Hybrid Workshop For Tertiary Students And Faculty Members In Ghana And The United States Of America Held

In a draft policy a day’s Hybrid Workshop for Tertiary Students and Faculty Members in Ghana and the United States of America held a seminar to discuss further on drug policy reform.

Speaking at the workshop to discuss the reforms of the drud policy, the executive director of POS Foundation, Mr Jonathan Osei Owusu said that the theme for seminar: Substance Use and Prevention: A Comparative Dialogue between Ghana and the USA’s Drug Policy play critical role in brainstorming the way forward.

The International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) is a month-long professional exchange program organized by the U.S Department of State.

This exchange program is designed to bring together current and emerging foreign leaders in diverse fields to experience the United States firsthand and cultivate lifelong relationships with their American counterparts.

This exchange program fosters cooperation, reflects participants’ professional interests and merges that interest with other experts and consequently supports the foreign policy goals of the USA.

According to him, POS Foundation was nominated by the US Embassy in Ghana to participate in the IVLP 2022, where he gained insight into different policy/law reforms, law enforcement mechanisms and judicial interventions operating within different States.

He gained an understanding on how community-driven reform is undertaken in the US and how substance dependent users were transformed and reintegrated into society through systematic cultural and faith programs in New Mexico State.

Globally, since 1971 after President Richard Nixon declared substance use as “public enemy one”, there has been a crackdown with preference towards incarceration and discrimination of substance users which became a stigmatizing tool.

Historically, in West Africa, drug policies have been imported to our region and it is under this colonial legacy that we have seen drug production and trafficking skyrocket; which offers further evidence that ‘tough-on-drugs’ laws do not work. Consequently, Ghana, together with most parts of the Western world, has moved away from the ‘war-on-drugs’ approach to a more humane approach. POS Foundation was key in the advocacy for the passage of the new Narcotics Control Commission Act 2020, Act 1019 which represents an important example for drug policy reform advocacy that treats drug use and dependence as a public health issue rather than criminal.

He was optimistic that Project Activity

Organize a-day’s hybrid workshop which virtually connects students from the GIMPA Law Faculty, Ghana, Adler University, Columbia University and Fordham Law School in the USA, Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) and global IVLP Alumni via a virtual platform to enhance a comprehensive understanding about the history and journey of Ghana and the USA’s drug policy reforms in line with public Health and Human Rights.

According to him, objectives

to educate and better inform over 300 participants on substance use, prevention/treatment and drug policy reforms in Ghana and the USA and appreciate the global advocacy towards public health and human rights.

To use the participatory approach to dialogue, understand and appreciate the impact of drug policy trends, practices and interventions as observed in both countries.

Meanwhile the executive director of SSDP, Madam Kat Murti, reiterated that the justice for all programme is a major Hallmark in Ghana’s justice system. And as we heard, other African countries are studying the programme, with a view to implementing similar programmes, even though the activities of paralegals are not regulated or formalised in Ghana, it is only right that we give due recognition to the invaluable role played by these facilitators from the POS Foundation, they have functioned as defector paralegals towards the sustenance and growth of the programme they interview on.