Roundup: Former world leaders see upcoming UN special session as "historic opportunity" to end failed war on drugs

Former world leaders, who are members of the the Global Commission on Drug Policy, on Friday issued a bold public statement to say that "an historic opportunity to achieve more humane and effective drug policy is at risk" as a special session of the UN General Assembly (UNGASS) is to be held here on April 19-21.

The upcoming special session on drugs, a meeting of all 193 UN member states to evaluate the current state of international drug control, will be the first such meeting in 18 years.

"We are driven by a sense of urgency,: said Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former president of Brazil and chair of the Global Commission. "There is widespread acknowledgment that the current system is not working, but also recognition that change is both necessary and achievable."

"We are convinced that the 2016 UNGASS is an historic opportunity to discuss the shortcomings of the drug control regime and identify workable alternatives," Cardoso said.

Founded in 2011, the Global Commission on Drug Policy is composed of 25 political leaders and intellectuals from around the world.

In the statement, the Global Commission called the proposed outcome document for UNGASS, currently being negotiated in Vienna, "long on rhetoric, but short on substance" with "no hard solutions." The Commission also urged governments to put "people's health, safety and human rights first."

Meanwhile, the statement also proposed ending the criminalization and incarceration of drug users, abolishing capital punishment for drug-related offences, empowering the World Health Organization (WHO) to review the scheduling system of drugs on the basis of scientific evidence.

Efforts are also being urged for ensuring a broad spectrum of treatments for dependent people and services designed to reduce the harms of drugs, and allowing governments to apply different approaches to drug regulation in order to maximize public health and disempower organized crime, said the statement.

The commission said that it is believed that global drug prohibition has not only failed to achieve its originally stated objectives of eradicating drug production and consumption, it has also generated alarming social and health problems.

The UN itself has identified some of the impacts of hardline approaches to drug prohibition including: the creation of an illegal, criminal market worth at least 320 billion U.S. dollars per year; dangerous "balloon effects" during which production or traffic is interrupted, only to be increased in a different territory or route; and a lack of access to controlled medicines for 75 percent of the world´s population.

Owing to the dearth of new thinking at the last UN Special Session on drugs in 1998, many countries have taken matters into their own hands.

For example, Switzerland supports maintenance and heroin assisted therapy in order to reduce harms to users. Portugal decriminalized the use of all drugs in 2001, with significant crime prevention and public health benefits, including decreasing rates of HIV. Cannabis clubs have sprung up around parts of Spain, and Uruguay has regulated their cannabis market from production, to distribution to sale, with human rights at the center of the strategy.

In the U.S., already 23 states plus Washington, D.C. have legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes, and four states plus Washington, D.C. have legalized marijuana for recreational purposes. In addition, there is now unprecedented debate among elected officials, including U.S. President Barack Obama, about how to transform drug policies to reduce mass incarcerations in the United States.

In the statement, the Global Commission said that it is hoped that UNGASS 2016 will recognize the international momentum toward adopting drug policies based on science, compassion, public health, and human rights.

"The only way to put governments back in control, disempower organized crime, reduce violence and corruption is to regulate drugs according to the harm they cause," said the statement. "There is still time to get the UNGASS process back on track." Enditem