Minister Aodhán O’Ríordáin at the Shifting Drug Strategies in Ireland and the UK Workshop, 2015
The IDPP hosts high level policy planning workshops for ministers, civil servants, drug policy practitioners, and leading academics to share and discuss the evidence on global drug control policy.
Colombia and Latin America have suffered the greatest human and financial cost generated by decades of Drug War. Now the drug policy landscape is shifting. The recent UN special session on drugs and the Colombian Peace process are creating opportunities for change.
This LSE Colombian Students Society event with the IDPP explored reform scenarios and their impact on sustainable development, youth, and human rights with guests including Miguel Samper Strouss, former minister in the Colombian Ministry of Justice.
To accompany the launch of the After the Drug Wars report, the Expert Group on the Economics of Drug Policy held a two-day policy planning workshop at LSE.
The workshop opened with a keynote from H.E. Néstor Osorio Londoño, Ambassador of Colombia to the UK. Panels on day one were Shifts in Multilateralism, Regulated Markets, and Supply-Side Harm Reduction.
On day two, the workshop discussed Drugs and Development, Bringing the SDGs to Drug Policy, and Decriminalisation Models before a closing keynote from Ethan Nadelmann, founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance.
See more from the workshop in our social story from the event:
This workshop featured a keynote speech by current Irish Minister with responsibility for the National Drugs Strategy, Aodhán O’Ríordáin, announcing his support for safe injection facilities.
Also at the workshop, eminent Professors John Strang, of Kings College London, and Virginia Berridge, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, lead discussions on the shifting drug policy debate in the UK and examined ways to make drug policies more effective in terms of both public health outcomes and implementation costs.
Press Coverage for this workshop
This workshop examined the impact of moves by several US states such as Colorado to legalise cannabis consumption, including the policy implications for the rest of the world.
Watch the Cannabis Legalisation in the United States workshop on YouTube.
View publications from the International Drug Policy Project.