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Transform Drug Policy Foundation
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Transform Drug Policy Foundation seeks to minimise drug-related harms to individuals and communities by bringing about a just and effective system to control and regulate drugs.
Recent Posts Tagged With 'antonio costa'
Calls for reform grow
This month we have seen a plethora or articles in UK newspapers calling for an end to prohibition. There have been so many we thought we’d bring you the best of them in one blog. The articles are written by a variety of people including a for...
World Drug Report Preface majors on legalisation
Below is the text from the Preface to World Drug Report 2009 - dominated by a detailed rebuttal of the growing calls for a debate on legal regulation of drug production and supply. We have deconstructed these kind of critiques so many times before, ...
UN Office on Drugs and Crime admits it is at war with itself
News release 24th June 2009The World Drug Report 2009, the flagship annual publication of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), will be launched in Washington DC on 24 June. Launched in the run up to World Drug Day on 26th June, the...
UNODC mugged by reality
Sanho Tree, writing below for the Transform blog, responds to the Guardian report last week that 'UN wants 'flood of drugs' in Afghanistan to devalue opium':United Nations officials in Afghanistan are attempting to create a "flood of drugs" in the co...
UNODC remains shy about publishing report on Dutch Coffee Shop system
Dr Frederick Polak and others have been trying to get the UNODC to publish their discussion document on the Dutch coffee shop system for some time now. Here's the latest attempt to get some answers about the report.Last May at the international harm...
UNintended Consequences - side effects and contra indications of global prohibition
They may be the UNintended consequences of the drug ‘control’ system, but they show that the entire prohibitionist apparatus should come with an explicit health warning.The UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs completes its marathon session on evalua...
Fear prevails at the UN as voices for drug law reform are smeared
Today Ministers from around the world are in Vienna for the High Level Meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs to set a new ten-year UN drug strategy. Whilst fear and inertia has generally prevailed amongst our political leaders, we have also ...
Afghan Opium and the Emperor’s New Clothes
Last week the UNODC launched its latest report on opium production in Afghanistan. Steve Rolles and I attended the presentation of the report at Chatham House by Antonio Maria Costa Executive Director UNODC and Bill Rammell, Minister of State Foreig...
Keeping the Promise: Human Rights and AIDS
Below are two comments from high ranking UN figures, made on UN world AIDS day. The general tenet of the comments is positive and welcome, particularly the evident change in tone from the UNODC compared to some previous comments. That said, it is hop...
The opium war's front line: Afghanistan, Iran and Hampshire
There has been a series of opium stories in the last couple of days that highlight some of the big questions in drug policy that the media and politicians rarely if ever want to mention, let alone explore in a rational and intelligent way. First up ...
TV documentary: Prime Time Investigates: War Without End
An extraordinary documentary marking a new level in broadcast journalism critiquing the international war on drugs was shown on Irish TV last night (3 June 2008).Filmed in Colombia, Ireland, England, the US, The Netherlands, Switzerland and many more...
UNODC director goes to Amsterdam: the lost report
As revealed on the Transform blog on May 6th the head of the UN office on drugs and crime, Antonio Maria-Costa, recently visited Amsterdam to see for himself how their policies on drugs (and sex work) operate in practice. Now we can exclusively brin...
Transform in the Guardian CIF: Coaker's line on Cocaine
Coaker's line It is not coca growing per se that fuels the conflict in Colombia, but the fact that cocaine is illegal - a point lost on most policymakersEmily Crick 7.00am May 22, 2008Home Office minister Vernon Coaker announced a new anti-cocaine i...
Antonio Maria-Costa: international man of mystery
UNODC director Antonio Costa is something of an enigma. One day he seems to be keen to engage with the progressive NGO community, the next he calls them lunatics. One day he will make political capital from his NGO engament strategy, the next treat t...
Traditional coca use: caught in the cross fire
Traditional use of coca in the Andes has been an unfortunate casualty of the emergence of widespread powder and crack cocaine use in the West over the past four decades - or, more specifically the increasingly militarised efforts to eradicate cocaine...
UNODC Director declares international drug control system is not ‘fit for purpose’
Below is a copy of our latest press release, drawing attention to one of the more encouraging discussion papers to emerge from this month's UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna - although curiously not made available on the UNODC website (at tim...
UNODC and the NGO forum: "yet again sir, you do not answer my question"
Below is a short Youtube film made my the Hungarian Civil liberties Union (who also provide a commentary on their blog here), one of the numerous NGOs attending the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna last week. The encounter between UNODC dir...
UNODC director describes DPA event as '1000 lunatics', 'obviously on drugs'
In a strange and disturbing turn of events here in Vienna at the UN CND, the UNODC director Antonio Maria Costa, who had seemed to be making positive rhetorical gestures to the concerns of the NGO community with his speech on Monday, has this morning...
The next ten year UN drug strategy could be the last under absolute prohibition
Transform's CND press release is copied belowUK drug charity: 'The next ten year UN drug strategy could be the last under absolute prohibition' News releaseNo EmbargoDate: 10 March 2008 Transform Drug Policy Foundation, the UK's leading source of exp...
When all else fails: blame Amy Winehouse
This weekend saw various high profile figures, including Maria Antonio Costa, executive director of the UNODC and the Prime Minister,Gordon Brown jump on the condemn drug using celebrities bus, Costa going beyond simple condemnation to directly link...
