UN meeting could be 1st step to ending global war on drugs

"A drug-free world We can do it!"

That wasthe overly ambitiousmotto endorsed by theUnited Nations General Assembly in 1998,the last time it convened for a high-level debate on globaldrug policy.

Eighteen years later it seems clear that, no, we can't do it.

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Just ask the governments of Mexico, Colombia and Guatemalawhich, amid staggering violence fuelled by the internationalnarcotics trade, have pleaded with the UNto radically rethink the war on drugs.

That rethink, or at least its early stages, could be near.

Today, the UN General Assembly will meet to scrutinize the UN treaties that, critics argue, are steering the Sisyphean delusion of a "drug-free world." A wide breadth of world leaders, academics,public health and human rights advocates are among those calling for significant reforms.

The special session may mark "the beginning of the end for international support for the war on drugs," wrote Bill Bogart, alaw professor at the University of Windsor and author, in a recent editorial.

Will the United Nations end the war on drugs?

8 years ago

Duration 5:42

Former drug warriors are converging on the UN this week to recommend and end to drug prohibition.

"Clearly, it's been a colossal failure. There's countries who havehad enough and are saying it loudly. That's something that would've been unheard of even five or ten years ago," he told CBC News in an interview.

Intergenerational damage

Drug policies of UN member states mustadhere tothree global treaties. The most expansive and important is the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which prohibits the production and supply of certaindrugs and criminalizes their use.It was ratified in 1961and hasn't been amended since 1972.

The 1998 United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS)on drugs reaffirmed the treaty, and agreed that member countries would work to stamp out illicit narcotics entirely within ten years.

It didn't work,but the war on drugs, continued anyway.

The human costs are tremendousand well documented around the world:mass incarceration, corruption, human rights abuses, public health crises and violence. People of colour, indigenous communities, women and children were disproportionately affected by the post-1998 crackdown, according tothe UN's own research.

Despite about $100 billion US beingspent on anti-drug law enforcement efforts each year,the sizeof the illicit drug trade has only continued to increase. The most current estimates put it between $300 billionand $500 billion US per year.

"It's been long enough that we now have data onthe terrible intergenerational effects of the war on drugs," says Chris Beyrer, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health and Human Rights in Maryland.

Cannabis will be 'the elephant in the room'

Beyrer is a member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, a group that includes former heads of state and high-ranking diplomats. The commission released a report last month that recommended decriminalization of non-violent minor drug offencesand an emphasis on harm reduction for the 11 per cent of illegal drug users worldwidewho suffer from an addiction.

Some countries have already started to move in this direction, despite the treaties. Supervised injection sites here in Canada and in Europe are arguably in contravention, for example, and cannabis legalization if it happens in Canada will be too.

War on drugs a failure

8 years ago

Duration 2:22

Global public policy failure has harmed both health and human rights

The growing movement for legal pot in North America and parts ofSouth America "will undoubtedlybe the elephant in the room," during this week's meeting, says Bogart.

"No matter what comes out of the special session, legal cannabis is what's going to cause the international order on drugs to collapse."

But for now, the meeting is a chance for Canada's delegation,led by Health Minister JanePhilpott, to "send a strong message to the world" on the need for reform, according to DonaldMacPherson, an adjunct professor at SimonFraserUniversity.

"There'san opportunity to say, 'Yes, we're in breach of the treaties, but that's a problem with the treaties, not us,'" saysMacPherson, who is also director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition.

'Inertia to change'

Such a move would underscore the growing schism between countriespushing for profound changes to global drug policy and those that continue to take a hard line on prohibition and criminalization, including Russiaand China.

That tension was evident in the run-up to the meetingas theUN Commission on Narcotic Drugs the body with the most influence over UN drug policy drafted an "outcome document."It's essentially a list of recommendations and goals,compiled from submissions by all kinds of stakeholders, to be debated during the special session.

The final draft does not contain the term "harm reduction,"MacPherson points out, despite 90 countries having harm reduction elements in their national drug policies.

Its conspicuous absence isa symptom of the "incredible resistance and inertia to change within the UN system" and the influence of countries who maintain that harm reduction is "just a Trojan horse for drug legalization," he says.

The Commission onNarcotic Drugs even seemed to ignore depositions from other UN agencies, including the World Health Organization and UN Women, both of which advocate for policy centred on harm reduction.

"There is clearly no consensus on key issues and consensus will probably never be possible," MacPherson adds.