News

TNI

Feb 7 2007

TNI new website on the 10-year review of UNGASS
On March 11-12, 2009, a High Level Segment of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) evaluated the implementation of political declaration and action plans of the UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) in 1998. The evaluation will determine international drug policy for the next decade. What were the key issues on the table? Is a reform of the UN Drug Conventions needed? This site will guide you through the process and provide critical background. Go to the new site

Drug Law Reform Project
Promoting more humane, balanced, and effective drug laws in Latin America
Research Center Drugs and Human Rights (CIDDH), Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and the Transnational Institute (TNI), August 2009
The drug law reform project, in which a number of Latin American judicial experts and legislators participate, aims to promote more humane, balanced, and effective drug laws. The project was created with the realization that after decades of the same drug policy, the efforts have not curved the expanding drug markets, and instead have led to human rights violations, a crisis in the judicial and penitentiary systems, the consolidation of organized crime, and the marginalization of drug users who are pushed out of reach of the health care systems. We believe it’s time for an honest discussion on drug policy strategy, aiming at significant changes in both legislation and implementation.

Drug Policy Reform in Practice
Experiences with alternatives in Europe and the US
Tom Blickman & Martin Jelsma
Nueva Sociedad, July 2009
The academic journal Nueva Sociedad recently released an issue to promote the debate in Latin America on drug policy reform. TNI contributed with the article "Drug policy reform in practice: Experiences with alternatives in Europe and the US". The article aims to give inputs for the Latin American debate providing an overview of European drug policy practices regarding harm reduction, decriminalization of consumption and possession, and more tolerant policies towards cannabis, particularly in The Netherlands and several states in the US.

Neither War Nor Peace
The Future Of The Cease-Fire Agreements In Burma
Tom Kramer
Transnational Institute, July 2009
This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the first cease-fire agreements in Burma, which put a stop to decades of fighting between the military government and ethnic armed opposition groups. These groups had taken up arms against the government in search of more autonomy and ethnic rights. This paper explains how the cease-fire agreements came about, and analyses the goals and strategies of the cease-fire groups. It also discusses the weaknesses the groups face in implementing these goals, and the consequences of the cease-fires. The paper then examines the international responses to the cease-fires, and ends with an overview of the future prospects for the agreements.

From Golden Triangle to Rubber Belt?
The Future of Opium Bans in the Kokang and Wa Regions

Tom Kramer
Drug Policy Briefing Nr. 29,
July 2009
In the Kokang and Wa regions in northern Burma opium bans have ended over a century of poppy cultivation. The bans have had dramatic consequences for local communities. The bans have driven poppy-growing communities into chronic poverty and have adversely affected their food security. Very few alternatives are being offered to households for their survival. The Kokang and Wa authorities have been unable to provide alternative sources of income for ex-poppy farmers. Instead they have promoted Chinese investment in monoplantations, especially in rubber. These projects have created many undesired effects and do not significantly profit the population.

Coca Myths
Anthony Henman & Pien Metaal
Drugs & Conflict Debate Paper 17, June 2009
The coca leaf has been used and misused for many ends, each of them suiting different interests and agendas. This issue of Drugs & Conflict intends to debunk and disentangle the most prominent myths surrounding the coca leaf. It aims to clear the air and help steer the debate towards a more evidence-based judgement of the issues. Discussion has been stuck for too long at the point where it is now, and - sometime in the near future - political decisions will need to be made on coca’s fate and legal status.

Pardon for Mules in Ecuador, a Sound Proposal
Series on Legislative Reform of Drug Policies Nr. 1, TNI/WOLA, February 2009
At the end of 2008, about 1,500 persons were released who were in Ecuadorian prisons sentenced for drug trafficking. The measure, known as "pardon for mules," singled out a specific group of prisoners who were victims of indiscriminate and disproportionate legislation that was in effect for many years. Although with this measure, the Government of Rafael Correa took an important step in the process of reforming draconian legislation regarding controlled substances in his country, it is still to be completed with new legislation.

First Southeast Asian informal drug policy dialogue
TNI and the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) co-hosted the First Southeast Asian Informal Drug Policy Dialogue, 12-14 February 2009 in Bangkok. The dialogue brought together government officials, experts, NGOs and representatives of international agencies, to discuss dilemmas and possible improvements in drug policy making in the region. Martin Jelsma, one of the coordinators explains here the objectives and outcomes of the event.

Harvesting trees to make ecstasy drug
By Tom Blickman, The Irrawaddy, February 3, 2009
Many people believe that ecstasy is merely a synthetic drug that is manufactured solely with chemicals, so-called precursors. However, the main raw material for ecstasy, safrole, is extracted from various plants and trees in the form of safrole-rich oils—also known as sassafras oil. Preventing ecological damage and unsustainable harvesting of safrole-rich oils is urgently needed to preserve fragile ecosystems.
Go to the article in The Irrawaddy

First Global Forum of Producers of Crops Declared to be Illicit
Centro de Estudios Rurales y de Agricultura Internacional, January 29-31, 2009
Why peasants from certain regions of the world cultivate plants that international conventions have declared to be illicit? That is the essential question to which the First Global Forum of Producers of Crops Declared to be Illicit (FMPCDI) will try to give an answer.
The conclusions of the Forum will be submitted to the United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on Countering World Drug Problem, to be held in Vienna on March 11-12, 2009, in which international strategies against this kind of crops will be decided.

Withdrawal Symptoms in the Golden Triangle
A Drugs Market in Disarray
Transnational Institute, January 2009
Despite a significant decline in opium production in Southeast Asia over the past decade, the region suffers from a variety of ‘withdrawal symptoms’ that leave little reason for optimism. The rapid decline in production has caused major suffering among former poppy-growing communities in Burma and Laos, and poses serious questions about the sustainability of the opium bans in those countries, as well as an increase in health risks among consumers, including rising HIV/AIDS rates. A pattern is emerging across the region in response to the repressive drug control policies and the criminalisation of drug users that shows an increased use of stronger drugs and more harmful patterns of use.

Crops for illicit use and ecocide
Are illicit crops really the main cause of damage to the ecosystem in Colombia?
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 28, December 2008
According to the Colombian government, cocaine consumers are unaware of the ecological disaster caused by production of the alkaloid. If they knew that cocaine is perpetrating ecocide in the country they would stop consuming it. Based on this premise, the government has organised an information campaign called Shared Responsibility, to tell people about the destruction caused by coca and cocaine production in the country. This briefing shows that although coca production has contributed to the ecological damage, the main culprit is the anti-drugs policy of the government itself.

UNGASS review reaches critical stage
Transnational Institute, November 2008
The review of the objectives and action plans agreed at the 1998 UNGASS on Drugs has reached a critical stage. Following the thematic debate at the 2008 Commission on Narcotic Drugs, and the five expert working groups held in Vienna over the summer, the attention now moves to the political process of negotiating the text of a political declaration to be agreed at the high level meeting in March 2009.

Alternative Development, Economic Interests and Paramilitaries in Urabá
Moritz Tenthoff
TNI Drug Policy briefing No 27, September 2008
The following document analyses how the Forest Wander Families Programme and the Productive Projects of the Presidential Programme Against Illegal Crops in Colombia have been used to legalise paramilitary structures and implement mega agro-industrial projects in the Uraba Region.

Withdrawal Symptoms
Changes in the Southeast Asian drugs market
Drugs and Conflict Debate Paper 16, August 2008
A significant decline in opium production in Burma and Laos, which has been heralded as a major success for international drug control policy, is having a devastating effect on farmers and is triggering worrying consequences for drug users.

[url]detail_pub.phtml?&&know_id=247&menu=11d[link]10 Years
TNI Drugs and Democracy Programme[/url]
TNI Drugs & Democracy, July 2008
TNI has been involved in international drugs policy work since the 1998 UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs (UNGASS). This new report summarises the lessons of 10 years of work in this field, emphasising drug controls that respect human rights.

The current state of drug policy debate
Trends in the last decade in the European Union and United Nations
Martin Jelsma, 9 June 2008
Repressive drugs policies in the last ten years have patently failed as drugs are cheaper than ever, but legalisation doesn’t solve all the problems associated with the illegal drug economy either. So what are the principles and strategies for effective alternative policies that are emerging?

Martin Jelsma participated at the First Meeting of Latin American Comission on Drugs and Democracy in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, April 30, 2008. Prominent members of the Commission are three Latin American former presidents: Fernando Henrique Cardoso from Brazil, César Gaviria from Colombia and Ernesto Zedillo from Mexico.
"It is time to develop a proper Latin American response that is detached from the ideology from the United States that has been common in the past decade," Martin Jelsma told the meeting. "It is potentially a good time to try because politically there is now more distance to US policies in a growing part of Latin America and to US domination in general."
See: Latin America needs a new drug policy approach, TNI weblog.

Abolishing coca leaf consumption? The INCB needs to perform a reality check
TNI Press Release, 5 March 2008
The Transnational Institute condemns the decision by the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) which calls on countries to 'abolish or prohibit coca leaf chewing and the manufacture of coca tea,' a policy that would criminalise millions of people in the Andes.

Crop spraying: a déjà vu debate
From the Andean strategy to the Afghan strategy
Drug Policy Briefing No 25, December 2007
(Download [url]policybriefings/brief25.pdf[link]PDF[/url])

The United States is putting strong pressure on the Afghan government to officially adopt the strategy of eradicating the opium poppy through aerial spraying of the crops with the herbicide glyphosate. Given that this practice has been widely applied in Colombia, it is worth taking a look at other experiences of spraying and a more general look at the practice of eradicating crops as an anti-drugs measure.

Dutch government urged to open international debate about UN drug control conventions
December 12, 2007
TNI co-signed a letter that was sent to the Dutch Prime Minister and relevant parliamentary commissions, stressing the need for an active Dutch involvement in the UNGASS review process and specifically to use the moment to open the discussion about the UN conventions that are an obstacle to further developments in Dutch cannabis policy.

Missing Targets
Counterproductive drug control efforts in Afghanistan
Drug Policy Briefing No 24, September 2007
(Download [url]policybriefings/brief24.pdf[link]PDF[/url])

Despite efforts by the Afghan government and the international community to reduce poppy cultivation, opium production in Afghanistan has once again reached record levels in 2007. The main policy instruments to bring down these figures - eradication of opium poppy fields and implementing alternative livelihoods projects - are missing their targets.

Coca, Petroleum and Conflict in Cofán Territory
Spraying, displacement and economic interests
Moritz Tenthoff
Drug Policy Briefing No 23, September 2007
Under the guise of the war on drugs and terror, the way is being cleared for major economic interests in the Lower Putumayo (Colombia). This paper examines the impact of coca cultivation, petroleum activity and the armed conflict on the ancestral territory of the Cofán community.

[url]drugs-docs/pr260607.html[link]Wishful thinking clouds independent assessment in UN World Drug Report[/url]
TNI Press Release, June 26, 2007
UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa claims that there is a clear correlation between UN-led drug control efforts and a perceived 'recession' in the drug economy. The World Drug Report, however, fails to document the existence of a recession. Other market studies also fail to detect any significant impact of drug control efforts.

Opium jihad
Martin Jelsma and Tom Kramer, Red Pepper, June 2007
With Afghanistan now responsible for more than 90 per cent of the world's opium production, there is massive international pressure for repressive policies. But quick-fix solutions like opium bans and eradication don't work, write Martin Jelsma and Tom Kramer, who report back from Afghanistan on the rising anger of poor farmers on the front line.

Colombia coca cultivation survey results
A question of methods
Drug Policy Briefing No 22, June 2007

Despite 2006 witnessing the most intensive use of fumigation in the country’s history, some 157,200 hectares of cultivation areas were detected, 13,200 hectares more than in 2005. Is the fumigation strategy failing?

Opiumbestrijding in Afghanistan
Uncle Sam maait papavers
Tom Kramer & Martin Jelsma, Vrij Nederland, 9 June 2007
De Afghaanse regering staat onder enorme internationale druk om de papaverteelt te stoppen. Tom Kramer en Martin Jelsma, verbonden aan het Transnational Institute en gespecialiseerd in drugs en drugsbestrijding, reisden door Afghanistan en zagen wat dat in de praktijk betekent. Als een veld wordt vernietigd, kan een boer zijn schulden niet betalen. En rozen telen, daar zit ook geen schot in.

International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC)
May 2007
The IDPC is a global network of 25 national and international NGOs that specialise in issues related to illegal drug use.

Khat (catha edulis): The latest controversial plant
Antony Otieno Ong’ayo, 3 May 2007
Khat chewing, an indigenous practice in the Horn of Africa, has gained global prominence.

Press statement: Destroying Poppies Counterproductive in Uruzgan 2 May 2007

Persbericht: Papaververnietiging Uruzgan contraproductief, May 2, 2007 (in Dutch)
Nederlandse steun aan de Afghan Eradication Force (AEF) bij de papaververnietiging in Uruzgan is een vergissing. De twee voorwaarden die Nederland aan haar medewerking verbindt - het sparen van kleine opium boeren en het evenredig ‘targeten’ van de verschillende stammen – zijn praktisch onhaalbaar. Het vernietigen van een oogst zonder dat er alternatieven voorhanden zijn grenst aan het inhumane en werkt contra-productief voor het winnen van de `hearts and minds’ van de Afghanen, stellen het Transnational Institute (TNI) en leden van het Nederlands Netwerk van NGOs voor Afghanistan (DNNA).

Report of the 2007 Commission on Narcotic Drugs
International Drug Policy Consortium Briefing Nr. 5, March 2007
This briefing paper summarises the proceedings and outcomes of the 2007 CND. It includes discussion of a wide range of issues - from technical debates on the rescheduling of dronabinol, to the plans for the global review of the 1998 UNGASS objectives - and comments on the performance of the UN agencies in this field, and of the workings of the CND itself.

Sending the wrong message
The INCB and the un-scheduling of the coca leaf
Drug Policy Briefing No. 21, March 2007

The 2006 International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) report emitted a clear signal to the governments of Bolivia, Peru and Argentina that growing and using coca leaf is in conflict with international treaties, particularly the 1961 Single Convention. The INCB, rather than making harsh judgements based on a selective choice of outdated treaty articles, should use its mandate more constructively and help draw attention to the inherent contradictions in the current treaty system with regard to how plants, plant-based raw materials and traditional uses are treated.

The politicisation of fumigations
Glyphosate on the Colombian-Ecuadorian border
Drug Policy Briefing No. 20, February 2007
Plan Colombia has brought environmental, health and economic damage – and may even have stimulated the spread of coca plantations. A new Briefing looks at alternatives for the Andean region and addresses the glyphosate dispute on the Colombia-Ecuador border.

Drug Control and War in Afghanistan

[url]detail_pub.phtml?page=reports_drugs_debate15&menu11d[link]Losing Ground
Drug Control and War in Afghanistan[/url]
Drugs and Conflict Debate paper 15, December 2006
This Drugs & Conflict briefing focuses on opium elimination efforts and the controversy about involving military forces in anti-drugs operations in Afghanistan. It also provides background on the Afghan drug control strategy, its new counter-narcotics law, and the role of Afghanistan within the global opiates market.

Persbericht: Papaververnietiging Uruzgan contraproductief, 2 May 2007

Press Release: Eradication could undermine Afghanistan reconstruction, new study warns, December 5, 2007
Pers Bericht: Nederlandse troepen moeten zich ver van drugsbestrijding houden, waarschuwt een nieuw rapport, 5 december 2007

The cocaine base paste market in the Southern Cone

[url]detail_pub.phtml?page=reports_drugs_debate14&menu=11d[link]‘Paco’ Under Scrutiny:
The cocaine base paste market in the Southern Cone[/url]
Drugs and Conflict Debate paper 14, October 2006
Based on two studies carried out in the cities of Buenos Aires and Montevideo and additional research in Brazil, this report examines the origin, characteristics and impact of the explosive increase in consumption of cocaine base paste and crack in urban areas. The question of whether there is a cause-and effect relationship between the explosive increase in consumption in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil and a transformation in the structure of cocaine trafficking in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil is relevant to an evaluation of the success of failure of policies implemented in the Andean Region to stem the supply of cocaine.

Drugs and Conflict in Colombia

The Sierra de la Macarena: Drugs and armed conflict in Colombia
By Ricardo Vargas
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 19, September 2006
The Colombian government has re-established the aerial fumigation of coca crops in the Sierra de la Macarena National Park. In so doing, it has drawn the wrong conclusion from the ‘failure’ of manual coca eradication in the region. These operations amount to a shortsighted military strategy in place of an anti-drug policy, harming and alienating the Park’s civilian population while doing little to affect the FARC’s ‘bankroll’. The likely result, writes Ricardo Vargas, is the creation of well-fertilised territory for a prolonged armed conflict.

UN Drug Control

UNODC World Drug Report 2006 full of scientific insults
TNI Press Release, June 26, 2006

International drug control: 100 years of success? TNI comments on the UNODC World Drug Report 2006
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 18, June 2006
In its 2006 World Drug Report, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) struggles to construct success stories to convince the world that the global drug control regime has been an effective instrument. An escape-route used in this year's World Drug Report is to fabricate comparisons with higher opium production levels a century ago and with higher prevalence figures for tobacco. The report suffers from the tension between the UNODC policy makers who want a strict control regime for cannabis and the expert who start to doubt the efectiveness of such a strict control regime. If anything, the 2006 World Drug Report shows that a genuine evaluation process is needed more than ever and that the UNODC cannot be relied upon to perform that task in a transparent, objective and balanced way, without the help of independent experts.

The UNGASS Evaluation Process Evaluated
IDPC Briefing Paper Nr. 1, May 2006
'At the 49th Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), held in Vienna in March 2006, a draft resolution was tabled by the European Union (EU) to guide the process of evaluation of the implementation of political declaration and action plans of the 1998 UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) in 2008. This briefing describes the fortunes of the resolution and its proposals to strengthen the upcoming UNGASS evaluation process. It explores how the resolution’s aims for more objective and transparent assessment were ultimately watered down. This was a result not only of opposition from states wary of transparency, objectivity and a possible re-evaluation of some current UN policies, but also the EU’s own approach to operating at the CND. The authors identify several possible openings for future progress in this area and recommend that; Member States should acknowledge the value of an objective and transparent assessment of the current drug control mechanisms and should ask for an evaluation of the UNGASS evaluation process; the EU should review how it operates at the CND and should invest money to support the realization of the core sections of its resolution.

HIV/AIDS in Burma/Myanmar

HIV/AIDS and drug use in Burma/Myanmar
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 17, May 2006
The increasing number of injecting drug users (IDUs) and the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic in Burma presents one of the most serious health threats to the population in the country, and also to the region at large. Infection rates among IDUs in Burma are among the highest in the world. The international community needs to make a firm commitment to stem the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Burma and should ensure sufficient and long-term financial support for HIV/AIDS and harm reduction programmes.

Coca Yes, Cocaine No?

Cover Coca yes, cocaine no Coca Yes, Cocaine No?
Legal Options for the Coca Leaf
Drugs & Conflict Debate Paper 13, May 2006
A simple leaf of an ancient plant will feature prominently on the international agenda this year. As international relations and specialised mechanisms for managing the international drugs trade have evolved, a decade-old demand to remove the coca leaf from strict international drugs controls has come to the fore again in recent months. Time has come to repair an historical error responsible for including the leaf amongst the most hazardous classified substances, having caused severe consequences for the Andean region. This issue of Drugs and Conflict explains the motives, context and range of this petition, as well as the procedures that need to be followed to reach this objective. For every member of the international community, this year will become a moment to decide whether to maintain coca under the control of the UN Conventions, or to dare recognize this mistake and show the will to correct it.
PDF Document
Press Release

Political Challenges Posed by the Failure of Prohibition

Political Challenges Posed by the Failure of Prohibition
Drugs in Colombia and the Andean-Amazonian Region
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 16, May 2006 (by Ricardo Vargas)
After a slight dip in coca production during 2003 and 2004, the Andean region has returned to the historical average of 200,000 hectares of coca crops. Added to this is the sharp increase in the expansion of drug trafficking toward other countries in the region. The failure of Washington’s drug policy has enabled illegal globalisation to expand its foothold in the hemisphere, with a negative impact. Given the failure of policy and the complexity of the situation, different schools of political thought once again raise the easy option of legalisation, a proposal that actually conceals the lack of alternative critical thinking focused on the development of a national and regional policy.
WHO Cocaine Project

In 1995 the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) announced in a press release the publication of the results of the largest global study on cocaine use ever undertaken. However, a decision in the World Health Assembly banned the publication of the study. The US representative threatened that "if WHO activities relating to drugs failed to reinforce proven drug control approaches, funds for the relevant programmes should be curtailed". This led to the decision to discontinue publication. A part of the study has been recuperated and is now available on the TNI's Drugs & Democracy website.

Award winner

On 12 November 2005, TNI Fellow and coordinator of the Drugs & Democracy Programme, Martin Jelsma, received the "Alfred R. Lindesmith Award for Achievement in the Field of Scholarship".

Ecuador Case

Aerial Spraying Knows No Borders
Ecuador Brings International Case over Aerial Spraying
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 15, September 2005

Global Fix

Cover The Global Fix

The Global Fix
The Construction of a Global Enforcement Regime
Crime and Globalisation Programme
TNI Briefing Paper 3, October 2005

Banning Opium in Afghanistan and Burma

Cover Downward Spiral

Downward Spiral
Banning Opium in Afghanistan and Burma
TNI Drugs & Conflict Debate Paper 12
June 2005

Opium farmers in Afghanistan and Burma are coming under huge pressure as local authorities implement bans on the cultivation of poppy. Banning opium has an immediate and profound impact on the livelihoods of more than 4 million people. These bans are a response to pressure from the international community. Afghan and Burmese authorities alike are urging the international community to accompany their pressure with substantial aid. Opium growing regions in both countries will enter a downward spiral of poverty because of the ban. The reversed sequencing of first forcing farmers out of poppy cultivation before ensuring other income opportunities is a grave mistake. Aggressive drug control efforts against farmers and small-scale opium traders, and forced eradication operations in particular, also have a negative impact on prospects for peace and democracy in both countries.

Trouble in the Triangle
Opium and Conflict in Burma
Edited by Martin Jelsma, Tom Kramer, Pietje Vervest
Silkworm Books, July 2005

TNI/BCN Press Release On the occasion of the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking on 26 June 2005, the United Wa State Army (UWSA), one of the rebel groups in Burma, has declared opium free the areas under their control in northern Burma. In Afghanistan, the opium ban issued by President Hamid Karzai in 2002 will be enforced more rigorously. These bans are in response to pressure from the international community. Banning opium has an immediate and profound impact on the livelihoods of 4.3 million people. Many more are indirectly dependent on income generated on the illicit market. The consequence will be a downward spiral of poverty in the opium growing regions of both countries.

CICAD Study

The Politics of Glyphosate. The CICAD Study on the Impacts of Glyphosate and the Crop Figures
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 14, June 2005
The Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD), an agency affiliated with the OAS, recently joined the large number of existing scientific studies on the possible health and environmental effects of Round Up, the glyphosate formula being sprayed on illicit crops in Colombia. CICAD’s investigation, under the direction of an international scientific team, concluded that the chemicals used in the spraying — glyphosate and Cosmo-Flux — do not affect human health or the environment, and that at most they could cause temporary skin and eye irritation, but serious doubts exist. The National University of Colombia’s Environmental Studies Institute published a critical analysis of the CICAD study, which considered technical aspects of the investigation, finding methodological shortcomings, as well as omissions and inconsistencies throughout the report. Those findings could point to a lack of impartiality in the CICAD study.