Global Coalition for Alternatives to the Drug War

DECLARATION

We, the undersigned, having recognized the extraordinary damage being caused by the Drug War, join together in a call for wide-ranging and honest international and intranational discussion about the effectiveness and consequences of current, force-based drug policies. Furthermore, we call upon our governments and fellow citizens to begin the process of the exploration of alternative solutions to the issues that these policies are claimed to address. This process should include, but not be limited to, a revision of the United Nations conventions and other international treaties which inhibit nations from adopting such alternatives.

We believe that in an atmosphere of honest and rational examination, effective policies can be found which are based not upon force, repression, prohibition, coercive government action and the use of violence, but upon the universal principles of human rights, freedom, justice, equality under the law, the dignity of the individual, the health of people and communities, and the sovereignty of nations.

It should be noted that this coalition represents an extraordinarily broad range of political and social viewpoints, and a wide variety of issue-interests. The heterogeneity of the signatories to this coalition is evidence of both the intellectual strength of our position and the breadth of the destruction being wrought by current policies. For despite our differences, we stand together in the knowledge that a policy which mandates a continuous state of war, in the absence of a true acknowledgement and assessment of the consequences and excesses of that war, is objectively flawed. And that such a policy is in direct contradiction to the mission and the ideals of the United Nations, and of the peoples of the earth.

No society, whether local or global, can long endure under a perpetual state of war. Nor do we choose to leave as a legacy to our children, and to future generations, the disastrous results of such a policy. It is time to find alternatives.

Signed:

the Global Coalition for Alternatives to the Drug War.