The Politics of Drug Rehabilitation in the Philippines

Volume 24/1, June 2022, pp. 147-158 |  PDF Gideon Lasco and Lee Edson Yarcia Abstract The international consensus to end compulsory drug treatments and close forced rehabilitation facilities needs urgent transformation to country policies. In the Philippines, as with other countries in Asia, rehabilitation can be compulsory and is seen as the humane alternative to the “war on drugs.” In this paper, we present the landscape of rehabilitation and narrate…

VIEWPOINT Toward the Emergence of Compulsory Treatment for Drug Use in Morocco?

Volume 24/1, June 2022, pp. 171-174 |  PDF Khalid Tinasti In Morocco, people incarcerated for drug offenses make up 69% of those in pretrial detention (22,587 out of a total of 32,732 people).[1] As of 2018, 25% of people incarcerated were serving a drug-related sentence (21,004 out of a total of 83,732 people). Disaggregated data are not available on the number of prisoners serving sentences for use, possession, or trafficking…

VIRTUAL ROUNDTABLE Compulsory Drug Treatment and Rehabilitation, Health, and Human Rights in Asia

Volume 24/1, June 2022, pp. 203-215 |  PDF Quinten Lataire, Karen Peters, and Claudia Stoicescu Participants APINUN ARAMRATTANA, assistant professor, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Thailand, and member of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) Asia-Pacific Expert Advisory Group on Compulsory Facilities for People Who Use Drugs JUDY CHANG, executive director of the International Network of People Who…

No Exit: China’s State Surveillance over People Who Use Drugs

Volume 24/1, June 2022, pp. 135-146 |  PDF Mu Lin, Nina Sun, and Joseph J. Amon Abstract In China, although drug use is an administrative and not criminal offense, individuals detained by public security authorities are subject to coercive or compulsory “treatment,” which can include community-based detoxification and rehabilitation and two years of compulsory isolation. Individuals are also entered into a system called the Drug User Internet Dynamic Control and…

STUDENT ESSAY  A Human Rights Case Study on Access to Pre-exposure Prophylaxis for Female Sex Workers in South Africa

Volume 24/1, June 2022, pp. 105-115  |  PDF  Steven Winkelman Abstract This paper examines the extent to which access to HIV preventive medicines such as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) are ensured under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. There is a lack of human rights-focused research on access to HIV preventive medicines for vulnerable populations such as female sex workers in HIV-endemic countries. To help fill this gap,…

EDITORIAL A Slow Paradigm Shift: Prioritizing Transparency, Community Empowerment, and Sustained Advocacy to End Compulsory Drug Treatment

Volume 24/1, June 2022, pp. 129-134  |  PDF Claudia Stoicescu, Karen Peters, and Quinten Lataire For the past two years, we, the editors of this special section, have worked in close collaboration in various ways to reenergize discussions at the international, regional, and national levels on the closure of compulsory drug detention facilities and the transition to rights-based approaches to drug treatment.[1] In August 2020, we convened the joint UNAIDS-UNODC…

Capacity-Building in Community-Based Drug Treatment Services

Volume 24/1, June 2022, pp. 189-202  |  PDF Michael J. Cole Abstract Globally, there are not enough services to meet the enormous demand for evidence-based community-based drug treatment. Further, the effectiveness of available services varies as much as the diversity of their treatment regimens. Capacity-building can help increase the scale and improve the quality of those interventions. Maximizing the impact of capacity-building requires a comprehensive and systematic approach considering three levels—the…

The Right to Health as a Tool of Social Control: Compulsory Treatment Orders by Courts in Brazil

Volume 24/1, June 2022, pp. 159-169  |  PDF Luciano Bottini Filho Abstract Brazilian citizens have a constitutional right to health. This right has also been a powerful instrument in the judicial enforcement of drug dependence treatment in Brazil. This study reviews a sample of decisions from the state of São Paulo and provides evidence that the right to health has been used to justify compulsory admission to treatment for people deemed…

STUDENT ESSAY Algorithmic Discrimination in Health Care: An EU Law Perspective

Volume 24/1, June 2022, pp. 93-103 |  PDF Malwina Anna Wójcik Introduction Pursuant to article 168(7) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the organization of national health care systems and the definition of national health policy remain the exclusive competences of member states. In spite of clear differences in funding and management, European health care systems share common values of universality, access to good-quality care,…

VIEWPOINT Pandemic Treaty Should Include Reporting in Prisons

Volume 24/1, June 2022, pp. 117-119 |  PDF Kyle Knight, Julia Bleckner, Edwin Cameron, and Joseph J. Amon On December 1, 2021, the World Health Assembly, meeting in only the second Special Session since the World Health Organization’s (WHO) founding in 1948, agreed to develop a “convention, agreement, or other international instrument” to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.[1] Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, WHO’s director, explained that this decision was taken…