Partners in the “Emergency support for the provision of HIV and Harm Reduction services among key populations in Ukraine and refugees in selected neighbouring countries” project held a coordination meeting with the representative of the UNODC Regional Programme Office for Eastern Europe which supports the project. It was an opportunity to present information of the activities implemented since the start of the project in mid-December and additionally clarify some issues related to reporting.
Tag: UNODC
Launching the project in Serbia
DPNSEE and project partners in Serbia (Prevent, Timok Youth Centre, Duga and Re Generation) invited possible partners from Serbia to a meeting to present the “Emergency support for the provision of HIV and Harm Reduction services among key populations in Ukraine and refugees in selected neighbouring countries” project. The meeting was held in the Palace Serbia, with the support from the national Office for Combating Drugs.
Project partners and the UNODC project officer Žana Glavendekić presented the background, aims and activities of the project, as well as the current situation in Ukraine, Russia and Serbia.
Participants, including those from Ministry of Health and Ministry of Interior, Institute for Public Health, Commissariat for Refugees and Migration, UNHCR office in Serbia and colleagues from the Philanthrophy member organisation discussed in details elements of importance for implementation of this important project.
A project for refugee key populations from Ukraine
The Drug Policy Network South East Europe and its member organisations from Serbia (Prevent, Timočki omladinski centar, Duga, Re Generacija) and Montenegro (Juventas, Cazas) implement the “Emergency support for the provision of HIV and Harm Reduction services among key populations in Ukraine and refugees in selected neighbouring countries” project with the support from the UNODC Regional Programme Office for Eastern Europe.
Primary objectives of the project are:
- Ensuring the continuity of the HIV prevention, treatment and care (including OAT and ARV) services for people who use drugs/living with HIV
- Community-based care and support for people who use drugs, people living with HIV, people in prisons
- Provision of essential requirements, including food and medicines and shelters, in coordination with the penitentiary service/local CSOs
Our organisations will implement the following activities:
- Provide access to information about health services and drugs and ensure clear, reliable and trustworthy health information reaches refugees
- Support in accessing health care in host country
- Rapid provision/purchasing of basic products for existing key populations/refugee shelters/centers
- Provision of HIV harm reduction services for key populations (including refugees)
- HIV and harm reduction services for people who use drugs, including new psychoactive substances
- Mobilising civil society, service providers, policymakers and other national stakeholders from the Western Balkan region to ensure wide and all-involving drug strategy development process
- Increased awareness and understanding regarding comprehensive gender-sensitive HIV services for women who use drugs (WUD) among health care managers, service providers and decision-makers
This project will be conducted in UNODC partnership with the local CSOs and aims to strengthen the capacity of CSOs to address HIV prevention, treatment, care and support among people who use drugs (including those who use NPS/stimulants) internally displaced populations, refugees and prison populations.
Project findings will inform the development and implementation of evidence-based, gender-responsive and sustainable HIV and harm reduction services for people who used drugs/people in and released from prisons, and IDPs/refugees in Ukraine, Moldova, Serbia and Montenegro.
A visit to UNODC Office in Belgrade
DPNSEE President Nebojša Đurasović, Executive Director Milutin Milošević and Director of the Timok Youth Centre Goran Radisavljević visited Ms Žana Glavendekić, the Regional Project Officer for Drug Demand Reduction.
It was a good opportunity to share about our activities in the region of South East Europe, and to present the “Emergency support for the provision of HIV and Harm Reduction services among key populations in Ukraine and refugees in selected neighbouring countries” project that is just about to start with the support of the UNODC Regional Programme Office for Eastern Europe.
Calling for rights-affirming drug policies
Ahead of International Human Rights Day on 10th December 2022, which will celebrate the legacy and relevance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ahead of its 75th anniversary, the International Drug Policy Consortium sent an open letter to Ghada Waly, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. For the third year in a row, IDPC and more than 100 civil society organisations urge UNODC Director to mark International Human Rights Day by calling for rights-affirming drug policies.
The signatories are calling on UN member states to change drug policies and practices to fulfil the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and to place human rights at the centre of all dimensions of UNODC’s work.
The human rights catastrophe brought about by punitive drug policies is well documented by the United Nations system. Every year, UN human rights experts pay increasing attention to the human rights consequences of drug policies, and more are announced to come soon. The recent and unprecedented joint statement released on 26th June 2022 (UN World Drug Day) by 13 UN human rights special mandates, in particular, notes that ‘the UN system, the international community and individual Member States have a historical responsibility to reverse the devastation brought about by decades of a global “war on drugs”’. The joint statement calls on all UN agencies to ‘ground their drug policy responses in international human rights law and standards’, and to ensure that their ‘financial and technical assistance on drug policy’ promotes responses that are ‘gender responsive’ while ‘actively seeking to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms’.
The Open letter is available following this link>>>.
UNODC Youth Forum
The UNODC Youth Forum ’22 officially began on 28 February. This year’s forum brings together some 75 young leaders to learn about evidence-based drug use prevention, discuss various perspectives on the world drug problem, and be empowered to continue action within the field of drug use prevention and health promotion. Continuing the tradition of empowering youth to make their voice heard by World policymakers, in the next five days, throughout the Youth Forum participants will develop a Statement to be delivered during the 65th session of the UN Committee on Narcotic Drugs.
Youth Forum is an annual event organised by the UNODC Youth Initiative in the broader context of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND). Its main objective is to gather young people, nominated by Member States and active in the field of drugs use prevention, health promotion and youth empowerment from around the world. The aim is to allow them to exchange ideas, visions and different perspectives on how to better protect the health and wellbeing of their peers and provide them with an opportunity to convey their joint message to the global level policy makers.
UNODC is celebrating a decade since the launch of the Youth Initiative in 2012, which has seen 10 Youth Fora held with the participation of 371 young people from 97 countries. The Youth Initiative continues to encourage young people to reflect on the potential impact of substance use in their schools and communities, and to start taking effective and evidence-based action to prevent substance use.
Two representatives of our member organisations participate in the Forum this year: Sara Vukelić from Re Generation and Tedi Jaho from Aksion Plus. Both have participated in the No risk, no borders for young people in South East Europe. We are assured that they will contribute with a wealth of ideas and proposals gained from their peers.
The number of NPS stagnated
New psychoactive substances remain a global phenomenon with 134 countries and territories from all regions of the world having reported one or more NPS to the UNODC Early Warning Advisory on NPS from 2009 up to December 2021. Within this time period, 1,124 substances were reported to the UNODC Early Warning Advisory on NPS by governments, forensic laboratories and partner organisations worldwide.
The global NPS market continues to be characterized by the emergence of large numbers of new substances belonging to diverse chemical groups. Until 2015, the number of different NPS reported each year increased year on year, but has since shown signs of stabilization, albeit at a high level (see figure below).

The last decade has been characterised by a growing diversity of new psychoactive substances (NPS) offered on illicit drug markets and a high level of innovation with dozens of new substances being detected year after year. In recent years, however, the number of NPS reported globally each year has stagnated, albeit at high levels.
Early warning at the national, regional and international levels has enabled the international community to identify NPS soon after their emergence on illicit drug markets as well as to monitor their persistence and regional spread. This allows the analysis of trends in diversity and innovation across effect groups and regions, an understanding of which is relevant to informing future drug policy measures. The potential impact of international scheduling decisions on these trends will be discussed with a focus on the first set of NPS placed under international control in 2015.
On International Human Rights Day, UN drugs body silences UN human rights expert on ground-breaking report
From the IDPC and Harm Reduction International press release
In an unprecedented, last-minute decision, the lead UN drugs body has blocked the presentation of a report from a group of independent human rights experts that calls out governments for serious human rights abuses committed in the war on drugs.
The UN’s lead drug policy-making body has slammed the door on human rights expert Dr Elina Steinerte, Chair of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, who was due to present a watershed study on how drug control policies drive an epidemic of arbitrary detention across the world. She has been blocked from addressing the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs today, 10th December, which is coincidentally International Human Rights Day, and her statement has been merely published online. This last-minute decision, which led to a contentious exchange during the session, was reached through an opaque, closed-door process that kept the human rights experts in the dark about their exclusion until today.
The report sheds light on the arrest and incarceration of millions of people around the world for drug-related offences, including for drug use. People who use drugs are also routinely held against their will in so-called ‘rehab centres’, where they are often subject to degrading and inhumane treatment, including forced labour. With today’s decision, the Commission on Narcotic Drugs stands in defiance of the Human Rights Council – the main UN human rights body – which had asked human rights experts to produce the very same report that now has been stonewalled.
The move to block the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention’s presentation is particularly galling, given that it is happening on International Human Rights Day 2021, held under the themes of equality and non-discrimination. From stop and search practices to mass incarceration or the death penalty, evidence shows that repressive drug policies disproportionately target oppressed and marginalised people across the world, including racialised groups, Indigenous people, people living in poverty, women, and LGBTQI+ people.
UNODC launched Synthetic Drug Strategy
From the UNODC press release
In response to the rapidly-growing problem of synthetic drugs around the world, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) today launched a new strategy to support countries in addressing the situation on 19 November 2021.
The launch of the new strategy comes at a critical moment. The number of new psychoactive substances emerging on illicit drug markets has increased six-fold in the past decade and reached a record high of over 1,000 unique substances in 2020. Annual global seizures of amphetamine-type stimulants increased by 64 per cent in 2019, while opioid use disorder deaths have gone up by 71 per cent over the past decade.
Building on UNODC’s experience and lessons learned from the past years in dealing with the opioid crisis, the new Synthetic Drug Strategy will offer a balanced and comprehensive framework that is grounded in science.
A particular emphasis will be placed on evidence-based responses for women and youth, in recognition of the specific challenges they face.
The Strategy will focus on four “spheres of action”: multilateralism and international cooperation, early warning on emerging synthetic drug threats, science-informed health responses, and counternarcotic interventions.
Those challenges have been amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences, as economic hardship and growing inequalities have pushed people towards dangerous coping mechanisms.
Women who use drugs also face specific difficulties, including a lack of availability of necessary gender-specific health and drug treatment services, barriers to accessing existing services, social stigma and the fear of possible legal sanctions in relation to drug use and/or losing the custody of children while in treatment.
Through science-informed processes, evidence, and knowledge, the new strategy will help policymakers to introduce effective policy directions and strategies to disrupt the manufacture and trafficking of synthetic drugs, and to provide access to treatment in different parts of the world.
To learn more about the UNODC Synthetic Drug Strategy, follow this link>>>.
UNODC World Drug Report 2021
From the UNODC press release
Around 275 million people used drugs worldwide in the last year, while over 36 million people suffered from drug use disorders, according to the 2021 World Drug Report, released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
The Report further noted that in the last 24 years cannabis potency had increased by as much as four times in parts of the world, even as the percentage of adolescents who perceived the drug as harmful fell by as much as 40 per cent, despite evidence that cannabis use is associated with a variety of health and other harms, especially among regular long-term users.
The theme of this year’s International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking is “Share facts on drugs. Save lives”, emphasizing the importance of strengthening the evidence base and raising public awareness, so that the international community, governments, civil society, families and youth can make informed decisions, better target efforts to prevent and treat drug use, and tackle world drug challenges.
According to the Report, the percentage of Δ9-THC – the main psychoactive component in cannabis – has risen from around six per cent to more than 11 per cent in Europe between 2002-2019, and around four per cent to 16 per cent in the United States between 1995-2019, while the percentage of adolescents that perceived cannabis as harmful declined by 40 per cent in the United States and by 25 per cent in Europe.
Moreover, most countries have reported a rise in the use of cannabis during the pandemic. In surveys of health professionals across 77 countries, 42 per cent asserted that cannabis use had increased. A rise in the non-medical use of pharmaceutical drugs has also been observed in the same period.
Drug Use Rising, but Science-Based Treatment More Available
Between 2010-2019 the number of people using drugs increased by 22 per cent, owing in part to global population growth. Based on demographic changes alone, current projections suggest an 11 per cent rise in the number of people who use drugs globally by 2030 — and a marked increase of 40 per cent in Africa, due to its rapidly growing and young population.
According to the latest global estimates, about 5.5 per cent of the population aged between 15 and 64 years have used drugs at least once in the past year, while 36.3 million people, or 13 per cent of the total number of persons who use drugs, suffer from drug use disorders.
Globally, over 11 million people are estimated to inject drugs, half of whom are living with Hepatitis C. Opioids continue to account for the largest burden of disease attributed to drug use.
The two pharmaceutical opioids most commonly used to treat people with opioid use disorders, methadone and buprenorphine, have become increasingly accessible over the past two decades. The amount available for medical use has increased six-fold since 1999, from 557 million daily doses to 3,317 million by 2019, indicating that science-based pharmacological treatment is more available now than in the past.
The Dark Web
Drug markets on the dark web only emerged a decade ago but major ones are now worth at least US$ 315 million in annual sales. Although this is just a fraction of overall drug sales, the trend is upwards with a fourfold increase between 2011 to mid-2017 and mid-2017 to 2020.
Rapid technological innovation, combined with the agility and adaptability of those using new platforms to sell drugs and other substances, is likely to usher in a globalized market where all drugs are more available and accessible everywhere. This, in turn, could trigger accelerated changes in patterns of drug use and entail public health implications, according to the Report.
The Drug Market Rebounds and Shifts
The new report shows that drug markets have swiftly resumed operations after the initial disruption at the onset of the pandemic; a burst that has triggered or accelerated certain pre-existing trafficking dynamics across the global drug market. Among these are: increasingly larger shipments of illicit drugs, a rise in the frequency of overland and water-way routes used for trafficking, greater use of private planes for the purpose of drug trafficking, and an upsurge in the use of contactless methods to deliver drugs to end-consumers.
The resilience of drug markets during the pandemic has demonstrated once again traffickers’ ability to adapt quickly to changed environments and circumstances.
The Report also noted that cocaine supply chains to Europe are diversifying, pushing prices down and quality up and thereby threatening Europe with a further expansion of the cocaine market. This is likely to widen the potential harm caused by the drug in the region.
The number of new psychoactive substances (NPS) emerging on the global market fell from 163 in 2013 to 71 in 2019. This reflects trends in North America, Europe and Asia. The findings suggest national and international control systems have succeeded in limiting the spread of NPS in high income countries, where NPS first emerged a decade ago.
Drug Risks, New Developments Spurred by Pandemic
COVID-19 has triggered innovation and adaptation in drug prevention and treatment services through more flexible models of service delivery. Many countries have introduced or expanded telemedicine services due to the pandemic, which for drug users means that healthcare workers can now offer counselling or initial assessments over the telephone and use electronic systems to prescribe controlled substances.
While the impact of COVID-19 on drug challenges is not yet fully known, the analysis suggests that the pandemic has brought increasing economic hardship that is likely to make illicit drug cultivation more appealing to fragile rural communities. The social impact of the pandemic – driving a rise in inequality, poverty, and mental health conditions particularly among already vulnerable populations – represent factors that could push more people into drug use.
The World Drug Report and further content is available following this link>>>.