Another decade lost to the global war on drugs
It is hard to imagine a global policy enterprise that has delivered poorer value for money. The global community should ask what another trillion dollars spent in the coming decade might achieve if directed to more positive ends. [Read the Report]
[As] we rapidly approach a key inflexion point in the global debate, with the contours of the next United Nations strategy being negotiated before the crucial ministerial meeting in Vienna next March [2019]. As the situation stands, avoiding these critical questions no longer is tenable, and the first step to recovery from the collective “addiction to the war on drugs” is to accept that there is a problem … Many countries are pioneering and showing by implementation and practice the benefits from drug policy reform, and reducing the harms of current prohibition through prioritizing health and decriminalisation. Others, informed by evidence from academia and civil society, are shifting the paradigm and seeing the end of prohibition as a critical component of effective approaches to drug policy. We hope that the United Nations will avoid simply rubber-stamping a repeat of historical mistakes in Vienna, Austria in March 2019 … As the Global Commission on Drug Policy again highlighted only last month, if the so-called “war on drugs” continues unchallenged, achieving the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals — the universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity — will be difficult, if not impossible, for many populations across the world.
Original Article (The Hill):
Another decade lost to the global war on drugs
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