Following the successful national launch of South African Network of People Who Use Drugs (SANPUD) in October 2020, Deputy Minister of Social Development, Ms Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu, launched the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial SANPUD chapter in Amajuba District, Kwa-Zulu Natal Province on 7 June 2021.

As a colonial construct, the global drug control regime has undermined the rights of indigenous peoples (including the right to self determination, and to practice and revitalize their cultural traditions and customs), obliging all states to abolish traditional uses of coca, cannabis and opium by means of crop eradication and drug law enforcement.

World Hepatitis Day (WHD) takes places every year on 28 July bringing the world together under a single theme to raise awareness of the global burden of viral hepatitis and to influence real change.

The 2021 theme this year is 'Hepatitis Can’t Wait' - and we at SANPUD along with partners will be hosting a virtual event for World Hepatitis Day 2021, which aims to increase knowledge and drive forward efforts to eliminate viral hepatitis as a public health threat in South Africa.

“Drugs cost lives” – so begins the preface of the World Drug Report 2021, the flagship annual publication from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) which is published on the UN’s International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking. This year’s slogan for the day was  #ShareFactsSaveLives and in the preface, UNODC’s Executive Director states that, “it is crucial to cut through the noise and focus on facts, a lesson that we must heed in order to protect societies from the impact of drugs”.

It is therefore deeply disappointing that UNODC’s report omits so many facts and fails to present the full picture of the impact global drug control.

July 21st is International Drug Users' Remembrance Day, where we take time to remember the people whose lives were unjustly cut short due to the criminalisation and stigmatisation of people who use drugs. To us, they were #MoreThan a casualty; they were our family, friends, peers and loved ones.