The Global Pulse Journal Blog

In an anti-drug conference held in Moscow recently, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev called for an a more globally unified effort to end the drug trafficking of opium from Afghanistan and the social problems that are a direct result from its trafficking. With over 90% of the world’s opium originating from Afghanistan, President Medvedev believes that that current efforts by international organizations such as the United Nations, NATO and Shanghai Cooperation Organization, are not enough. Opium poppies are the raw material used to make heroin.   According to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, heroin has created a market worth $65 billion and caters to 15 million addicts world-wide.

The effects of Afghanistan’s 375 ton per year opium and heroin export are also felt at home through direct use and passive exposure such as  second-hand and third-hand exposure.  A new study that will be finalized this summer is expected to show that in Afghanistan 1.5 million people out of a total population of 30 million are addicts and that a quarter of those users are thought to be women and children.

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[This article was originally posted on Open Forum, a blog supported by the community of Health and Human Rights: An International Journal]

On December 22, New Zealand and Belgium became the 25^th and 26^th nations to ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM). The convention needs only four more ratifications to achieve the 30-state minimum to enter into force. Once in force, it will enact a ban on the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of most cluster munitions, which include bombs, missiles, or rockets that open midair to scatter tens to thousands of small submunitions over a wide area. The CCM also requires that states destroy their stockpiles in eight years, clear contaminated land within ten years, and provide victim assistance. Read the rest of this entry →

This month’s issue of Academic Medicine includes a series of essays addressing the question, “How should academic medicine contribute to peace-building efforts around the world?” This timely question is especially compelling in the United States, as national discourse continues about troop levels in Afghanistan, military strategy in Iraq, and whether and how the US should help stop the genocide in Darfur. Read the rest of this entry →