In 1998 when Amanda started the Beckley Foundation she was appalled by the lack of knowledge of the experts and the lack of scientific evidence on which policy decisions, with enormous repercussions, were based. The Beckley Foundation Drug Policy Programme (BFDPP) was set up to develop a scientifically-evaluated evidence base, and provide a rigorous, independent review of current global drug policy. It aims to cast light on the current dilemmas facing policymakers within governments and international agencies, and to work with them in order to promote objective and open debate on the effectiveness, direction and content of future drug policies. The foundation has to date published over 35 reports and briefing papers and convened a seminal report into global cannabis policy which was published in 2010 by the BF and Oxford University Press entitled Cannabis Policy: Moving Beyond Stalemate.
BF drug policy publications
The Beckley Foundation published Peter Hakim’s ‘Rethinking US Drug Policy’ in February 2011. The publication has recently been translated and is now available in Spanish. To access the Spanish document please click here. The original English document is available here. From the blurb: Most Americans believe that their country’s forty-year “war on drugs” has failed. [...]
The Beckley Foundation Drug Policy Programme aims to cast light on the current dilemmas facing policymakers at national and international level, as they seek to improve the effectiveness of global drug policies. The work of this initiative will be conducted within the context of a broad consortium of non-governmental organisations and professional networks, which share [...]
THE PROBLEM Since the world community first became aware of the widespread transmission of HIV, the risk of infection through the sharing of syringes by people who inject drugs has been a key concern for policymakers. While the injection of illegal drugs (primarily heroin but also, in many parts of the world, amphetamine and cocaine) [...]
Contemporary international drug policy seeks to control both the demand and supply of drugs through the criminalisation of production, trafficking and use. Furthermore, adherence to the United Nations drug control conventions ensures that most nation states adopt a similar prohibition-oriented approach when formulating national drug control legislation. Recent research suggests that this can be problematic [...]
THE OBJECTIVE OF THE SEMINAR The Beckley Foundation organised its third annual international seminar on drug policy in the House of Lords, Palace of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, on 4 December 2006. The objective of the seminar was to examine the preparations for the forthcoming global review of the international drug control system. The review [...]
During the mid to late 1990s in Australia heroin and heroin related deaths increased steeply, peaking at over 1000 deaths in 1999. In January 2001, there was an abrupt, unpredicted and unprecedented reduction in heroin supply with nearly simultaneous onset in all Australian jurisdictions. The shortage was most marked in New South Wales, the State [...]
A distinctive feature of the Swiss political system is its extensive use of the referendum process. November 30, 2008, saw the Swiss electorate vote in favour, with a figure of 68%, of ratifying a historic federal law on narcotics. This ratification finally established in legislation the principle of ‘Four Pillars’, a policy that has been [...]
Over the last decade Plan Colombia has been the principal strategy addressing the complex dynamics of illicit drugs production within that country. It is based on the assumption that a reduction in the illicit drugs market worldwide can be tackled by focusing on supply control measures. Plan Colombia was originally proposed as a peace programme, [...]
