Montevideo, Uruguay | AFP | Uruguay will become the first country in the world to allow recreational marijuana to be sold in pharmacies, starting in July, the president’s office said Thursday. The South American country adopted a revolutionary law in 2013 that fully legalized the production, sale and consumption of marijuana. …
Read More »Kenya extradites four drug smuggling suspects to the US
Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | Kenya has handed over to the United States four men suspected of trying to smuggle large quantities of heroin more than two years after their arrest, police said Tuesday. Kenyan brothers Baktash and Ibrahim Akasha were arrested in November 2014, along with Indian national Vijaygiri …
Read More »VIDEO: Scores netted for smoking Shisha in public
VIDEO: Police in Kampala on Saturday night arrested scores of revelers accused of smoking the banned shisha. The operation conducted in the City’s major high end bars targeted smokers and sellers of the addictive tobacco. Share on: WhatsApp
Read More »Party drugs haul worth $450 mn seized in India, Bollywood producer held
New Delhi, India | AFP | Millions of tablets of a recreational drug with an estimated street value of nearly $450 million have been seized and a Bollywood film producer has been arrested in western India, officials said Wednesday. More than 20 million tablets of the banned drug Mandrax were …
Read More »NMS, CIPLA-QC in court over ‘imported’ Aids and Malaria drugs
The High Court in Kampala on Wednesday summoned the Attorney General of Government and National Medical Stores (NMS) to respond to claims that it has continuously withdrawn money from the consolidated fund to purchase imported anti-retroviral and anti-malarial drugs from a local manufacturer disguised as locally made. Documents presented to …
Read More »Olympics: Six medallists fail reanalysed Beijing tests
Paris, France | AFP | Six medallists from the 2008 Beijing Olympics were among nine competitors to fail drug tests as part of an International Olympic Committee campaign of retesting stored samples, it was announced Wednesday. The list of athletes to have their medals stripped includes three weightlifters — Ukraine’s …
Read More »Lengthy drug tunnel found under US-Mexico border
Mexico City, Mexico | AFP | Authorities have discovered 2.3 tons of marijuana in a lengthy illicit tunnel connecting the Mexican city Tijuana to San Diego in the United States, the Mexican Attorney General said Monday. The 1847-foot (563-meter) long passage was found after agents of the attorney general requested …
Read More »NMS, Cipla bickering over expensive HIV/AIDS drugs
NMS, Cipla: Fight over pricing could lead to higher costs for patients and the government “NO ARVs means death.” That shocking but true fact was stated by Joshua Wamboga, the head of the Uganda Network of AIDS Service Organisations (UNASO) in January when Uganda was reeling from a major stock-out …
Read More »Afghan opium cultivation skyrockets as eradication collapses
Kabul, Afghanistan | AFP | Afghanistan saw a 10 percent jump in opium cultivation this year, highlighting bumper harvests owing to collapsing eradication efforts amid growing insecurity and declining international counter-narcotics assistance, the UN said Sunday. Cultivation dropped last year due to drought conditions but it has been on …
Read More »IGAD in historic one-day summit in Somalian capital Mogadishu
Mogadishu, Somalia | AFP | Somalia on Tuesday agreed to lift a week-old ban on imports of Kenyan khat after a storm of controversy from angry growers of the leafy narcotic in neighbouring Kenya. The decision was made on the margins of a historic one-day summit in the Somali capital, …
Read More »