We appeal to governments to give the care for children and youth the highest priority when implementing national policies. This was presented as a challenge to all countries of the world when Dag Endal from FORUT addressed the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna.

We see it as our duty to amplify the voice of the silent majority. The vast majority of the global population does not use illicit drugs and wants to live in communities free from drug-related harm. This is one of the messages from the first session of the Istanbul Initiative.

Not all is bad, but it’s not all good either. This is the assessment of ten years of drug policy debate in the UN system, presented in the report “Peoples’ Voice” that was recently co-published by Drug Policy Futures and FORUT. The report has a critical analysis of the ongoing drug policy discourse and also a recommendation for policy areas that national governments should prioritize in the next ten years.

A new and updated version of the International Standards on Drug Use Prevention was launched during the CND session in Vienna in March. More than anything else this new version reconfirms the conclusions in the first edition of the document.

“With timely and right interventions children can be helped out of their drug problems. This requires broader interventions than only service delivery or education”, said CWIN representative Rashmila Shakya to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna today. She recommended participatory methods to empower children.

The 2017 edition of the World Drug Report is now available from the UNODC web site. As usual it presents a massive amount of data on drug consumption and related problem. The 2017 version has a different format than the previous report as it is split into five booklets.

Drug Policy Futures, a global NGO network of more than 300 affiliates, urges UN member states on to focus on ten action areas for better drug policies. These steps, if well-implemented, will greatly improve national drug policies and yield to a substantial reduction in drug-related harms.

Prevention of drug problems does not give anyone a «license to kill». This is the essence in an open letter sent by FORUT to the Government of the Philippines through their embassy in Oslo. FORUT strongly appeals to the Philippines to stop using killings and other inhuman methods as a part of their drug policy. NGOs from all over the world have expressed the same concern.

“A very welcome decision which makes it possible to widen and strengthen FORUT’s collaboration with the United Nations”, says Secretary General of FORUT, Morten Lønstad, in a comment to the fact that FORUT has been granted Special Consultative Status at ECOSOC.

Just in time for the UNGASS conference in New York, the World Health Organization released a report that gives an update on what we today know about the health and social consequences on cannabis use. The report is a very important contribution towards a more sober and knowledge-based discussion around cannabis policies, in UN as well as in the member states.