Join us for the Geneva Course on Drug Policy, Health, and Diplomacy from January 27-30, 2025! Co-organized by the Institute of Global Health, University of Geneva, the Global Health Center of the Geneva Graduate Institute, and the Global Commission on Drug Policy.

Participate in person in Geneva or online. Scholarships available!

Drug control, public health, harm reduction, and human rights

Current issues with cannabis, the opioid epidemic, and access to controlled medicines

Perspectives on drug policy reform in today's global diplomatic context

Join us and be part of the discussion! For more info and to apply, contact Kamila Guseinova at kamila.guseinova[@]unige.ch

Don’t miss this opportunity to engage with critical global drug policy issues!

Geneva course on drug policy, public health, and diplomacy

Thailand will regulate cannabis for medicinal use instead of re-listing the plant as a narcotic, the deputy prime minister said on Tuesday, in the government's U-turn on its previous policy.

Prime minister Srettha Thavisin had vowed to make cannabis illegal by the end of 2024, just two years after Thailand became one of the first countries in Asia to decriminalise marijuana.

Thailand decides not to re-criminalise cannabis as it eyes $1bn medicinal industry

There has been a growing willingness among federal policymakers to adapt legal frameworks, using existing flexibilities, to reduce barriers to health and harm reduction services for people who use drugs, prompted by the ongoing drug poisoning crisis and more recently the COVID-19 pandemic.

The experience of recent years has demonstrated that evidence-based, human rights–based analyses, combined with community capacity-building, mobilization, and knowledge translation engaging program and policy decision-makers can lead to important legal/policy shifts — 

creating a more enabling environment to protect the health of people who use drugs.

Safe supply is increasingly considered to be a key harm reduction intervention, including proposals to look beyond strictly medicalized models. In the context of an unprecedented drug poisoning crisis, it is imperative that novel and innovative approaches are explored to address the scalability of safe supply, as a matter of life and death. To meet the diverse needs of people who use drugs, it is also pragmatic and ethically imperative that innovative approaches are adopted to scale up access to safe supply beyond the existing medical model, including within SCS. Although safe supply at SCS is not without its limitations, including with respect to the absence of SCS in many communities and the lack of 24/7 access where they do exist, they are one viable option among the range of services that are desperately needed.

As described above, courts in Canada have repeatedly affirmed the right of people who use drugs to access harm reduction and other health services, and governments have a legal and ethical obligation to ensure access to safe supply and to SCS as a necessary component of the rights to life and to health, among other human rights. While policy and legislative reform requires time, all levels of government also have broad emergency powers allowing them to act swiftly — and to compel other entities to take action. As this report confirms, a diversity of tools is available for law and policy makers to eliminate barriers to safe supply at SCS and begin to fully realize a continuum of options that are accessible and honour the autonomy and human rights of people who use drugs. What we need now is political will.

How to innovate in an emergency: legal and policy measures to scale up safe supply at supervised consumption services

In a decision that shocked some observers, key advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted that the effectiveness of 

Members of an independent scientific advisory committee voted 9 to 2 that human trials of MDMA did not prove its efficacy. They also voted 10 to 1 that the risks of MDMA, also known as ecstasy, outweigh its benefits. The FDA does not have to follow its advisory committee’s recommendations when deciding whether to approve a drug, but often does.

the difficulty of assessing psychedelic drugs

 and the FDA’s limited ability to evaluate psychiatric treatments. “It felt strange to vote no,” says committee member Satish Iyengar, a statistician at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, given that 

. “There were just too many problems with it.”

The vote took place at a meeting on 4 June in Silver Spring, Maryland.

US: MDMA therapy for PTSD rejected by FDA panel

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency announced in late April 2024 that it plans to ease federal restrictions on cannabis, reclassifying it from a Schedule I drug to the less restricted Schedule III, which includes drugs such as Tylenol with codeine, testosterone and other anabolic steroids. This historic shift signals an acknowledgment of the promising medicinal value of cannabis.

The move comes in tandem with growing interest in the use of psilocybin, the active component in magic mushrooms, for treatment of depression, chronic pain and other conditions. In 2018 and 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted a breakthrough therapy designation to psilocybin, meant to expedite drug development given that preliminary studies suggest it may have substantial therapeutic value over currently available therapies for treatment-resistant depression and major depressive disorder.

Both of these developments represent a dramatic change from long-standing federal policy around these substances that has historically criminalized their use and blocked or delayed research efforts into their therapeutic potential.

How cannabis and psilocybin might help some of the 50 million Americans who are experiencing chronic pain

Permission for the use of the two Category 5 drugs was announced in a directive of the ministry that was published in the Royal Gazette on Tuesday.

The directive, which was signed by Public Health Minister Cholnan Srikaew, took effect on Wednesday.

The directive referred to opium and psilocybin mushrooms, better known as magic mushrooms for their hallucinogenic effects when eaten, as narcotics on the Category 5 list, which are not extracts of marijuana and hemp.

Thailand allows use of opium, magic mushrooms for medical purposes, research

KARACHI -- Pakistan is establishing a legal framework for cannabis trade after the government approved the herb for industrial uses nearly four years ago, hoping to capitalize on the booming market to increase its foreign exchange reserves.

A presidential order passed in February delineated rules for the formation of Pakistan's first Cannabis Control and Regulatory Authority. The government approved cannabis for industrial use in September 2020 but had not established a regulatory framework due to internal conflict.

"We are very serious about this initiative, and things are moving at a very fast pace," a senior official of the Special Investment Facilitation Council, which is spearheading government efforts to draw investments and overhaul the economy, told Nikkei Asia.

The new coalition government -- formed of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) -- is setting up the regulatory body to formulate policies, such as issuing licenses to growers and sellers, and earmarking regions for cultivation, the official added.

Pakistan hopes to take advantage of its conducive growing conditions to enter the global cannabis market, that according to Indian research company MarketsandMarkets, will grow to $82.3 billion by 2027 from $27.2 billion in 2022. The country is seeking ways to increase exports and raise taxes to break its dependency on foreign loans and bailouts from the International Monetary Fund.

Pakistan sets cannabis rules, eyes sales to help balance books

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy signed into law a bill legalising the medical use of cannabis, a parliamentary database showed on Thursday.More than 6 million people, including cancer patients, civilians with post-traumatic stress disorder, and wounded soldiers need medicine containing cannabis, according to a lawmaker.The bill signed by Zelenskiy on Tuesday would only come into force six months after it is officially published, and the ban on selling or supplying cannabis for recreational use would remain in effect.

Ukraine legalises cannabis for medical use

The Government of Saint Lucia, through the Ministry of Commerce, Manufacturing, Business Development, Cooperatives and Consumer Affairs, has been engaged in the revision and development of policy, legislation and a regulatory framework for cannabis in Saint Lucia.

In keeping with these advancements, the Government of Saint Lucia will be hosting a two-day Cannabis Symposium from March 19 – March 20, 2024 as an open-ended regional policy discussion on matters relating to cannabis.

This symposium will afford relevant stakeholders and Cannabis Authorities within the region an opportunity to hold candid discussions on some of the issues and challenges experienced throughout the region.

Subsequently, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) will be signed by the aforementioned parties, guided by a common interest to establish and maintain robust, inclusive and safe regimes surrounding cannabis cultivation, manufacturing, sale and use in the individual states of the region.

This MOU will, in effect, establish the Caribbean Cannabis Forum—a mechanism to encourage and host joint discussions on national, regional or international cannabis matters of relevance to the Caribbean region.

Saint Lucia to host Caribbean Cannabis Symposium

OAT reduces many of the harms associated with opioid dependence in the context of criminalisation. Improving OAT coverage globally will significantly affect morbidity and mortality outcomes for people who use drugs. Although there is a gradual increase in harm reduction intervention coverage globally, coverage and scale of interventions, such as OAT, is limited.

The meeting provided a forum for discussing increasing country-level and individual OAT access. By discussing delivery models, treatment modalities, developments in OAT options, and the necessary frameworks for structuring OAT implementation and scale-up, the meeting aimed to:

Promote introduction of OAT in countries yet to provide

Promote scale up of OAT in countries not reaching targets for level of provision

Promote tailored OAT delivery models that are locally relevant and responsive to clients’ needs

Increasing opioid agonist treatment (OAT) coverage globally

Japan has passed a bill to legalize cannabis-based medicines in a landmark revision of its stringent drug laws, while toughening its ban on recreational use of marijuana. This is a win for patient groups that have campaigned for access to these medicines.

However the changes amount to a tightening of Japan's already tough cannabis policy. Marijuana consumption was criminalized, closing a loophole that officials partly blame for a recent rise in cannabis-related arrests. Prior to the revisions, inhaling marijuana had been technically legal, as opposed to a jail term of up to five years for possession. Under the revised laws, those caught using or possessing marijuana can face a prison sentence of up to seven years.

Still, decades of a strident government crusade against illegal drugs, synonymous with the mantra of "dame zettai" (absolutely not), have led to marijuana being heavily stigmatized in Japan. Just 1.4 percent of people in Japan say they have tried marijuana, compared to more than 40 percent in France and around half in the United States, data compiled by the health ministry show.

Japan's tough anti-cannabis laws have ensnared international stars including Beatle Paul McCartney, who spent nine days in detention in 1980 after the drug was found in his baggage.

Japan to legalize cannabis-based medicines

There has been a growing concern about the misuse of pharmaceutical opioids in Africa, with some commentators describing it as part of a “global opioid crisis” (e.g. Kurth et al., 2018), ignoring the socio-historical peculiarities and contextually distinct materializations of these public health crises. Scholars have challenged this broad-brush approach through critical commentaries and original research (Klein et al., 2020; Klantschnig and Dele-Adedeji, 2021). Others have argued that conflating these distinct crises “blocks the path to rational regulatory reforms and public health strategies that could constructively address each crisis on its own terms” (Pettus and Radbruch, 2023, p. 2). A notable outcome of the global crisis narrative, according to Klantschnig and Dele-Adedeji (2021), and crucially for the purpose of this Special Issue, is the increased focus on the tramadol economy in Africa. The narrative has stirred political interests and enforcement-based responses across the continent and among international drug control agencies, who view the crisis as a “drugs” problem that should be addressed with law enforcement and bureaucratic controls (Klein et al., 2020). However, the wider social and structural drivers of opioids consumption on the continent are neglected, and the potential impacts of restrictive controls on health care remain poorly understood. This Special Issue aims to fill these knowledge gaps.

Tinasti and Outleb analyse opioid regulation in Morocco, showing how recent restrictive regulations are influenced by international frameworks and how they affect access to opioid analgesics for pain management and palliative care, as well as opioid agonist therapy. Ane-Loglo examines tramadol regulation in Ghana and six other African countries, showing how they impact the medical use of tramadol. Although tramadol is essential for managing pain in these countries, existing regulatory frameworks hinder access to these medicines. Onyima documents how street-involved young men in a south-eastern Nigerian city obtain opioids from street drug dealers and pharmacies and consume them by sniffing, popping and mixing tramadol with other drugs. These practices emerged in response to the threat of formal control. Nwafor and colleagues show how manual labourers in two south-eastern Nigerian cities consume tramadol to improve energy for work, pain relief and sexual performance. These consumption practices are contextualized by difficult working conditions and low access to pain management. Nelson and colleagues show how strict measures imposed by the Nigerian state on opioid supply due to public concerns about non-medical use among youth did not mitigate this practice. Instead, it constrains access to opioids for medical purposes and fuel police corruption. Dele-Adedeji and colleagues show how social relationships facilitate the illegal tramadol market in Nigeria, enabling market actors to resolve frictions between illegality and the social acceptability of tramadol. Last, but not the least, Otu and colleagues describe how domestic and international politics shape opioid control in Nigeria, reproducing punitive approaches that hinder access to opioids for medical purposes.

An overview of legal and policy barriers to opioid analgesics access and opioid agonist therapy in Morocco

Tramadol control measures and supply for health-care services: findings from Ghana and other West African countries

Prescription opioids, consumption cultures and “informal governing images” among “young street guys” in Nigeria

“It worked for my friend”: non-medical use of tramadol among manual labourers in Anambra state, Nigeria


Chidozie Edwin Nwafor, Chukwuemeka Felix A. Okoye, Nelson I. Nwankwo, Paschal Chukwuma Ugwu

Tramadol regulation, illegal markets and consumption practices: exploring frictions of drug control in Nigeria


Ediomo-Ubong Nelson, Ogochukwu Winifred Odeigah, Emeka W. Dumbili

Resolving friction in the tramadol economy in Nigeria


Ini Dele-Adedeji, Lala Ireland, Gernot Klantschnig

Beyond evidence and reality: the politics, political economy and fallout of hawkish regulatory policy on prescription drugs in Nigeria


Smart E. Otu, Macpherson Uchenna Nnam, Mary Juachi Eteng, Ijeoma Mercy Amugo, Babatunde Michel Idowu

Drinking to cope and college grade point average


Morgan A. Douglass, Madison L. Colley, Alexander J. Tyskiewicz, Mark A. Prince

Ayahuasca ceremonies: set and setting features across Italy and Colombia


Federica Ambrosini, Laura Pariset, Roberta Biolcati

Family ties: examining family functioning and alcohol use among American Indian youth


Morgan A. Douglass, Meghan A. Crabtree, Linda R. Stanley, Randall C. Swaim, Mark A. Prince

Access to controlled medicines