FW: The Human Rights Case for Drug Reform #drugpolicy

Subject: GEN: The Human Rights Case for Drug Reform

Human Rights Watch
January 10, 2014



The Human Rights Case for Drug Reform

How Drug Criminalization Destroys Lives, Feeds Abuses, and Subverts the Rule
of Law

By Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno

Nearly every country in the world plays a part—as producer, consumer, or
transit point—in the multibillion-dollar illicit drug trade that supplies
more than 150 million people every year and keeps on growing.

To combat this trade, many countries over recent decades have launched
so-called "wars on drugs" that entail crackdowns on participants large and
small in the drug business, including harsh penalties for users.

Human Rights Watch has long documented the widespread human rights abuses
resulting from this approach: in the United States, the devastatio n that
disproportionate prison sentences for drug offenses have wrought on
individuals and their families and disturbing racial disparities in drug law
enforcement; in Mexico, the killings committed in the name of combatting
drugs; in Canada, the US, and Russia, how fear of criminal law enforcement
deters people who use drugs from accessing necessary health services,
exposing them to violence, discrimination, and illness; in Afghanistan and
Colombia, how narcotics production has fueled armed groups opposed or allied
to the government; in India, Ukraine,and Senegal, how cancer patients suffer
severe pain due to drug control regulations thatrender morphine
inaccessible; and in China, Vietnam, and Cambodia, the "drug rehabilitation
centers" where people are subjected to torture, forced labor, and sexual
abuse.

But there was a growing sense within Human Rights Watch that this approach
did not go far enough—that the problem did not lie merely with
ill-considered policies or their abusive execution. Rather, the
criminalization of drugs itself seemed to be inherently problematic.
especially when it came to personal possession and use, imposing the full
force of the criminal justice system to arrest, prosecute, and incarcerate
appeared contrary to the human rights to privacy and personal autonomy that
underlie many rights.

Heavy emphasis on enforcing criminal prohibitions on drug production and
distribution was also dramatically enhancing the profitability of illicit
drug markets and fueling the growth and operations of groups that commit
atrocities, corrupt authorities, and undermine emocracy and the rule of law
in many countries.

In my own work as Human Rights Watch's Colombia researcher from 2004 to
2010, it was clear that the llicit drug market was a major factor in the
country's long-running war involving left-wing guerrilla groups, right-wing
paramilitary groups, and security forces.

Certainly, Colombia's staggering levels of abuse—massacres, killings, rape,
threats, and kidnappings that displaced more than 3 million people—had roots
that went beyond the drug trade and predated the explosion in the cocaine
market in the 1970s. But most armed groups in Colombia in some way
benefitted from the illicit trade. The paramilitaries, in particular, were
among Colombia's biggest druglords.
often, they threatened or killed people living on land they wanted to
control for coca production or as drug transportation corridors. Illicit
drug profits helped pay for their weapons and uniforms, wages for their
"soldiers," and bribes for public officials to evade justice for their
crimes.

So it became increasingly difficult— as we documented the atrocities, called
for justice, and pressed the US to enforce human rights conditions on its
assistance (the US provided Colombia more than US$5 million in mostly
military aid in 2000-2010)—to ignore that many of the abuses we advocated to
end would inevitably continue in some form unless US and global drug policy
itself changed.

My later work on US policy towards such countries as Afghanistan and Mexico,
and on the US criminal justice system, only strengthened my view—which
others at Human Rights Watch shared—that drug criminalization was inherently
inconsistent with human rights.

After much discussion, the organization in 2013 adopted a policy calling on
governments to decriminalize all personal use and possession of drugs.
We also urged them to consider—and eventually adopt—alternative policies on
the drug trade to reduce the enormous human rights costs of current
approaches.

Change is urgent, as our research consistently shows.

Medellín: The More Things Change,the More They Stay the Same

Alex Pulgarín knew a lot about the power that the illicit drug trade gave to
criminals—and the damage it could inflict.

When I interviewed him in 2007, he was a fresh-faced 30-year-old with an
easy smile wholooked younger than his age but spoke with the confidence of a
seasoned player in the complicated politics of his city, Medellín, a major
hub for Colombia's cocaine trade.

As a child in the 1980s, Alex witnessed the bloody "war" the infamous
Medellín cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar waged against Colombia's government
in a bid to secure a ban on extraditions to the US. The car bombings,
airplane hijackings, and frequent assassinations that Escobar ordered
garnered Medellín the label, "murder capital of the world."

So many rejoiced when Colombia n security forces, with US backing, killed
Escobar in 1993. But the bloodletting didn't end there. As the world turned
its attention elsewhere, others discreetly filled his shoes.

One of them was Diego Murillo, also known as "Berna," a former Escobar rival
who in the 1990s went on to build his own drug trafficking empire in
Medellín, forging close ties with the paramilitaries. As a teenager in a
low- income neighborhood, Alex saw his peers get swept into a seemingly
endless cycle of brutality and death as Berna and others battled for control
over the city.

But when I interviewed Alex, city officials were claiming that Medellín had
turned a corner. The government and paramilitaries had announced a "peace
deal," and hundreds of young men had turned in weapons at demobilization"
ceremonies, signing up for government stipends. Former paramilitary leaders
received reduced prison sentences. Homicide rates were near their lowest in
years.

Among those who supposedly demobilized was Berna. Several of his henchmen
formed the Democracy Corporation, a group with the ostensible mission of
working with the city to help demobilized paramilitaries get education and
jobs and reintegrate into society.

But Alex told a different story. The corporation, he said, was a front for
organized crime, still under Berna's control. The government's backing gave
the corporation a veneer of legality, allowing it to exert political
influence while retaining its ruthless dominance over much of the city.
"Peace with a knife to your throat," as Alex called it.

A Democracy Corporation leader, Antonio Lopez ("Job"), had ordered his
accomplices to kill demobilized individuals who disobeyed h im—especially
"coordinators," point people for the demobilized in each neighborhood.
Others confirmed what Alex said: the apparent peace that Medellín was
experiencing was not due to Berna's demobilization, but rather the result of
his monopoly over crime in the city after he defeated most competing groups.
And he was retaining that control in part through the Democracy Corporation.

While Alex knew many people in the world of local crime, he had taken a
different path. He had become an activist, joined the left-leaning
Democratic Pole party, and won a spot on his neighborhood action council.
Respected and well-liked, he dreamed of running for higher office.

But Alex was now in Job's sights. A few months earlier, Job had asked him to
run for the Medellín City Council as the Democracy Corporation's candidate,
trying to capitalize on Alex's popularity. Alex would get a car, armed
guards, and a stipend if he agreed. He refused.

Instead, he began reporting what he knew to police and prosecutors,
recording his calls with coordinators who were being threatened and sharing
them with the authorities. He spoke during community meetings with
international agencies and the Catholic Church. "Aren't you afraid you'll
get killed?" I asked when we met. He brushed off the question.

Two years later, in 2009, it looked like Alex might emerge unscathed.
Berna had been extradited to the US, where he pled guilty to cocaine
trafficking charges and received a 31-year sentence from a federal court in
New York City. Job had been gunned down, reportedly by rivals, in an upscale
restaurant near Medellín. And Alex testified in a trial against another
Democracy Corporation member, John1 William López, or Me mín.
Several witnesses were murdered during the trial, but Memínwas convicted of
forcibly interfering with elections, conspiracy, and forced displacement.

But it is hard to escape the grasp of Colombia's criminal networks. That
December, armed men—Memín associates—accosted Alex on the street and shot
him several times in broad daylight. He died at the scene.

A Resilient and Lucrative Global Market

Profits from the illicit drug trade in Colombia have not only fueled the
country's conflict but have also enabled criminals to buy off or intimidate
public officials. More than 100 Colombian congress members and countless
othe r officials have been investigated in recent years for alleged
collusion with paramilitaries. In Medellín, new groups with shadowy
leadership structures have replaced Berna's organization, much as Berna's
had replaced Escobar's. Violence—often via threats and displacement—is
pervasive.

These problems extend well beyond Colombia. In many countries illicit drug
profits are an enormous motivator and funding source for groups that commit
atrocities, corrupt authorities, and undermine democracy and the rule of
law.

Indeed, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC),
illicit drugs constitute the largest income source for transnational crime
and may account for one-fifth of all crime proceeds.
The UNODC also estimated the value of the 2003 global illicit drugs market
to be $322 billion at retail—higher than the gross domestic product of 88
percent of the world's countries at the time.

Afghanistan, for example, produces around 90 percent of the world's opium
(along with cannabis). In 2009, the late Richard Holbrooke, then-US special
representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, decried how enforcing drug
policies—particularly US efforts to eradicate poppy (a crucial crop for many
impoverished Afghan farmers)—drove people "into the arms of the Taliban."
But that has only been part of the picture. The illegal opium market has
dramatically distorted the country's power structure, bankrolling armed
groups such as the Taliban and local warlords responsible for numerous
atrocities. It also fuels rampant corruption, making efforts to apprehend
and prosecute those implicated in these crimes extraordinarily difficult.

Meanwhile, in Mexico the homicide rate has exploded, with at least 80,000
people killed in the country's "war on drugs" since 2007 (El Salvador,
Honduras, and Guatemala face similar problems). The US has provided more
than $2 billion in funding to Mexico to combat drugs during that time. Yet
the Mexican security forces deployed in the country's "war on drugs" have
themselves often been involved in torture, extrajudicial killings, and other
abuses.

Tougher Enforcement?

The US, Russia, and other countries, with UNODC support, have argued the
answer to the exploding violence and corruption around illicit drug markets
is to vastly expand enforcement. For decades, they have poured billions of
dollars into combatting drugs(some estimate at least $100 billion a
year).With varying degrees of lawfulness they have pursued, surveilled,
killed, extradited, prosecuted, and imprisoned kingpins and low-level
dealers alike. They have fumigated crops, paid farmers to grow other crops,
and interdicted shipments.

Yet, as the Global Commission on Drug Policy —a group of former presidents,
senior UN officials, and prominent public figures—stated in its June 2011
report, these vast expenditures have "clearly failed to effectively curtail
supply or consumption. Apparent victories in eliminating one source or
trafficking organization are negated almost instantly by the emergence of
other sources and traffickers.

"Indeed, as pressure increases in one place,the drug trade often shifts
accordingly. My native country, Peru, recentlyreplaced Colombia as the
world's largest producer of coca, according to UNODC—the same position it
occupied in the 1980s.

In turn, "tough" enforcement has created its own nightmare for human rights
protection. Thailand's 2003 "war on drugs" resulted in some 2,800
extrajudicial killings by state security forces in its first three months.
In Canada, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh, and Ukraine, police have violently
mistreated people who use drugs. In Tanzania, police and quasi- official
vigilante groups brutally beat people who inject drugs. Russia's policies
have resulted in mass incarceration, often in environments that pose high
risk of HIV transmission, and detention of drug offenders without trial.

In countries such as Singapore and Malaysia, drug offenders face the death
penalty. Iran imposes a mandatory death sentence for various drug offenses.
Other countries impose grossly disproportionate punishment in drug cases.
The US, for example, has the world's largest reported incarcerated
population (2.2 million people in adult prisons and jails), insignificant
part due to harsh sentences for drug offenses. Nearly a quarter of all
prisoners—498,600 in 2011—including nearly half of federal inmates, were
serving time formostly low-level drug offenses. Some of those convicted, and
many of those arrested, have done nothing more than use drugs, yet they will
suffer the consequences of their conviction or arrest record for the rest of
their lives. For immigrants, convictions, even for nonviolent offenses, can
mean deportation and separation from their families.

US drug law enforcement is also marred by deep, discriminatory racial
disparities.Although whites and blacks use and sell drugs at comparable
rates in the US, blacks are arrested on drug charges at more than three
times the rate of whites and are imprisoned for drug convictions at ten
times the white rate.

The Harms of (Criminalizing) Drug Use

Proponents of criminalization of drug use often argue that it is necessary
to protect individuals' health and keep people from harming themselves or
others.

It is legitimate for government s to address societal harms that may result
from drug abuse. But policymakers too easily attribute social
problems—domestic abuse, unemployment, or violence—to illicit drug use, when
causes are more complex.

Imprisoning people who use drugs does little to protect their health:
prisoners often find that drug treatment—as we found in New Yo rk—is not
available. Recidivism of drug offenders is common.

Instead, criminalization often compounds existing harms. Fear of law
enforcement can drive people who use drugs underground, deterring them from
accessing health services and increasing the risk they face of violence,
discrimination, and serious illness, as our research in Canada, the US, and
Russia has shown. Outside Africa, one-third of HIV infections are
attributable to contaminated injection equipment. But police enforcement of
drug prohibitions is a barrier to providing sterile syringes, and
incarceration makes it harder to treat and care for those already living
with HIV.

Aggressive laws and enforcement also contribute to the stigmatization and
abusive treatment of people who use drugs. Poor public education around
drugs and their risks means that, in many countries, there is littl e
understanding about the real harms that may flow from drug abuse, much less
how to prevent or treat them.

The Pitfalls of Involuntary Treatment

While criminalization is deeply problematic, extrajudicial systems of drug
control can also be extremely abusive. Thailand, for example, detains people
who use drugs without trial for extended periods in locked "treatment
facilities." In China, the 2008 Anti-Drug Law allows officials to detain
people who use drugs for up to six years with no trial or judicial
oversight.

In Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, people who use drugsare held in
government-run centers where they are often mistreated in the name of
"treatment." In Vietnam, detainees are used as forced labor to process
cashews or manufacture clothes for export. In Cambodia, they are subjected
to brutal punishments, including torture. In 2013, four years after we first
reported on this issue, we found that individuals held in these drug
detentioncenters are still being beaten, thrashed with ru bber water hoses,
forced to stand in septicwater pits, and sexually abused. Lack of due
process protections also renders these facilities convenient places to
detain people whom Cambodian authorities consider "undesirable"—including
homeless people and street children—in sporadic crackdowns often occurring
before visits of foreign dignitaries.

A Human Rights Approach to Drug Control

To ensure their drug policies are in line with international human rights
standards, governments should:

• Decriminalize personal use and possession of drugs for personal use.
Laws criminalizing drug use are inconsistent with respect for human autonomy
and privacy rights. Governments may limit these rights if necessary for a
legitimate purpose, such as preventing harm to others. But like other
private behavior that some may view as immoral (such as consensual
homosexual conduct among adults),there is no legitimate basis for
criminalization. Nor is criminalization necessary toprotect people who use
drugs: Governments have many non-penal measures to encourage people to make
good choices around drugs, including offering substance abuse treatment and
social support. Governments can also criminalize negligent or dangerous
behavior (such as driving under the influence) to regulate harmful conduct
by individuals who use drugs, without criminalizing drug use itself.

• Reduce criminal regulation of drug production and distribution.
Criminalization of the drug trade carries enormous human rights costs,
dramatically enhancing the profitability of illicit drug markets and fueling
the growth and operations of groups responsible for larg e-scale violence
and corruption. Finding alternative ways to regulate production and
distribution and cutting into illicit drug profits would allow governments
to weaken the influence of such groups and reduce the various
abuses—killings, disproportionate sentencing, torture, and barriers to
access to health care—that governments often commit in the name of fighting
drugs.

• Ground approaches to treatment and care in human rights, avoiding abusive
administrative sanctions and ensuring patients have access to needed
medications.Governments should close drug detention centers where people are
held in violation of international law and expand access to voluntary,
community-based drug treatment with the involvement of competent
nongovernmental organizations. They should also ensure that anyone with a
legitimate medical need for controlled medications like morphine or
methadone has adequate access to them.

Many alternatives to current policies have yet to be tested (except with
respect to alcohol). So governments should assess proposed solutions
carefully to reduce the risk they could lead to new problems or human rights
concerns.

Yet, there are some models to consider: Some governments have decriminalized
personal use and possession of illicit drugs or resisted enforcing certain
prohibitions. In Portugal, in conjunction with comprehensive harm-reduction
strategies, decriminalization had positive results; rather than
substantially increasing, drug consumption reportedly dropped in some
categories—as did recidivism and HIV infection. Researchers have also
developed theoretical models for potential systems of drug regulation with
varying ways of handling licensing, privatization versus state monopoly
control of supply, taxation, public health education, the protection of
children, and treatment. And some jurisdictions are beginning to put these
models into practice.

A Changing Landscape

The pendulum is starting to swing on drug policy, with Mexico, Guatemala,
and Colombia calling for a review of the global drug control regime. "As
long as the flow of resources from drugs and weapons to criminal
organizations [is] not stopped,"they said in a 2012 joint statement decrying
the failure of current prohibitionist strategies, "they will continue to
threaten our societies and governments."

In a study in 2013 onthe effectiveness of current policies, the Organization
of American States opened up a discussion about their costs and outlined,
without endorsing, various possible scenarios for future
development—including decriminalization.

In December, Uruguay approved a law legalizing marijuana and establishing a
regulated system of production and distribution for the drug, though a
compulsory treatment bill was also pending at time of writing.

Change is slowly happening in the US, too. Attorney General Eric Holder in
2013 issued guidance for federal prosecutors that would allow US states to
legalize marijuana, noting that a regulated market may further federal
priorities of combatting organized crime. Washington State and Colorado are
legalizing the possession, production, and distribution of marijuana for
recreational use; 20 other states have legalized medical marijuana.

Several UN agencies and special rapporteurs have called for drug detention
centers to close immediately. The United Na tions Children's Fund (UNICEF)
called for all children to be removed from Cambodia's centers; still, one in
10 people held in Cambodia's centers today is a child.

Indeed, progress has been limited and fragile. Criminalization remains the
tool of choice for drug control in most countries, where there is often li
ttle debate around harsh and counterproductive policies. Meanwhile, the de
vastating costs of the current approach—in lives lost to violence, people
subjected to long prison terms, barriers to health, harm to families and
communities, and damage to the rule of law—keep mounting.

It is time to chart a new course.

Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno is deputy director of the US Division.



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