Morocco): Cannabis: Le commerce international s’organise… sauf au Maroc,  Der Standard (Austria): Zukunft internationaler Drogenpolitik: Koordination oder Irrelevanz?

Martin continued his association with Jane’s Intelligence Review, with his February article Response to Fentanyl Crisis Reflects Evolutions in Dark Web Policing (paywall) which highlighted an evolving law enforcment approach that increasingly prioritises intelligence-gathering and market management strategies.

Within the academic realm, Axel published, with Ernst Yorke, Folaju O. Oyebola and Samuel Anaja Otene, ‘Tramadol: a valuable treatment for pain in Ghana and Nigeria’, in  Current Medical Research and Opinion and as sole author ‘Drug Problem or Medicrime? Distribution and Use of Falsified Tramadol Medication in Egypt and West Africa’ in the Journal of Illicit Economies and Development.  The latter being the first edition of an excellent new open access journal from the LSE and guested edited by the GDPO’s Julia Buxton. In addition to the Fair(er) Trade Options for the Cannabis Market Policy Report mentioned above, the Observatory was also involved in the publication of a timely policy brief with WOLA and TNI, The WHO’s First-Ever Critical Review of Cannabis, as well as  - with IDPC, SSRC, the Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation and the International Peace Institute - the submission of a written contribution to the 50^th session of the UN Statistical Commission.

The WHO’s First-Ever Critical Review of Cannabis

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As part of an OSF Global Drug Policy Program funded research project that is examining the gendered impacts of drug policy enforcement, Julia organised a workshop in Accra, Ghana in October that brought together 15 experts from East and West Africa including from the prison service (Kenya), drug policy reform NGOs (Nigeria, Ghana and Liberia), harm reduction organisations (Senegal and Kenya), drug user organisations (Tanzania), and sex workers unions and support organisations (Nigeria, Ghana). The workshop addressed the impacts of punitive enforcement policies on women and girls both directly as drug users and indirectly as partners of drug users. Ahead of the Ghana trip, Julia also delivered sessions on gendered enforcement impacts to colleagues from the region attending the University of Hong Kong’s Human Rights and Drug Policy in East and Southeast Asia workshop. As in Ghana, issues around social and cultural stigma of female drug users were addressed, and the importance of gender-sensitive drug policy research and reform emphasised.

Meanwhile, back in the UK, October saw Martin work with Michala Kowalski, Monica Barratt, and Adam R Winstock to produce the dark net section of Global Drug Survey 2019, Are You Privacy Minded.  More details on this can be found here.   This was part of a productive month for Martin with him also giving a presentation  - as a Civil Society Task Force on Drugs selected speaker  - at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs Fourth Intersessional meeting on research into the impact of recent law enforcement operations against crypto drug markets (CDMs) and seeing publication of his contributions on CDMs within the IDPCs’ landmark civil society report Taking Stock: A Decade of Drug Policy

Martin presenting at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, Vienna, October 2018.

With work on the GDPO’s Africa project progressing in what might be described as a slow and steady fashion, as part of an international initiative organised by the International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care Advocacy Program, the Observatory was one of a range of organisations to submit a formal letter in October to the 41st Expert Committee on Drug Dependence.  In it, as with the submissions of other organisations, the GDPO noted with concern yet another critical review of tramadol, a widely used analgesic for the relief of moderate to severe pain in countries where other opioid analgesics are largely unavailable.

During a hectic trip to Australia, Khalid took part (with Sir Richard Branson) in the launch of The Fair Treatment Campaign in Sydney and gave a presentation on the International Drug Control System to the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly, as part of the Canberra Drug Policy Series.

Slightly nearer to home, in November Dave and Martin Jelsma spent time in Rabat, Morocco, working with the GDPO’s new partners at the Institut Scientifique of the University of Mohammad V on the development of a number of exciting projects with Dave’s time in the country also including research in the Rif for the forthcoming second edition of The Rise and Decline of Cannabis Prohibition.

In Budapest Julia convened an executive short course delivered to 23 participants from 18 different countries, with the teaching team including Ian Hamilton (University of York), Fiona Macaulay (University of Bradford), Corina Giacomello (University of Oaxaca) and Giavana Margo (Central European University). The interactive sessions covered the historical foundations of current drug policy and, drawing on the outcomes of the earlier workshop in Ghana introduced the concepts of “gender” and “feminism” in addition to the ways in which these relate to drug policy. The violences faced by women and girls in the drug trade were also discussed as well as tools and processes for mainstreaming gender within drug policy.  In Swansea, November also saw Martin guest-lecture on the topic of CDMs for Rick Lines’ undergraduate and MA’s modules on drugs and crime.  Towards the end of term in December, Dave also ventured across campus to give a lecture on ‘the War on Drugs’ to Rick’s excellent MA class.  At the University of Geneva’s Global Studies Institute, Khalid gave a presentation titled ‘Quel avenir pour les politiques internationales de contrôle des drogues?’ as part of ‘Les Midis de la Recherche’ Series

Dave with Rick’s MA class in December 2018.

Over the course of the Quarter GDPO was involved in a good number of publications, in terms of both Observatory outputs and team authored publications elsewhere. As part of the ongoing work with CEU’s School of Public Policy, October saw the publication of two Situation Analyses: Faryal Sajjad’s, Pakistan’s HIV Epidemic and the Need for Prison-Based Harm Reduction Programmes, and Nicholas Sertich’s, Villainous, Alien, Killable: Narrative and Regulatory Norms Surrounding Drug Users in Video Games.  The same month Khalid’s co-authored chapter, ‘Drug Policy in the Russian Federation: Do Control Policies Produce More Harm than Drugs?’ was published in Axel’s co-edited collection Collapse of the Global Order on Drugs: From UNGASS 2016 to Review 2019, as was Dave’s co-authored chapter, ‘Measuring the “World Drug Problem”: 2019 and Beyond’. Axel also published ‘Poly and Tricky Dick: The drug war origins of the term “polydrug use”’ in Nordic Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.   In December Martin published the first of a series of pieces for Jane’s Intelligence Review’s new section OSINT Snapshots, ‘US STOP law aims to tackle postal deliveries from dark web drug sales’, while Ross’s Opinion Piece, ‘How revolutionary-minded is Mexico’s new president really?’ was published online by Al Jazeera.  Khalid was also busy writing pieces for or being interviewed by news outlets.  Activity included ‘Africa’s Time To Shape International Drug Policy’ (OP-ED), Modern Ghana (Ghana), 'Drug policies should be first of all concerned with preserving public health' (interview, Daily Star (Bangladesh) and  ‘Légalisation du cannabis au Luxembourg : quelles conséquences pour la France?’ (OP-ED), Les Echos (France).

Martin’s piece for JIR, December 2018

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While keeping busy with a range of ‘low noise’ impact related activities, the Quarter was relatively quiet in terms of public facing work.  That said, September saw the results of a long-planned research expedition to India by Dave and TNI’s Tom Blickman come to fruition.  There they liaised closely with GDPO Technical Advisor Romesh Bhattacharji on a range of activities relating to the cannabis policy reform project, and specifically ongoing work  on the updated version of the 2014 TNI-GDPO publication, rise and decline of cannabis prohibition pdf. In addition to meetings and interviews with parliamentarians in New Delhi, fieldwork included a return trip to the Himachal Pradesh to examine changes within the cannabis market since a first visit in 2014 (See QN below) and an excursion into the largely unstudied cannabis producing regions of Uttarakhand. Relating some initial impressions from this fieldwork to broader policy discussions, Tom was interviewed by the Delhi Post which subsequently published a story titled Seek drug reform within international law.

Cannabis in Uttarakhand

The Quarter proved to be productive regarding GDPO and GDPO related publications.  July saw the publication of a Situation Analysis by Jasmin Gamez (MA student at Central European University,  2017-18), Environmental Impacts of the Legalization of Cannabis in California.  Another product of the Observatory’s collaboration with the School of Public Policy at CEU, in August GDPO published a timely Working Paper by Shaun Shelly and Simon Howell (University of Pretoria and Research Director, African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum respectively)  titled South Africa’s National Drug Master Plan Influenced & Ignored  The following month, after over a year’s research and drafting, we were pleased to publish a Working Paper by young scholar and former University of Bradford  Rotary Peace Fellow, Kari Williams: Crime, Drugs, and Power in Honduras  Also in September Khalid published an article in Les Echos.fr, ‘Vers une coalition mondiale de commerce du cannabis?’ while the GDPO’s submission on drug policy metrics to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights was reference its significant report countering the world drug problem with regard to human rights  September also saw the release of the Spanish edition of the GDPO, TNI, WOLA joint publication on Inter Se treaty modification El equilibrio entre la estabilidad y el cambio La modificación inter se de los.  Towards  the end of the month, Axel’s co-edited collection, Collapse of the Collapse of the Global Order on Drugs: From UNGASS 2016 to Review 2019was published by Emerald while Christopher’s first monograph, based on his excellent PhD dissertation, White Drug Cultures and Regulation in London, 1916-1960 was published by Palgrave.

Book Covers: White Drug Cultures and Regulation in London & Collapse of the Collapse of the Global Order on Drugs 

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