UN Global Drug Policy Has Failed

See - https://thecrimereport.org/2018/10/25/un-global-drug-policy-has-failed-says-new-report/


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UN Global Drug Policy Has Failed, says New Report
By Lauren Sonnenberg | October 25, 2018

The United Nations’ ten-year drug policy strategy to eliminate the illegal drug trade has largely failed and needs a new focus, according to the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), an organization of more than 170 non-governmental organizations.

“A decade ago, the international community reiterated its aspiration to achieve a drug-free world, yet over that decade, available data shows that the production, sale, and consumption of currently illegal drugs are soaring,” said former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, a member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, in her introduction to the report.

“So are the harms related to current policies, with dramatic increases in overdoses, prison overcrowding, HIV and hepatitis transmission, a more revenue-generating and increasingly violent illegal market, and in the condoning by some of extrajudicial killings against people who use drugs—killings that often take place in broad daylight.”

The Civil Society Shadow Report, “Taking Stock: A Decade of Drug Policy,” was timed to provide both an evaluation of global anti-drug policies, and recommendations for the upcoming March 2019 United Nations-sponsored “ministerial segment” meeting to craft strategy for the next decade.

The 2009 UN Political Declaration and Plan of Action on Drugstargeted 2019 as the date “for states to eliminate or reduce significantly and measurably illicit drug supply and demand, the diversion and trafficking of precursors and money laundering.”

But the report, based on data from participating governments, the UN, nongovernmental organizations and scientific literature, found a worldwide 130 percent rise in illegal production of opium poppy, and a 145 percent increase in drug-related deaths over the past decade.

With trafficking now at record levels, the proliferation of drugs has become an obstacle to social and economic objectives of individual nations and have “lowered the quality of life globally,” Clark said.

“To quote the (UN) Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, in a world that is meant to be more inclusive and where no one should be left behind, ‘people who use drugs are not left behind; they are left outside,’” Clark added.

But Clark admitted “there is little appetite among countries” for an in-depth review of drug strategy, which she said proved “once more that drug policy remains mostly an ideological issue rather than a societal topic that needs to be addressed based on evidence, dialogue, and building consensus.”

The authors of the report noted that efforts to eradicate narcotics cultivation, combined with punitive strategies, had shown little effect. They have instead “exacerbated violence, instability and corruption.”

For example, the report noted, that academic studies in Afghanistan, which produces 86 percent of the world’s opium, show that “forced eradication campaigns had led to increased levels of crime, an ongoing Taliban insurgency, and militias remaining active in the region, with severe consequences for subsistence farmers.”

An assessment of how nations met the targets set a decade ago to eliminate drug-related money laundering was similarly bleak.The global drug market is currently estimated to turn over between US$ 426[billion] and 652 billion.

Although tighter national, regional and global policies and regulations have been adopted to counter money-laundering, the amount of money laundered globally each year amounts to US$ 800 million to 2 trillion, representing 2 [percent] to 5 percent of global GDP,” the report said, noting that a quarter of overall revenues of transnational organised crime come from drug sales.

“The global drug market is currently estimated to turn over between US$ 426[billion] and 652 billion. Of this, well over half of the gross profits generated are channeled into money-laundering, and less than 1 percent of the total amount of money being laundered is seized.”

The report identified new benchmarks for global drug policy in the next decade, recommending that policymakers keep in mind more meaningful and achievable goals, including, such as minimizing drug- related health harms, and improving access to health care.

In a key recommendation, the report called on the UN to move away from a “drug-free world target” and instead focus on putting people and communities first, identifying different success indicators in drug crimes.

The full report can be downloaded here.
Lauren Sonnenberg is a TCR news intern. Readers’ comments are welcome.
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