The End Game

In Mexico over the last 23 Months there have been 41,000 murders and 125,879 executions in the last 8 years, all related to drugs that are illegal. Each year, hundreds of thousands of people around the world die from preventable drug-related disease and violence. Millions of users are arrested and thrown in jail. Globally, communities are blighted by drug-related crime. Citizens see huge amounts of their taxes spent on harsh policies that are not working.

But despite this clear evidence of failure, there is a damaging reluctance worldwide to consider a fresh approach. The Global Commission on Drug Policy is determined to help break this century-old taboo.

We cal on governments to adopt more humane and effective ways of controlling and regulating drugs. We recommended that the criminalization of drug use should be replaced by a public health approach. We also appealed for countries to carefully test models of legal regulation as a means to undermine the power of organized crime, which thrives on illicit drug trafficking.

There is, at last, some evidence of change. Officials from Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico and Uruguay have assumed the lead in initiating reforms to drug policy in their own countries. These efforts have had knock-on effects across the neighbourhood.

In 2013, the Organization of American States (OAS) issued a landmark report on drug policy proposing alternative forms of drug regulation. The findings of the Global Commission resonated across Europe as well. Many European states serve as a model for a health-oriented approach to drug policy. In several countries, evidence-based prevention, harm reduction and treatment are endorsed -- in sharp contrast to solely repressive approaches adopted in other parts of the world.

Drug policy reform is going viral. Other regions are joining the debate about new and progressive ways of dealing with drugs.

For example, in New Zealand, proposals are being drafted to regulate synthetic drugs. In West Africa, where drug trafficking and organized crime is threatening democracy and governance, brave leaders have launched a West African Commission on drug trafficking and its consequences.

Even the United States, among the staunchest of all prohibitionist states, is enacting new approaches to drug policy. For the first time, a majority of Americans support regulating cannabis for adult consumption. And in the states of Colorado and Washington, new bills were approved to make this a reality. There are signs that these experiences could multiply further still.

All countries will have an opportunity to review the international drug control regime in a few years' time. The special session of the United Nations General Assembly in 2016 will provide a great opportunity for an honest and informed debate on drug policy. We hope that this debate will encourage drug policies that are based on what actually works in practice rather than what ideology dictates in theory.

“The facts speak for themselves. It is time to change course,” said Kofi Annan, Chair of the Kofi Annan Foundation and convenor of the West Africa Commission on Drugs (chaired by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, of Nigeria), which presented wide-ranging recommendations for drug policy reform earlier this year. “We need drug policies informed by evidence of what actually works,
rather than policies that criminalize drug use while failing to provide access to effective prevention or treatment. This has led not only to overcrowded jails but also to severe health and social problems.”

“We can’t go on pretending the war on drugs is working,” said Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group. “We need our leaders to look at alternative, fact-based approaches. Much can be learned from successes and failures in regulating alcohol, tobacco or pharmaceutical drugs. The risks associated with drug use increase, sometimes dramatically, when they are produced, sold and consumed in an unregulated criminal environment. The most effective way to advance the goals of public health and safety is to get drugs under control through responsible legal regulation.”

“As several European countries became aware of the harms caused by repressive drug policies, they adopted harm reduction and innovative treatment strategies like needle exchange, substitution therapies, heroin prescription and safe consumption rooms, as well as the the decriminalization of drug consumption and possession for personal use”, said former Swiss president Ruth Dreifuss. “Such lifesaving and safety enhancing measures represent only half of the way to dealing responsibly with drugs in our societies. Regulating the whole chain, from the production to the retail of drugs, allows to rollback criminal organizations,secure quality standards and protect people’s life, health and safety.”

Taking Control makes seven major recommendations, which can be summarized as follows:

– Put health and community safety first through a fundamental reorientation of policy priorities and resources, from failed punitive enforcement to proven health and social interventions.

– Ensure equitable access to essential medicines, in particular opiate-based medications for pain.

– Stop criminalizing people for drug use and possession – and stop imposing “compulsory treatment” on people whose only offence is drug use or possession.

– Rely on alternatives to incarceration for non-violent, low-level participants in illicit drug markets such as farmers, couriers and others involved in the production, transport and sale of illicit drugs.

– Focus on reducing the power of criminal organizations as well as the violence and insecurity that result from their competition with both one another and the state.

– Allow and encourage diverse experiments in legally regulating markets in currently illicit drugs, beginning with but not limited to cannabis, coca leaf and certain novel psychoactive substances.

-Take advantage of the opportunity presented by the upcoming UNGASS in 2016 to reform the global drug policy regime.

Commission Members

-Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations and chair of the Kofi Annan Foundation, Ghana

-Louise Arbour, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Canada

-Pavel Bém, former Mayor of Prague, Czech Republic

-Richard Branson, entrepreneur, advocate for social causes, founder of the Virgin Group, cofounder of The Elders, United Kingdom

-Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former President of Brazil (chair)

-Maria Cattaui, former Secretary-General of the International Chamber of Commerce, Switzerland

-Ruth Dreifuss, former President of Switzerland and Minister of Home Affairs

-César Gaviria, former President of Colombia

-Asma Jahangir, human rights activist, former UN Special Rapporteur on Arbitrary, Extra judicial and Summary Executions,Pakistan

-Michel Kazatchkine, UN Secretary General Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and former executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, France