Drugs Policies

The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) just released its annual report. Martin Jelsma - who has followed the Board's policy for many years now with a critical eye - examines its negative stance towards harm reduction and decriminalization, and questions the Board's tendency to overstep its mandate.

The emergence of more pragmatic and less punitive approaches to the drugs issue may represent the beginning of change in the current global drug control regime.

A wider trend for drug law reform is arising out of a felt need to make legislation more effective and more humane. Within this trend, a number of countries have considered decriminalisation or depenalisation models and many have, at least initially, considered threshold quantities as a good way to distinguish between what is possession and what is supply or trafficking and as a means to ensure that the sentences imposed are proportionate to the harmfulness of the offence.

Potent Substances will engage historians, anthropologists, scientists and policy‐makers in conversation about the boundaries of food and pharmacy. Three days will be devoted to the following sub‐themes: Old Food and Drugs for New; Boundaries and Expertise; and Arts and the Environment. The long‐term aims are to offer policy and practice recommendations on the boundaries of food and pharmacy relevant to high priority current and likely future challenges, drawing on the interdisciplinary knowledge of the conference participants.