Eugenia Oviedo-Joekes, Joan C. March, Manuel Romero, Emilio Perea-Milla
31 December 2009
In 2003, a randomised controlled trial (RCT) comparing injected diacetylmorphine and oral methadone was carried out in Andalusia, Spain. The subsequent follow-up study evaluated the health and drug use status of participants, 2 years after the completion of the trial. This follow-up cohort study was carried out between March and August 2006. Data collected included information on socio-demographics, drug use, health and health-related quality of life. Patients who received HAT showed better outcomes compared with those not on HAT. The results of this study strengthen the evidence showing that HAT can improve and stabilise the health of long-term heroin users with severe comorbidities and high mortality.
Copenhagen unveiled that the leading southern countries are willing accomplices in climate crime to the rich nations, while the hope remains with the rising power of the climate justice movements.
The reason for the failure in Copenhagen is clear - rather than discuss coordinated efforts, countries lobbied for their particular interests. Everything now depends on individual states and their respective blocs.
People have been literally robbed over the last thirty years as money has moved up from labour to capital. And as people have less money to spend, we are constantly in a crisis of overproduction.
Long known for a liberal policy on drugs, the Czech Republic is now officially quantifying its status as one of European Union's most lenient member states when it comes to decriminalizing drug possession. But these new guidelines come among signs that the rest of Czech drug policy is not keeping pace with other EU members and contradicts law enforcement tactics being utilized to tackle alcohol abuse.
The drugs problem in Colombia is intertwined with structural factors at the social, economic, institutional and cultural levels. Moreover, its relationship to the armed conflict has had serious consequences for the socio-economic conditions of peasant and indigenous communities affected by the production of raw materials used to produce cocaine.
The seventh meeting of the Informal Drug Policy Dialogue (IDPD) series, a joint initiative of the Andreas Papandreou Foundation and the Transnational Institute, took place from 10-12 December in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
With ministers and heads of states arriving in Copenhagen, protests surrounded the climate change conference venue, while negotiations remained blocked.
Cap and trade interprets climate change into the language of neo-liberal economics. Instead we need to rethink our trade system and rethink how we produce and consume goods.
The United Nations-backed climate-change negotiations are now in deadlock, with many key issues still unresolved, mainly on emissions cuts and financing the developing world’s coping mechanisms.
The 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances, entrust the Expert Committee on Drug Dependence of the World Health Organization (WHO) with the responsibility of assessing substances for abuse liability in order to make recommendations on their control under the two aforementioned Conventions.
As the drugs are shipped to locations around the world, it's the communities in Burma and along the border that will pay the highest price, perhaps, because of the growing presence of drugs and a lack of resources to fight the problem at the local level.
