#CND67 day 5 THREAD🧵

I'm at the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna this week - attempting to live tweet the small part of the chaos I'm able to participate in......
1/ It's only 9.45 and a lot has already happened including the fascinating @TransformDrugs side event

I'll do updates later - and try and tie up some threads from previous days in the coming hours...
2/

I'm in Vienna this week for the annual UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs - The main UN forum to exploring international drug control issues.

Ill be doing a daily thread on interesting events and developments, and do m best to explain what the hell is going on here.
1/

https://twitter.com/TransformDrugs/status/1768205099501760672

Will explain more in a bit - but first here's @volker_turk from @UNHumanRights - speaking about last year's groundbreaking report on drugs and human rights....it's a bug moment
2/

Frustrating news from Thailand; it looks like their nascent non-medical cannabis legalisation reforms are being effectively reversed

Its a confusing situation, compounded by a messy initial reform process

Ill try & unpick, as far as I can understand...
HT @AnnFordham
1/ A key prob was the initial reforms, which removed cannabis from the Thai Narcotics Act - nominally to facilitate a mkt & access to cannabis for medical use

But in the absence of a formal regulatory framework, non medical canna-preneurs took advantage of the legal grey area
2/

I'm at the UN Commission on Drugs in Vienna this week.

It's a familiar rollercoaster of bureaucratic weirdness - but with huge relevance to reform debates around the world.

I'll tweet updates - with apologies in advance for randomness - on this thread....
1/🧵

Apologies for radio silence - I've been preparing for this livestreamed dialogue which kicks off in about 30 mins - will pick up on tweeting proceedings after lunch
2/

https://twitter.com/CND_tweets/status/1731606517844263216?t=lkp2p_lM0x8PiPpVblqJHA&s=19

15 new synthetic opioids made Class A drugs "as the Govt continues to act to prevent drug deaths"

Given the history of other class A's, it's delusional to imagine more prohibitions can meaningfully address the drug death crisis
1/
gov.uk/government/new… Here's graphs of the England & Wales' cocaine & heroin related deaths going back to 1993 (methodological challenges with drug death stats notwithstanding)

Both were class A for this entire period.

Note the distinct upticks in both graphs around 2011
2/

Transform's new guide to regulating psychedelics for *non* medical use will be published on Nov 14th!

Register for the launch webinar with me & the brilliant @EsterKincova here:

Preorder in print, or free pdf
1/ events.teams.microsoft.com/event/9597aeb9…
transformdrugs.org/publications/h…


I'm sorry its taken ages, but we wanted to get it right, & have a had loads of input from experts across the globe making sure we do. It contains the carefully researched pragmatic policy recommendations followers of Transform's work will find reassuringly familiar, but..
2/

Recent @scotgov calls for decriminalisation of drug possession have provoked a tediously predictable uptick in attempts to discredit Portugal's famous 2001 decrim reforms, (with echoes of similar recent efforts in Ireland & the USA)

It's worth digging into this a bit
THREAD🧵1/ Firstly - what were the reforms and what were the outcomes on key indicators?

Transform produced a, now widely cited, report 2 years ago (with help from CICAD officials in Portugal) using the latest data. Heres a thread with key facts & background👇
2/

https://twitter.com/SteveTransform/status/1393243566009368576?t=f6faPTlKSQRFYgf2glQ0kg&s=19

THREAD🧵

New analysis from @mansfieldintinc & @AlcisGeo has revealed a 80+% drop in opium production following the imposition of of a ban by the Taliban

What are the implications for European opiod mkts & policy? Could a heorin 'drought' drive a N-American fentanyl crisis?
1/ @mansfieldintinc @AlcisGeo The drop off in opium (& by implication heroin) has been dramatic - Mansfield explaining how, InHelmland 'poppy cultivation is down to less than 1,000 hectares when it was 129,000 hectares the previous year' - a 99% reduction
2/
bbc.co.uk/news/world-asi…

A welcome move in Ireland.

Amazingly, UK alcohol products are *still* the only drugs not mandated to carry health warnings (despite the toll of illness & death), & only food/bev not required to list ingredients or calorie content (or pay sugar levy)
1/ rte.ie/news/2023/0522… Info on alcohol products (& marketing) operates on a clearly inadequate voluntary industry arrangement.

Squint and you might see a microscopic health warning on some products, or a pointless @Drinkaware link lurking in the corner of some marketing posters.
2/

THREAD🧵

A fascinating new technical report on the 'effects of cannabis legalization' was publsihed this month.

It was commissioned by the German Govt to inform their cannabis reforms (in part as a repsonse to opposition backlash)

Read here👇
bundesgesundheitsministerium.de/fileadmin/Date…
1/ Its a *very* thorough literature review on a range of key quesions/concerns - followed up by summaries of expert opinion on the same subjects.

This research was undertaken by the “Institut für interdisziplinäre Sucht- und Drogenforschung (ISD)“ in Hamburg
2/

The problem with a 'tough on crime' narrative is that success is measured in short term political outcomes: opinion polls, focus groups, media monitoring etc, not meaningful long term outcomes like crime reduction, recidivism, community wellbeing etc.
1/ The inevitable result is policies that may work politically in the short term, but that systematically ignore the science when it doesn't align with the key priority; ie enhancing an individual's or party's 'tough' brand.

It's about public relations not the public good
2/

THREAD🧵 (as I go through it...)

Government have published their response to the ACMD review on Nitrous Oxide

gov.uk/government/pub…
1/ So first a note on timing - the Govt had contemptuously trailed the nitrous ban to journalists well before the ACMD completed or published their report (see this times piece from Jan), rather undermining the obsequious pleasantries in the opening para

thetimes.co.uk/article/laughi…
2/

The Irish Cannabis Risk Alliance (CRA) recently claimed (in its oral evidence to the Justice Committee decrim inquiry) that In Portugal post-decriminalisation:

‘Adolescent cannabis use has doubled’

I think that assertion is problematic for a number of reasons

THREAD🧵 1/ first, some context.

As the global shift towards decriminalisation (of posession/use) has gathered pace & institutional support (notably inc from all 31 UN agencies inc WHO, UNODC etc) , opponents have been increasingly defensive.
2/

Interesting day in H̵o̵g̵w̵a̵r̵t̵s̵ ̵Parliament today at the APPG (All Party Parliamentary Group) on CBD
1/ It was quite an odd meeting; all CBD/hemp industry folks so I knew *no one*, except the chair Crispin Blunt MP

I went because the event was titled
'Cld effectively regulation of a legal cannabis sector largely eliminate the illicit market?' which sounded more up my street
2/

'Vaccinating' people against certain drugs (usually cocaine and heroin/opioids - most recently fentanyl) has always been a TERRIBLE IDEA - shot through with practical and ethical holes.
THREAD🧵
1/ If they worked, well, see below. But for now the reality is: *they don't actually exist*

'drug vaccine' stories appear every couple of years, usually based on some half-baked study that involved being horrible to mice.

But no functional vaccines have *ever* the reached mkt
2/

Interesting details emerging of Germany's proposed cannabis model.

A few thoughts
- it's a 'leak' not a formal announcement (so not written in stone & may change)
- the devil's in the detail (which we don't have)
- what's *not* revealed here is as important as what is....
1/

https://twitter.com/TransformDrugs/status/1582636442525716480

What's proposed here fits with the public health oriented model that had been trailed by officials so no great surprises really.

It all looks fairly sensible & mostly aligned Transform thinking - but worth exploring details.

concerns for me are with what's not here..
2/

A PQ from @OwenThompson MP, on the evidence for the classification of #psilocybin (the drug in magic mushrooms) in class A, has produced an interesting answer from new drugs mininster Jeremy Quin MP

IMHO it's quite a misleading answer, thats usefully unpicked....

THREAD 🧵🍄1/ @OwenThompson In response to the evidence request Quin states:

"Govt has not commissioned or published any recent analysis of the harms of psilocybin"

'Recent' suggests that their was evidence in the past

There wasnt

He should have said none has EVER been commissioned or published
🍄2

The idea that cartels are making brightly coloured fentanyl powder and pills

'in a deliberate attempt to drive addiction amongst children and young adults'

makes zero sense and has all the makings of drug war panic mythmaking

THREAD🧵
1/ Just to be clear - fentanyl, as the press release rightly points out, is incredibly potent & potentially deadly in small amounts (as this image of fatal doses suggests). Fentanyl & it's various analogues are responsible a terrifying number of OD deaths. Thats not in dispute
2/

I'm getting the train to Utrecht in the Netherlands on Thursday for the opening of the world's first MDMA shop.

THREAD 🧵
1/ Sadly the shop is only a demo/ proof of concept at this stage; a research project from @poppiamsterdam & mainline.nl that cant yet actually retail MDMA - but seeks to engage stakeholders in the debate on how regulation should work

But they have built a real shop..
2/

Some of #Berlin's amazing #StreetArt scene

I'm in Berlin today for the German Govt cannabis legalisation consultation process expert hearings - opened this morning by the minister of health; making the pragmatic case for responsible legal regulation - and identifying the various public health challenges....
1/ The minister explains why he changed his mind on regulation - acknowledging the failure of historic policy & how regulation offers better health & criminal justice outcomes; inc child protection, controls on marketing etc.
2/