 So Mary, are there any exciting developments this year at the CND? Yeah, so this year at CND, obviously there was a high-level segment that marked the midterm review of the 2019 political declaration on drugs. The official proceedings were very disappointing. The outcome document is incredibly disappointing. The wording is very vague. It doesn't acknowledge any of the failings of the war on drugs. However, something that has really marked the midterm review is the fact that Colombia put together a statement on behalf of 60 countries. Many of them are members of the actual CND to call for a review of the current approach and show that the approach is not working and we need to rethink the strategy on drugs at global level. And we can see this was one of the resolutions which is on overdose prevention that is led by the United States and for the first time it includes harm reduction in its title. And it's an important sign because the US was one of the countries that was pushing back on harm reduction in the past. The human rights system is much more engaged in Vienna and drug policy in general than ever before. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has released a report on the human rights implications of drug policies and it calls for the end of the war on drugs. It calls for the responsible regulation of drugs, of all drugs. It's the first UN agency, I think, that is so strong in its position on this so it's a fantastic sign. Release has been a vocal proponent of decriminalization. What do we mean by decriminalization? It is the removal of criminal sanctions for possession and use of drugs. If you look around the words, is there any model of decriminalization which is closest to your heart which you would highly recommend? I think my favorite model is Spain. So Spain decriminalized all drugs back in the 1980s through a constitutional court decision which determined that people had a right over their own bodies, a right to privacy and so they permit the possession and social supply of any controlled drug in private settings. Now, the thing I don't like about Spain is that they have administrative fines for public possession which the police are very happy to use so it still can lead to over-policing. We learned new words recently and one of these new words is recriminalization and as I've heard from the news in Oregon, the state legislature is going to approve a bill that would recriminalize drug use. Is that correct? That is correct. The state legislature did pass the bill to recriminalize drug possession. It's still waiting for the governor to sign. How does it make you feel? I'm really angry. Decriminalization in Oregon was wrongfully blamed for homelessness even though it's not connected, it's really connected to housing policies. During the COVID pandemic, there were housing policies that prohibited evictions so somebody couldn't were protected if they weren't in their housing. Months after decriminalization took effect, the state removed those restrictions and so we saw these external factors of housing policies that led to a number of people who are unhoused now and are homeless and on the streets. The second thing is that the overdose rates in Oregon are directly tied to the arrival of fentanyl which is a very powerful synthetic opioid. Fentanyl hit the markets on the west coast, which includes Oregon around 2019 and 2020 and it coincided with the implementation of decriminalization. So I think there were two main external factors disconnected to decriminalization that opponents to any kind of progressive reform capitalized on and used it to put pressure on the legislature to do something. So what is your message to those people who will say that, you know, decriminalization we tried it in Oregon, it didn't work? I would say it is not true that it didn't work. Decriminalization was very effective. It meant that tens of thousands of people avoided a criminal record as a result of decriminalization for that very short period. As a result of decriminalization, the state has made massive investments in treatment and housing and harm reduction and supportive services that are needed for people. I would also say decriminalization is part of a whole series of steps that need to be taken to truly adopt a public health approach. We have got this discussion now in Norway about decriminalization because we shall remove the stigma. Criminalization hinders people from seeking help, receiving help, and they say it will stop the stigmatization of people. Well, that decriminalization is about police running after us in the streets. But then they take us, they take the drugs from us but then we're not going to punish you. We're just going to force you to go into there to get help. How is that de-stigmatizing? It's not. It's the prohibition that is the main problem. We have to end this taboo. We have to break the taboo and move forward. We are Europe. We are for democracy. And now we have an enemy against the democracy inside our own countries because of organized crime. They're killing journalists. They're killing politicians. They're killing advocates. They're killing people just passing by and they are infiltrating political parties, infiltrating the welfare system to laundry the money. They're destroying our democracy from inside. We cannot do that anymore. And what we can do, you can open up for those who use the most drugs. I think there's maybe 10% of the drug users use 70 or 80% of the drugs. We'll make it legally available for them. What developments we see around the world in terms of regulation? A very exciting thing around this year at CND is that there is more and more visibility given to legal regulation. Around the world there are quite a few jurisdictions that have legally regulated markets. I mean, many jurisdictions in the US but then all corners of the world, right? So you've got Uruguay, you've got Thailand. There's quite a few European countries including the Czech Republic and others, Germany, that are about to adopt legally regulated markets for cannabis. Germany ran into problems with the European Commission because a full chain from growing to retail on a commercial level is not allowed by EU law but everything for personal use is allowed in the sense that countries can decide on that themselves. That is the framework decision of 2004. So what they did now is to have home cultivation for personal use and collective home cultivation, you could say, in cannabis clubs. You cannot use there, for instance. But you can buy your cannabis there, 25 grams. Luxembourg also got a new elections centre right government now but they kept at least the home cultivation. And of course Malta has home growing and cannabis clubs. And that seems to become maybe the new model in Europe except for the Dutch. In your view, how do you compare these two models like the cannabis club model or the coffee shop model in the Netherlands? Well, what worries me is a corporate capture of the cannabis market and that you get large companies which are difficult to control. I would rather have a more controlled model but it has to be in such a way that access is not complicated too much, that people have easy access to cannabis without it being a commercial model. And the Dutch model is commercial. Do you think that some European governments could do the same what Bolivia did with coca in case of cannabis like they resigned from the conventions, rejoined without accepting the cannabis related parts? If they want to move to a more liberated market they have to do that. And we have proposed that you can have a model with yeah, like the Bolivian route. You can also have intersay, modification of the conventions. And you have to do that because the EU law is based, is very much intertwined with the conventions. If you want to change things according to EU law you have to do something with the conventions first. Certainly not at this time when international law is already very fragile. You see Palestine and Ukraine, anyone wants to meddle with international law. It's going to all depend on what is going to happen in the United States. If at the federal level cannabis will be legally regulated then I think things at the international level might start moving. I read in the media that the cannabis reform law that was accepted I adopted like a few years ago it is now being reversed or already reversed. Can you explain us the situation? Thailand has removed the scheduling of cannabis from our narcotics list and we are in the space of it's being in the control herb right now but the regulation for the control herb is not enough for cannabis to regulate cannabis properly. So the government is looking at coming out with the Cannabis Act but at the same time as civil society we also have our own Cannabis Act that goes into Parliament as well. We got our 10,000 petition members and we're just waiting for the Prime Minister to sign so that we hope that we at least get to be in the room of the committee when the final draft gets drawn. How would you regulate cannabis in Thailand if it was your place to decide? I would like to see a couple of models. I like the non-commercial model especially for the locals for trade you know like if you grow your own and then you trade with your friends like the social club model is also quite good but at the same time we can't ignore the commercialized model because Thailand is a very tourist country and that's where a lot of our economic comes in from the money so we also need to have it available because otherwise they're just going to go underground. So the whole thing that I would like to bring up regarding regulation is you need to look at the ground, the grass root the people who's actually involved in this how they do it and regulate what makes sense there rather than very high level and something that is very detached from reality so for regulation to work you need to make sure that your people also support it and that this is part of how the culture works and the society works. There is also momentum for other substances to be regulated in particular at city level so today we had a side event that focused on legal regulation and a representative of the mayor of Amsterdam came to talk about regulation of cannabis but also cocaine and other substances and I think it's high time that we have this conversation considering the toxic supply of substances and the harms that it can have on people who use drugs because the substances are not regulated. We have got heroin assisted treatment we will get substitution treatment for other serious addiction that's a revolution of the drug treatment so we will get substitution treatment for benzodiazepines and for central stimulants can help people using problematic use or MDMA, amphetamines and cocaine the substitution treatment for central stimulants it will be with dexamphetamine it's ADHD medication Could you do the same with cocaine? Yes we can do the same with cocaine and I have read about some experiment with coke paste and coke leaves pulverized of course we should use coca products also but the coca leaf it should be legal The vice president of Bolivia was also there one of the key issues that are being discussed this year is the review of the coca leaf with the view to remove it from the international drug control system to protect the rights of indigenous peoples We think our president said that dialogue is what the world needs and the coca helps to focus to also to compromise what compromise we make in circle for the well-being of the community or the group of the society we discuss If I understand you correctly your people think that coca has a sacred spiritual meaning right? Totally, totally Can you explain that like how? One of the teachings is the offering we call ofrenda Offering comes from offer and give at the same time not just offers you know we offer and give and when we came to our circle every of us bring a bag of coca leaves and beautiful handmade textile bags with beautiful patterns each others and we share before we start any talking we share the most beautiful leaves to each one of our circle of our family members in this in those leaves we blow to print our best intentions to each of our members of our family we receive the love of all our circle at the same time when we receive we eat and we start to collect in our mouth taking the elixir of the Jews and this start to concentrate every word that come from us after we eat the coca start to be sacred word true word all what you talk after eating is sacred that's why it's very very part of our spirituality many governments here at the UN say that coca is dangerous because they produce cocaine from it and we should eradicate coca what do you think about that one coca leaves used for nutrition is one coca less for the narcotraffic I can say that at this sea and the commission will vote about bringing some new substances under the control of the UN treaties how do you see this process well you know every day at the scene the number of substances are scheduled and there will be banned and there will be a unanimous vote to to have them banned and maybe for some substance it doesn't do any harm but you know we do drug checking in the Netherlands and we do that for so many years and what we see when drugs are banned when MPS is banned for instance three MMC or a few years ago for fluoramphetamine that before the ban it's usually very pure but right after the ban it started getting contaminated with all kinds of other maybe even more potent or risky MPSs how do you see the new trends in the European drug market in let's say the past five years is there any new developments when it comes to cocaine we see the availability of cocaine ever increasing every year interesting with cocaine is that the purity seems to be going up still every year year by year while the price stays the same so it means that there's a really abundance of cocaine on the market you have seen the emergence of nitrogen in some parts of Europe more specifically in Ireland in Wales and in Scotland and also in the UK so in that part of Europe they are entering the market as a contamination of heroin, cocaine or benzodiazepines but in other parts like in the Netherlands we're very close we don't see it luckily so far but it's a body in trend synthetic opioids entering the market and actually it may be fueled by the Taliban the ban on the cultivation of opium probably by now or soon the heroin stash will be dried up and we fear that heroin will be laced with synthetic opioids or completely replaced by synthetic opioids if there's no heroin what is the legal use of nitrogen if there is any? there isn't any for netizens so unlike fentanyl you won't find the hospital for scribing or anything for netizens can we say that this is a kind of product of the prohibition system? yeah I would definitely say so especially where we're seeing it in the United States right now as we're seeing increasing bans on precursors for fentanyl and fentanyl analog production something's going to have to take up the space of that as well and without safe supply and without comprehensive opiate substitution therapy access it just creates a vacuum that another synthetic opioid is really well posed to fit what has been the response from governments so far? in Scotland we've seen a bit more proactiveness there was a round table specifically around the threats of synthetic opioids there is increased willingness obviously there's moving forward with a drug consumption room there's going to be pilot drug checking programs in multiple cities we've definitely seen Weta Nose be really forthright in Wales that offers the national drug checking via post being really forthright with what they're finding and issuing alerts and information in the English context unfortunately we're still a little bit behind as far as the UK goes so the UN drug treaties were also made to provide or ensure access to controlled substances as medicines do you think that the implementation of these treaties is efficient in this regard? no and I'm going to go make a statement in the plenary about that now because 85% of the world still has no medicines they're dying in terrible pain suffering living in terrible pain and it's gotten worse because of the American narrative around the opioid crisis which has nothing to do with opioids it has everything to do with the pharmaceutical industry and lack of good regulation in the US because it's all about marketing and the latest studies really good research has shown that it's about marketing it's about the social and political determinants of health and yet that affects access to medical opioids in so many countries lower middle income countries even Europe even in really some high income countries there's not good access to medicines because doctors aren't trained to prescribe them it's so stigmatized it's so stupid to stigmatize a molecule but that's what's happened you mentioned the overdose epidemic in the US in America how do you see the roots of this of this crisis? from the pharmaceutical industry marketing expensive brand name opioids to doctors they have what's called direct to consumer marketing is allowed in the states it's not allowed in a lot of European countries because the regulatory agencies are underfunded the public sector is so underfunded there was one regulator and he at first said no you can't you can't market it this molecule and there are real problems with your application and then they bought him it's corruption it's not a healthcare system it's a profit system for the pharmaceutical industry and the insurance companies what about young people are young people here are they present at the CND? yeah so we do have a large cohort of young people the more progressive young people as well which is great we still need to see more meaningful engagement of young people not only as a token of attendance but really engaging in these policy processes so the quotes that I love using young people are not problems to be solved but problem solvers ourselves yes protect children and young people but do it in a way that is ensuring that our needs are met and that we are included in from policy discussions from policy decisions to implementation of programs make sure that we are involved in those processes civil society is not going anywhere we keep holding our governments accountable we keep holding the UN in particular UNODC accountable for their failings in terms of drug policy and we'll continue to do that and it's great that yeah NGOs and particular community representatives representatives of indigenous people representatives of people who use drugs are very very prominent more than ever in the debates at the UNOval