It’s June 24th. My husband has just been sentenced to 9 years in jail. I watch him walk out of the dock and into a life where he is no longer mine…he’s a convict now, owned by the state until his release. I pray that the system will see the man and not the crime; the future [...]
This blog is adapted from a speech given by Daniel Joloy, Amnesty International, at the launch of the Anyone's Child Mexico interactive documentary Mexico decided over ten years ago to militarize their drug policies and rely on the armed forces to conduct counter-narcotic operations and other public safety tasks. The so-called “war on drugs” has [...]
This is a guest blog by Gary Mead A remarkable event went almost unnoticed over the Easter weekend – Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, introduced a Bill to legalise the recreational use of cannabis. Only one other country – tiny Uruguay in South America – has completely legalised cannabis as a consumer product, although eight [...]
Mexican mothers join with UK academics to bring peace to Mexico Launch Event: ‘Anyone’s Child’ - Mexico Never before heard stories from the front-line of the drug war “The 'war on drugs' is not a war on drugs, it is a war against human beings in Mexico.” Araceli Rodríguez Nava “I want to go back, [...]
This blog by Anyone's Child Coordinator, Mary Ryder, was originally published by openDemocracy on 12 April 2017 “If we talk about the war on drugs we will win. They cannot silence our voices and hide our cries of pain, our anger, our fear, or our courage.” So says Araceli Salcedo Jímenez, mother of Fernanda Rubi, [...]
This blog was written by Belgian Deputy Chief of Police, Peter Muyshondt Peter telling his story to the CND It was my second time at the UN. The first time I went was in April 2016 when I was invited by Transform Drug Policy Foundation to join them at the UNGASS, the United Nations [...]
Last night we had the latest of the Anyone's Child events with two of our mums from other sides of the globe. The evening was a powerful and inspiring symbol of the urgent need for international drug policy reform. Decca Aitkenhead, the wonderful Guardian journalist, interviewed Donna May, the mother who changed Canadian drug policy, and Anne-Marie Cockburn, one [...]
This blog was written by Lugard Abila, campaign manager of Anyone's Child Kenya “The global war on drugs has been fought for more than 50 years without preventing the long term trend of increasing drug supply and use. Beyond this failure, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has identified many serious negative “unintended [...]
This is a blog by Mary Ryder, coordinator of Anyone's Child: Families for Safer Drugs Control After half a century of fighting and a trillion dollars wasted on an ineffective and counterproductive policy, the drug war is a colossal failure. Yet while drug violence is a common topic in contemporary literature and film, from Breaking Bad to Narcos, we [...]
This is adapted from a speech given by Anyone's Child member, Anne-Marie Cockburn, at the University of Essex's THINK debate: 'the War on the War on Drugs' Anne-Marie alongside LEAP UK speaking at University of Essex's THINK debate - The War on the War on Drugs I’ve had a break for a few [...]