 Good evening. Join me. This is Drug and Report Air News. Promise. Life. Drug and Report Air News. Love and hope and trust and confidence. Tonight there's something special to talk about. So won't you join us? Hello, this is Peter Szaroszy and you are watching Drug Reporter News. Join us to learn about the developments in drug policy reform around the world. Ukrainian people who use drugs in danger. Putin's war on Ukraine has devastating consequences on Ukrainian people in general, but some vulnerable groups such as people living with HIV and people who use drugs face aggregated risks. Before the war an estimated 250,000 people were living with HIV in Ukraine, 150,000 received life-saving antiretroviral treatment. The number of people who received opioid agonist therapy was estimated to be 17,000. Many of these people are now under Russian occupation, with no access to food, water, medicines, health and social services. When the Crimea was occupied by Russian forces, opioid agonist treatment was disrupted because it is prohibited in Russia and many people died as a consequence. Many fear the same fate threatens clients in newly occupied territories. Tens of thousands of people living with HIV and probably thousands receiving opioid agonist treatment left the country and seek help in other European countries. In some EU countries, Ukrainians face barriers to receive access to life-saving treatment as well. The war enlanges the future of harm reduction in Russia. The current war affects harm reduction not only in Ukraine, but in Russia, where a new wave of repression threatens the existence of remaining independent civil society organizations. Before the invasion, Russian authorities designated 15 HIV services as foreign agents. A week after the aggression, Russian lawmakers tabled amendments to enable the Ministry of Justice to create and maintain a single database of all persons designated as foreign agents, as well as staff members of NGOs that had been designated as such. Said Mikhail Golichenko, senior policy analyst at the Canadian HIV-AIDS legal network to the drug reporter. Those who receive foreign grants and donations, especially from unfriendly countries, will be tortured. Even more with checks will be forced to coordinate their programs with the authorities and cut all Western approaches such as harm reduction. Said Alexei Lehov, a St. Petersburg-based expert to drug reporter. Bill to legalize cannabis passes U.S. House. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill on April 1 to end the federal ban on marijuana, which has created legal headaches for users and businesses in states that have legalized it, though the measure was seen as unlikely to pass the Senate, reported Reuters news agency. The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, sponsored by Democratic Representative Gerald Nadler of New York, which is in the process of legalizing the drug, removes marijuana from the list of controlled substances and eliminates criminal penalties for individuals who grow, distribute or possess it. Meanwhile, another bipartisan bill was introduced to the House in April, the PREPARE Act. Unlike the MORE Act, the PREPARE Act focuses on the creation of a committee charged with making recommendations regarding how to regulate cannabis in the United States. Taliban Popi Ban vs. Poverty in Afghanistan Experts Warn Taliban Popi Ban vs. Poverty in Afghanistan Experts Warn According to experts, the blanket ban on popi cultivation announced by the Taliban Emir is exacerbating Afghanistan's already dire economic situation and could lead to armed uprisings against the Islamist regime, reported The Voice of America. If implemented, the policy would put hundreds of thousands of Afghan rural households out of business, said William Byer Bird, senior Afghanistan expert at the US Institute of Peace. Small-scale popi cultivation is an important source of income and income stability for many Afghan farmers. The ban on popi cultivation will make their livelihoods at the more precarious. Jeffrey Clements, associate professor of economics at the University of California, told The Voice of America. The Taliban's ban follows almost two decades of international efforts to win the landlocked country from OPM production, which accounts for more than 80% of the global supply. Amsterdam Mayor Wants to Bend Tourist from Cannabis Coffee Shops Femke Halzema, the mayor of Amsterdam, is pushing once again to bend tourists from buying cannabis products from coffee shops, reported by Forbes. On Monday, April 11, local news media outlets reported that the mayor of the Dutch city said that the move remains the only option to control the local soft drugs market. Halzema explained that introducing the ban would be the best temporary measure to ensure the cannabis market remains manageable, while the pilot project to legalize cannabis in the Netherlands goes under way. Coffee shop owners oppose the ban. They say only the black market will benefit from it. The governments recently announced that the pilot project to legalize cannabis has run into several problems, and it won't start until 2023. The project, launched five years ago, aimed to remove the grey area between licensed cannabis coffee shops and the legal market. Since then, however, the experiment has faced several barriers. This was Drug Reporter News for today. Thank you for joining us. If you like this initiative, please make a donation today for the Rise Reporter Foundation, the organization producing this show on our website, drugreporter.net. Thank you. All we've been able to achieve has been done with your help. Now we go on to the next stop, making a final commitment. Now we need your support again. Support Drug and Report Drug News.