New UN Think-tank Report: What Comes After the War on Drugs? #drugpolicy

Huffington Post
November 03, 2015

New UN Think-tank Report: What Comes After the War on Drugs?*
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-cockayne/new-un-thinktank-report-w_b_846
5246.html

Should the United Nations support the decriminalization of drug use?
This was the question raised last week by Richard Branson, a well-known
entrepreneur and member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, a private
group. Branson made headlines with a claim that the main United Nations drug
agency, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), was poised to
call for governments to decriminalize the use and possession of all drugs.
UNODC quickly denied the claims, suggesting a document circulated by Branson
did not represent the body's official policy.

Branson's claim comes half a year before members of the United Nations will
meet at a special session in New York to consider the state of global drug
control efforts, known by its acronym UNGASS 2016. Our new policy report for
the UN's own thinktank, the United Nations University (UNU), entitled What
Comes After the War on Drugs? argues that UNGASS
2016 will largely confirm the current approach to drug control, despite
growing calls for change. The report, based on a series of consultations
involving over 50 Member States, 16 UN entities and 55 civil society
organizations, considers the major political and policy trends leading into
UNGASS 2016, and offers recommendations for strengthening global drug policy
efforts at a time of deepening divisions.

Some states, particularly in the Americas, see UNGASS 2016 as an opportunity
to rethink global drug control, turning a page on the War on Drugs. Other
states in contrast see UNGASS 2016 as an opportunity to build flexibility
into the current approach, and to adapt to new drugs and new trafficking
patterns. States have not bridged this divide in preparing for UNGASS 2016,
so What Comes After the War on Drugs?
predicts that UNGASS 2016 will largely affirm the existing regime while
adding positive references to the protection of public health and human
rights.

We also predict support for the idea that states should have flexibility in
implementing their existing drug control obligations. The United States, in
particular, has championed the notion of flexibility since some U.S. states
began to permit recreational use of cannabis -- something traditionally not
permitted by the UN drug control system. The report cautions that states in
different regions will use the notion of flexibility to do very different
things. Some will certainly experiment with cannabis legalization and harm
reduction, while others will see 'flexibility' as a green light for a more
punitive approach, incarcerating users, forcing them into treatment options
without sound medical supervision, and even executing drug traffickers. This
will lead in time to policy fragmentation.

To avoid that outcome, Member States need to embed flexibility in a larger
discussion of what actually works in drug policy, based on certain shared
principles. We call this 'principled pluralism', and suggest that it is not
currently achievable at the UN's global drug policy discussion forum in
Vienna, the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, partly because most countries are
not represented there. We argue that states should use the period until
2019, when a new UN Plan of Action is expected, to hold inclusive
discussions in New York. This could take the recent process that designed
the Sustainable Development Goals as a model, and be framed as an Open
Working Group on Drug Policy, open to all states and to civil society, and
guided by a Scientific Advisory Committee. This Open Working Group would
work towards Global Drug Policy Goals, to be adopted in 2019. Creating
shared goals has proven to be an effective way for states to define the key
objectives of a regime, direct resources, and work towards a shared vision
on a global issue.
Global Drug Policy Goals would help ensure coherence in a drug control
regime that is going to continue to be pulled in very different directions.

Whether or not that discussion happens in New York or Vienna, states should
ensure that UNGASS 2016 explicitly recognizes four principles for future
drug control discussions: 1) inclusiveness, 2) science-based
decision-making, 3) protection of human rights, and 4) promoting human
development. Without a commitment to these common principles, global drug
control discussions risk rapid fragmentation in coming years.

But there are also more specific things that states could achieve at UNGASS
2016, and we offer five operational recommendations. First, states should
use UNGASS 2016 to create a forum for sharing scientific evidence on the
impacts of penal policy interventions. Second, UNGASS
2016 should establish an high-level, independent, expert commission to
analyse global access to controlled medicines and report back on measures to
improve it. Third, states should ask the Secretary-General to develop
coherent, UN-system-wide guidance on drug treatment programming. Fourth,
states should initiate a workstream in the UN Statistical Commission to
develop new national statistics measuring the human development impacts of
drugs and drug control policies. And fifth, states should ask the
Secretary-General to develop UN-wide guidance on protection of human rights
in drug programming.

In the end, the direction of global drug policy is up to Member States
-- not UN agencies such as UNODC, or outside experts like Richard Branson.
But unless all stakeholders work together to use UNGASS 2016 to take
concrete steps, a golden opportunity to adapt the global drug control regime
to present-day realities risks being squandered. If states, in particular,
do not step up to the challenge, what comes after the War on Drugs may be,
in some parts of the world, just as bad -- or even worse.

*Dr. James Cockayne is Head of United Nations University's Office at the
United Nations.

*Ms Summer Walker manages United Nations University's global Drug Policy
Project.

The United Nations University (UNU) is a think tank established by the UN
General Assembly to contribute research to help resolve pressing global
challenges.

--
Transnational Institute (TNI)
Drugs & Democracy Programme
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The Netherlands
Tel: + 31 20 662 66 08
Fax: + 31 20 675 71 76
Email: drugs@tni.org
http://www.druglawreform.info/en/home
http://www.tni.org/work-area/drugs-and-democracy

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