Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:28:32 +0100
Subject: Psicotropicus Brazil NGO declaration at CND
From: Marisa Felicissimo
Marisa
(please pass it along)
Statement for the 52nd session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs
Distinguished Chairwoman, members of the Commission on Narcotics Drugs and
delegates of the Member States, Ladies and Gentlemen,
First we would like to thank the Commission and the delegates of the Member
States who are present at this meeting for their wise decision to work in
partnership with Civil Society and listen to what it has to say. As
non-governmental organizations and mem bers of civil society, we intend to work
with you to find a way to overcome the impasse caused by the failure of the
goals that were set in the 1998 UNGASS Political Declaration on the World Drug
Problem. As part of the endeavor to review the past ten years of this
policy, we present the following statement:
Initial Considerations
Even today, after almost forty years of the global War on
Drugs and ten years after UN General Assembly declared Member States
determination to eradicate some psychoactive drugs from the
world, that same old paradox from the 1960s still persists within the
organization that should, above anything else, protect the human rights that
ensue from each persons inherent dignity, as so many of the UNs regulatory and
declaratory documents proclaim. Today, although human rights are the only
universal moral consensus of the international society, the Commission on
Narcotic Drugs (CND) and most Member States seem to have chosen, at least on
the issue of drugs, to blindly and deliberately favor moralizing over ethics,
obscurantism over rationality, paternalism over freedom and repression over
health.
To expand on this tension we would like to make the following observations:
1. The end of the prohibition of drugs is only a matter of time.
But if nothing is done to facilitate the transition from the current repressive
model to a tolerant model, the price will be high: the end of prohibition will
be the result of the unbearable level of violence and crime that the War on Drugs
will have reached. This will result in even greater problems than already exist
today in the implementation of public health measures for drug users.
2. Millions of people who have some involvement with drugs are
daily persecuted in Brazil and elsewhere in the world. The idea that these
people are evil or harmful and should be removed from society or their families
is a perverted way of thinking. We can no longer allow this simplistic
moralizing to feed the prejudice and stigma that surround these people. We can
no longer allow this blind intolerance to transform these people into
criminals.
3. Criminalization pushes drug users away from health services, out
of fear of discrimination or a fear that they will be reported to the police or
receive poor treatment from health care professionals. The criminalization of
people who use drugs also hinders the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS and
other health conditions, as many new infections occur among people who use
drugs. Current drug policy of prohibition is not sound public health policy,
including for the prevention of HIV and viral hepatitis. The statement by
UNAIDS at last years session of the CND made this very clear.
4. Consider as well what drug prohibition does to our young people:
when a young person uses an illegal substance, even for the first time, he or
she is no longer considered "our most precious asset, to use the language
of the first paragraph of the CND Political Declaration 2009, but instead
becomes an enemy who should be persecuted, repressed or imprisoned. The
prohibition of drugs is used to weaken and oppress youth.
5. Cannabis is the most widely used illicit drug in the world. By
order of the UN drug conventions, the laws of Member States prohibit the use of
marihuana, criminalizing millions of people. A law that is violated by millions
of people every single day is a law without moral authority, a meaningless law.
6. The current system of drug control doesnt actually control
anything. Who controls illicit drugs are those who produce, distribute and sell
it. The current system has handed the monopoly of these products to the illegal
drug industry, more commonly referred to as the drug trade or in Latin America,
the narcotrfico. Delegates at the international conferences that were
held over the course of the last century decided to prohibit certain drugs and
plants. They probably had no idea of the violence, misery and destruction that
would be caused and continues to be caused by the regime that they were
creating.
7. The 1998 UNGASS resolutions to achieve significant quantifiable
results in reducing drug supply and demand have not been accomplished. In some
regions, such as Latin America, the drug problem has only been exacerbated, as
the report from the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy reveals.
Therefore we recommend the following:
1. UNODC should be separated into one agency for drugs and another one
for crimes. It doesnt make any sense to unite both drugs and crime under
one agency. This association gives the absurd impression that drugs are
criminal by nature, not by human discretion. Furthermore, this association
furthers the stigmatization and criminalization of drug users. This should be
completely undone. Drug misuse is a health and social problem and should not be
subjected to interventions from the criminal justice system.
2. The conventions that rule the UN system of drug control should be
revoked. Each Member State should have the freedom to develop its own drug
policy, determining in light of domestic conditions the best ways in which to
prevent and minimize the adverse health and social consequences of the
problematic use of drugs.
3. The new system should encourage this decentralization, respecting the
geographic and cultural differences and supporting the way each Member State
chooses to deal with the drug industry, recreational and medicinal drugs.
4. The new system should also encourage harm reduction services and
approaches as a way to deal with the use and misuse of drugs. Of the existing
strategies, harm reduction seems to have the most significant, proven impact on
promoting the health of people who use drug and preventing a number of
diseases, including HIV and viral hepatitis, and associated social, health and
economic consequences.
5. The score of the war on drugs with all the destruction, violence and
misery that it has inflicted on humanity and the environment needs to be
settled. Farmers should be compensated for the financial loss that is the
result of forced crop eradication. Their governments and the countries that
have interfered in their livelihoods in the name of the war on drugs should be
held accountable. The negative impact on the economy, the violation of
human rights, the displacement of people and poisoning of the soil should be
rectified. The negative consequences of the war on drugs on the health of these
populations and other vulnerable groups should be compensated.
6. Above all else, the UN system for drug control must be based on
respect for fundamental human rights. All drug policies that violate human
rights should be denounced.
At this 52nd CND session, we wish that the delegations of the
Member States can finally set a new course on drug policy, far from the
incomprehensible punitive prohibition that, contrary to what it professes,
actually promotes violence and crime, and claims innocent lives.
Thank you.
(produced by Psicotropicus - Brazilian Drug Policy Center with
invaluable help from many Brazilian NGOs representatives and individuals -
special thanks to Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch and Richard Elliot.)