The Drug Law Reform project organizes a series of expert seminars, drug policy briefings and informal drug policy dialogues. The activities serve to cross-fertilise policy debates between countries and regions, stimulating participants to exchange experiences and learn lessons between policy officials, representatives from international agencies and nongovernmental experts and practitioners. Seminars are held under Chatham House Rule to ensure confidentiality and to allow participants a free exchange of ideas.
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Expert seminar: "Innovative cocaine and multi drug abuse prevention"
Forum Droghe
Florence
June 20-22, 2013The expert seminar “Innovative cocaine and poly drug abuse prevention programme”, organized by the Forum Droghe, took place in Florence, gathering over 30 people, mainly drug addiction professionals (clinicians or working in harm reduction programs); academics, researchers, NGO representatives. The seminar was introduced by a public presentation of the project, addressed to local and regional policy makers, Italian press and drug professionals from the whole region, in addition to foreign and Italian participants to the seminar. The general aim was to identify the main features of an innovative model of intervention, gathering suggestions from research on “controls” over drug use.
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Expert Seminar on the Future of the UN Drug Conventions
Transnational Institute
Prague
January 25-26, 2012As the debate on drug policy and law reform gathers momentum on the international stage, the failings of the three UN drug control conventions (1961, 1971 and 1988) have come into stark relief. Criticisms of the global drug control regime established by the drug treaties have now entered the mainstream public discourse and political debate. The discussions around treaty reform that would allow or facilitate a wider spectrum of approaches to drugs are assuming a degree of urgency.
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Expert Seminar on Herbal Stimulants and Legal Highs
Transnational Institute
Amsterdam
October 30-31, 2011A grey area has emerged between what is legal and what is not as states struggle with how to respond to the many new synthetic compounds emerging onto the market. Of the various types of ‘Legal highs’ the seminar focused on stimulants because of the parallels with the other main drug-policy issue of the moment; i.e. the status of traditional herbal stimulants. These older discussions have been reinvigorated by: Bolivia’s efforts to de-schedule coca-leaf at UN level; the debates on the status of khat between EU States, and of kratom across Asia; and the increasing stride of legitimate cannabis use on the domestic front, as in for example Spain.
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Expert Seminar on Proportionality of Sentencing for Drug Offences
Transnational Institute (TNI), International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) & Sentencing Council
London
May 20, 2011There has in recent years been a renewed interest in the principle of proportionality in sentencing policy for drug offences. There has been official analysis of the issue by the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) and several national initiatives that have inscribed a requirement for proportionality when sentencing in statute or penal code, asserted it through the courts, or, as with the UK Consultation on sentencing for drug offences by the Sentencing Council of England and Wales, are continuing to explore the concept through policy processes.
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Expert Workshop on Supply-Oriented Harm Reduction
The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and the Transnational Institute (TNI) invited a group of 20 experts for a round-table discussion at the WOLA office in Washington DC . The main question on the table: can the concept of “harm reduction” be applied to supply-oriented challenges to better address the harms associated with illicit drug production and distribution, but also minimize the harms that stem from drug control itself?
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TNI-EMCDDA Expert Seminar on Threshold Quantities
Transnational Institute
Lisbon
January 20, 2011A wider trend for drug law reform is arising out of a felt need to make legislation more effective and more humane. Within this trend, a number of countries have considered decriminalisation or depenalisation models and many have, at least initially, considered threshold quantities as a good way to distinguish between what is possession and what is supply or trafficking and as a means to ensure that the sentences imposed are proportionate to the harmfulness of the offence.
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Expert Seminar on ATS and Harm Reduction
Experiences from China, Myanmar and Thailand
Transnational Institute (TNI) / Western Australian Substance Users Association (WASUA)
Kunming (Yunnan, China),
November 26-27, 2010This report captures the main outcomes from an informal expert seminar on harm reduction in relation to the rising problems with the use of Amphetamine Type Stimulants (ATS)[1] in Southeast and East Asia, organized by the Transnational Institute, with the support of the Western Australian Substance Users Association (WASUA). The aim of the meeting was to have an open-minded exchange of opinions and experiences about the situation in Myanmar, Thailand, and Yunnan Province (China).
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TNI Expert Seminar on the Classification of Controlled Substances
Transnational Institute
Amsterdam
December 10, 2009The classification of drugs has a profound impact on the lives and well-being of individuals across the world and where the classification is incorrect, people suffer unnecessarily. This is an issue that deserves greater public awareness and greater engagement with citizenry and that where such public awareness is in place it should be galvanised in order to work towards a new democratic answer to this difficult situation.
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Money Laundering, Tax Evasion and Financial Regulation
TNI Expert Seminar
June 12-13, 2007The seminar looked at the effectiveness of the Anti Money Laundering (AML) regime that has been built over the past two decades, and the more recent attempts by states and international organisations to control tax evasion, capital flight and curb tax avoidance and harmful tax competition. Despite the impressive paper framework the AML regime appears to be not very effective.
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