On February 6, legislators in Caribbean nation’s House of Representatives voted to approve the Misuse of Drugs (Amendment) Bill. The bill, which has support from Prime Minister Gaston Browne, seeks to decriminalise the possession of less than 10 grams of cannabis for all adults, and allow Rastafarian people to legally use cannabis during religious rituals and ceremonies. […]

Employers in the state will no longer be able to discriminate against employees for using marijuana or marijuana by-products outside after new laws went into effect, and the state’s Labour Department has removed the drug from its list of substances that employers can test applicants for, according to the employment law firm Littler Mendleson PC. […]

The war on drugs is really a war on us. It is time to decriminalize all drugs and stop arresting people simply for using or possessing a certain substance. We are all using drugs, most non-problematically. How can we allow the police to target, arrest and lock up our brothers and sisters in cages for something we are all doing?…

Victoria’s public rehab services are struggling with the demand, and private centres are fairing little better. Councils like Geelong and Shepparton have recently knocked back plans for private facilities in the face of staunch public opposition. In the midst of increasing addiction rates, many taxpayers refuse to see their money going into rehabilitation services. […]

Last month, six people were sentenced to death for drug trafficking by a Malaysian court. Two are Malaysian and the rest are Indian nationals – another country that maintains the death penalty for drug offenses. While Malaysia has taken steps to make the death penalty for certain drug offenses non-mandatory, slow implementation of the law and the retention of the death penalty…

“In a country with the highest teen pregnancy rates in the region, Durana is a teen mother. She has lost her coparent and breadwinner to a state-sanctioned drug war that has claimed the lives of thousands of mostly young men.   […]

In 2016, the opioid epidemic claimed 1,374 lives in New York City. That’s roughly four drug overdose deaths each day. One death every seven hours. It’s a harrowing statistic that continues to soar, and New York City officials are floating an idea that so far has not been tried in the United States: sanctioned locations where drug users can shoot up…

Bernie Sanders has a better idea. The independent Vermont senator and 2016 Democratic presidential contender on Wednesday announced a petition calling on Congress to “end the failed war on drugs.” “The criminal justice system is not the answer to drug abuse. Addiction is a health problem and we should start treating it that way,” Sanders wrote. […]

Human rights organizations lauded the decision of the International Criminal Court to conduct a preliminary examination of the killings under President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs. Human Rights Watch called the ICC’s action as a “rebuke” of the government’s efforts to deny the existence of extrajudicial killings in the country. […]

A recent report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy (GCDP) – a group of drug policy reformers including political and business personalities such as Kofi Annan, Richard Branson and Nick Clegg – challenged the stigma surrounding widely held preconceptions about problematic substance use. Many prejudiced views are embedded in the everyday language we use around drugs. […]