© Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, 1998
            Canadian HIV/AIDS Policy & Law Newsletter
            Volume 3 Number 4 & Volume 4 Number 1 - Winter 1997/98

            

            INTERNET NEWS
            The Internet, Drug Policies and Harm Reduction
            Renewed calls for pragmatism, many texts on new issues and recent 
            developments, and on improved websites: there are abundant and 
            impressive materials promoting the harm-reduction approach and 
            fighting complacency and misinformation. The harm-reduction 
            networking movement on the Internet is becoming a tidal wave.
            The Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy's Internet site at 
            http://fox.nstn.ca/~eoscapel/cfdp/cfdp.html deserves a mention for 
            being always up-to-date. Canada's most comprehensive and compelling 
            resource about drug law and policy reform features online press 
            releases and stories relating to a physician’s 17 December 1997 
            application to Health Canada for legal access to medical marijuana, 
            including the text of the application and a transcript of an Ottawa 
            Citizen report (19 December) saying that Health Canada is ready to 
            approve application if "technical flaws" in the application are 
            corrected. You will find, among other things, links to research 
            information and policy discussions about medical marijuana; to the 
            medicinal marijuana section of the Lindesmith Center Library; to 
            articles about marijuana in the British Medical Journal and The 
            Lancet; to the comprehensive medicinal marijuana research site of 
            Drs Lester Grinspoon and James Bakalar of Harvard Medical School; 
            and to Canadian and foreign news articles and media reports on drug 
            policy collected and updated daily on the Media Awareness Project 
            website at www.mapinc.org/canada.htm.
            The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse has made some additions to 
            its website at www.ccsa.ca, including a "special interest section" 
            on cannabis issues where the first link leads – sign of the times? – 
            to a [US] National Institute for Drug Abuse marijuana update 
            capsule. The website features HIV/AIDS and Injection Drug Use: A 
            National Action Plan, the report of the National Taskforce on 
            HIV/AIDS and Drug Use; an April 1997 article about needle exchange 
            and HIV; Harm Reduction: Concepts and Practice – A Policy Discussion 
            Paper ; and International Guidelines for Estimating the Costs of 
            Substance Abuse.
            The Canadian Medical Association is not indifferent to the idea of 
            harm reduction, but a site search of 
            www.cma.ca/sitesearch/index.html may reveal more than intuitive 
            browsing of this rich website, with titles like "Time for legalized 
            distribution of illegal drugs?" and "Needle exchange programs: an 
            economic evaluation of a local experience" leading to abstracts and 
            online versions of the CMA's numerous publications.
            For those interested in south-of-the-border developments (Canada's 
            drug laws and policies are, of course, not free from US influence), 
            the Drug Reform Coordination Network at drcnet.org publishes regular 
            updates (The week online) and includes a section about "The Epidemic 
            of Drug-Related AIDS." The National Drug Strategy Network at 
            www.ndsn.org is an information-sharing network that provides 
            "complete and up-to-date information about current events regarding 
            drug issues. ... It does not take any official positions on policy 
            matters" but includes an interesting "Newsbrief," as well as a very 
            diversified links section where the Lindesmith Center's excellent 
            website at www.lindesmith.org (always a must!) neighbours those of 
            the FBI, the DEA and many more.
            The International Harm Reduction Association at www.ihra.org.uk has 
            uploaded a valuable addition under "Proceedings from the 8th 
            International Conference on the Reduction of Drug Related Harm," 
            where numerous papers from the plenary, major sessions and symposia 
            have been archived: "What have we learnt from Drug Education?" by 
            Niall Coggins; "Strategy of Change: The French Situation" by Anne 
            Coppel; "Promoting harm reduction ideas in the international 
            community" by Catherine Hankins; "Changing Drug Policy: Lessons from 
            Eastern Europe and the USA" by Ethan Nadelmann; "Increasing Trends 
            towards the reduction of drug related harm in Asia" by Manisha 
            Singh; "Using Harm Reduction Policies within Drug Law Enforcement in 
            the NSW Police Service, Australia" by Suzie Forell; "Women and 
            Drugs: 25 years of Research and Policy" by Marsha Rosenbaum; and 
            many more insightful pieces.
            At www.oeko-net.de/ecdp, the website of European Cities on Drug 
            Policy offers a newsletter and an online version of the Frankfurt 
            Resolution, and it outlines the goals of this group that seeks to 
            coordinate harm-reduction strategies among European cities.
            - Jean Dussault

            

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