 Good evening. Join me. This is Drugs and Report Air News. Promise. Life. Drugs 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, you are watching Drug Reporter News. I'm Peter Szaroszy and I will update you about some recent news and developments from the world of drug policy reform. The UN celebrates the 60th anniversary of global drug control. The 64th session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs was opened on the 12th of April in Vienna. This year marks the 60th anniversary of the 1961 single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the legal foundation of the international drug control regime. On this occasion, a report was published by the International Drug Policy Consortium to take stock of the unintended consequences of global drug control. According to the report, staggering 2.5 million people worldwide are in prison for drug offence, of which at least 475,000 people are incarcerated for personal use only. Globally, only one in eight people living with drug dependence have access to treatment, while availability of life-saving harm reduction services is severely restricted. In another report published on the same day, the international network of people who use drugs called for full decriminalization of drug use without sanctions. The report points out that decriminalization is far from the ultimate form of drug policy reform, it must include scaling up access to life-saving services, and it should proceed to a full legal regulation of drugs in a timely manner. Public House England is accused of toning down positive reports on drug centers. Public House England has been accused of watering down a briefing on the life-saving merits of overdose prevention centers, or so-called OPCs, after a paper was retracted and then released with a much less optimistic outlook on these facilities. The paper by the Public House England's Knowledge and Library Service was published in March 2019 after appeals from labor-to-run pilots of overdose prevention centers. However, it was taken down and altered by the agency's National Drugs team after it faced calls to recommend the establishment of such centers in the UK. A guerrilla overdose prevention site in Glasgow has recently been making headlines and has reversed potentially fatal overdoses. There are more than 100 supervised drug consumption rooms in the world. There is scientific evidence that these sites prevent blood-borne infections, overdose deaths and help clients to access other social and health services. No overdose deaths has ever been recorded in these facilities. Will Rhode Island be the first state of the US to legalize safe consumption sites? A bill to authorize the creation of supervised drug consumption rooms is introduced to the General Assembly of Rhode Island, reported the harm reduction news site filter. On February 23, the state's Senate passed a motion which would establish an advisory committee to make recommendations to the State House Department's director on regulating these sites. Now it is up to the House Committee on Health and Human Services to review and vote on the bill. The motion has strong political support. One of the most progressive elements is to include three persons in the advisory committee who have lived experience, such as recent incarceration, recent experience with recovery and owe and recent experience with overdoses. Most French people are in favor of legalizing cannabis, a parliamentary survey finds. A survey involving a quarter of a million people was carried out last month by a parliamentary fact-finding mission which showed that more than 80% of those pulled agree that consumption and production should be allowed, governed by law. Reports the RFI news agency. 14% believe cannabis use should be decriminalized, but not legalized. While nearly 5% believe sanctions against it should be strengthened and less than 1% believe that France should keep the current legal framework the way it is now. Morocco sets to legalize cannabis protection for medical use. Morocco plans to allow the farming, export and domestic sale of cannabis for medical and industrial use. The government announced in March according to Reuters news agency. The move aims to help impoverished farmers in the rift mountains amid a growing legal global market for the drive. Past attempts to legalize cannabis farming in Morocco have failed, but the co-ruling PGD party, the largest in parliament, dropped its opposition after the UN drug agency removed the plant from its list of the most tightly controlled narcotic drugs. Romania, no funding for needle exchange. Chronic underfunding of harm reduction led to a drastic decision in Romania. The largest needle and syringe program operated by the NGO ARAS in Bucharest had to close down in February, reported Alina Bocai to drug reporter. Currently, there is no central or local government funding earmarked for HIV prevention services for key populations, including for people who inject drugs. And no funding mechanisms in place for non-governmental organizations in Romania. As a consequence, ARAS, the main service provider in this field since 2001 with an annual coverage of around 3,500 people used drugs, publicly announced in early February the closure of its mobile unit service due to the lack of funds. 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