Friday, October 22, 2010

UN expert calls for a fundamental shift in global drug control policy


Media Advisory

At a press conference in New York on Tuesday 26 October, at the 65th session of the United Nations General Assembly, one of the UN’s key human rights experts will call for a fundamental rethink of international drug policy.

Anand Grover, from India, is the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right of Everyone to the Highest Attainable Standard of Physical and Mental Health, whose mandate is derived from the UN Human Rights Council. Mr Grover’s annual thematic report, to be presented on October 25/26, sets out the range of human rights abuses that have resulted from international drug control efforts, and calls on Governments to:

  • Ensure that all harm-reduction measures (as itemized by UNAIDS) and drug-dependence treatment services, particularly opioid substitution therapy, are available to people who use drugs, in particular those among incarcerated populations.
  • Decriminalize or de-penalize possession and use of drugs.
  • Repeal or substantially reform laws and policies inhibiting the delivery of essential health services to drug users, and review law enforcement initiatives around drug control to ensure compliance with human rights obligations.
  • Amend laws, regulations and policies to increase access to controlled essential medicines
  • To the UN drug control agencies, Mr Grover recommends the creation of an alternative drug regulatory framework based on a model such as the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.


The report is the clearest statement to date from within the UN system about the harms that drug policies have caused and the need for a fundamental shift in drug policy.

The report has been welcomed by the European Union in the EU statement on crime and drugs to the UN General Assembly.

Press conference details:
Tuesday, 26 October at 1:15pm at the Dag Hammarskjöld Auditorium, New York, (close to the UN library in the Secretariat Building - entrance on 42nd Street and 1st Avenue). There will be a press release issued.

Mr Grover WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE for press comment prior to the press conference.

For press enquiries please contact:

Fiona Lander, MBBS(Hons)/LLB(Hons)
Research Assistant to Anand Grover, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health
+91 9930 925496 fionalander at gmail.com


Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health

UN Doc No A/65/255


Summary

The current international system of drug control has focused on creating a drug free world, almost exclusively through use of law enforcement policies and criminal sanctions. Mounting evidence, however, suggests this approach has failed, primarily because it does not acknowledge the realities of drug use and dependence. While drugs may have a pernicious effect on individual lives and society, this excessively punitive regime has not achieved its stated public health goals, and has resulted in countless human rights violations.

People who use drugs may be deterred from accessing services owing to the threat of criminal punishment, or may be denied access to health care altogether. Criminalization and excessive law enforcement practices also undermine health promotion initiatives, perpetuate stigma and increase health risks to which entire populations - not only those who use drugs - may be exposed. Certain countries incarcerate people who use drugs, impose compulsory treatment upon them, or both. The current international drug control regime also unnecessarily limits access to essential medications, which violates the enjoyment of the right to health.

The primary goal of the international drug control regime, as set forth in the preamble of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (1961), is the “health and welfare of mankind”, but the current approach to controlling drug use and possession works against that aim. Widespread implementation of interventions that reduce harms associated with drug use — harm-reduction initiatives — and of decriminalization of certain laws governing drug control would improve the health and welfare of people who use drugs and the general population demonstrably. Moreover, the United Nations entities and Member States should adopt a right to health approach to drug control, encourage system-wide coherence and communication, incorporate the use of indicators and guidelines, and consider developing a new legal framework concerning certain illicit drugs, in order to ensure that the rights of people who use drugs are respected, protected and fulfilled.

Recommendations

Member States should:

  • Ensure that all harm-reduction measures (as itemized by UNAIDS) and drug-dependence treatment services, particularly opioid substitution therapy, are available to people who use drugs, in particular those among incarcerated populations.
  • Decriminalize or de-penalize possession and use of drugs.
  • Repeal or substantially reform laws and policies inhibiting the delivery of essential health services to drug users, and review law enforcement initiatives around drug control to ensure compliance with human rights obligations.
  • Amend laws, regulations and policies to increase access to controlled essential medicines.


The United Nations drug control bodies should:

  • Integrate human rights into the response to drug control in laws, policies and programmes.
  • Encourage greater communication and dialogue between United Nations entities with an interest in the impact of drug use and markets, and drug control policies and programmes.
  • Consider creation of a permanent mechanism, such as an independent commission, through which international human rights actors can contribute to the creation of international drug policy, and monitor national implementation, with the need to protect the health and human rights of drug users and the communities they live in as its primary objective.
  • Formulate guidelines that provide direction to relevant actors on taking a human rights-based approach to drug control, and devise and promulgate rights-based indicators concerning drug control and the right to health.
  • Consider creation of an alternative drug regulatory framework in the long term, based on a model such as the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.


6 comments:

strayan said...

I will never forget the UN's role in global drug prohibition and crop eradication even if they're finally starting to change their tune. Whilst I applaud this statement, it also has the stench of ass covering.

We need to see some actual justice - UN officials dragged before an international court and held accountable for the terrible consequences of their destructive policies.

Danny K said...

Mmnn, whilst the UN has certainly been complicit, I think the targets for our ire ought to be the elected officials who regularly appeared at the yearly jamboree, known as the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, to reiterate their collective support for the status quo.

strayan said...

Cross posting from drugwarrant.com:

"So with the Prop 19 election just days away, someone at the UN has finally decided to confront “…this excessively punitive regime [that] has not achieved its stated public health goals, and has resulted in countless human rights violations.”?

No doubt the UN would look pretty silly if the world’s citizenry were the exclusive agents in overthrowing a corrupt and tyrannical international drug policy that the UN has nursed through monsterhood until its monstrous prohibition practices appeared ready to blow up in their faces.

The UN statement may be a face-saving preemptory strike instigated prior to a November 2 election that promises to dump U.S. and UN drug policy into a well deserved cesspool of oblivion. In that sense, the UN statement resembles the California legislature’s reduction of cannabis penalties from a misdemeanor to an infraction as a means of countering the anti-drug war sentiment currently pushing Prop 19. In both cases, it may be too little too late."

http://tinyurl.com/2bnr8b7

Julian said...

Hi Strayan,

Not to worry, war criminals (which prohibitionists are - if there is a 'war on drugs', and it violates human rights, then the officers must be deemed war criminals), war criminals will eventually be traced and brought to trial. It may take a long time, but at least they will have the opportunity to use medicinal marijuana to get them through those difficult times ahead.

Stoned 84 year old ex-drug czars make for good courtroom vibes, whatever their crimes ;)

Regards,
Julian aka 'sparking diamonds and jules'

Steve Rolles said...

Strayan - i dont think this is anything as strategic as that. The Special rapporteurs operate as independent experts and don't 'speak for the UN' as such - rather like the ACMD and the Govt for example. They do have an opportunity to challenge states in a way the more institutionalised structures of the UN often cannot.

Re drug policy the UN also does not operate strategically in that way - indeed the lack of coherence on drug policy issues, between the different UN agencies, is a key concern. A number of UN agencies - prominently UNAIDS - have be very vocal in there calls for decriminalisation of drug use, indeed these have been supported by the general secretary. The UNODC has unsurprisingly perhaps been more ambivalent on the issue although if you read the statements made by the last exec director it is not that far away. The INCB has been openly hostile - in direct conflict with other members of the UN family.

In theory the UNODC and UNAIDS and the UNHRC speak with a common voice - even though they are often at odds. Clearly drug wars and public health / human rights do not sit well together - as grover so eloquently highlights.

This lack of coherence is a powerful tool for critiquing and ultimately reforming the UNODC and the malfunctioning and outdated conventions.

Anonymous said...

Clearly it makes no sense to incarcerate those who take drugs only as they are not harming anyone else. I do have a good idea about what should be done to get more people free of drug addiction which I would offer as a proposal at the right time but it would require cooperation of many countries in order to come together and lead by example to offer help to those who would like to end their addiction to drugs. At the same time, it would reduce the demand for drugs and likely reduce the supply of drugs as well.

I am opposed to drugs and at the same time in favor of the humane treatment of all people. I'm also in favor of reducing the number of people incarcerated due to drugs because they don't belong in prison if they haven't done other crimes.