FROM THE INTERNATIONAL COALITION OF NGOS FOR A JUST AND EFFECTIVE DRUGS POLICY *

TO THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE UNITED NATIONS' COMMISSION ON NARCOTIC DRUGS

CONCERNING THE REPORT OF THE INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS CONTROL BOARD, PUBLISHED ON 23 FEBRUARY 1999.

Introduction

Recently, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), the highest international authority dealing with drugs policy control, published its 1998 annual report. This report looks into global trends in drug demand and supply, identifies weaknesses in national and international drug control, and is used as an important guideline for international policy-making. As organisations working to solve drug problems on a daily basis and at the grassroot level, we wish to express that we are deeply affronted by the content of this report.

In our view, the drugs issue is for a large part a social issue, and therefore, drugs policy should focus on the promotion of public health and economic opportunities of those involved. We are convinced that policies aiming at the re-integration of drugs consumers in society will result in the reduction of drug abuse and related problems, and likewise, that policies aiming at the fight against poverty in drug-producer countries will contribute to a decrease of drug production. We are not opposed to mechanisms to control the drugs trade, but feel they should be in principle aimed at reducing harm. However, as long as the prohibition of drugs continues to yield such high profits to drugs traffickers, the drugs problem cannot be controlled.

Harm Reduction

The World Health Organisation defines health as a "state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity". Since drugs consumption is a health issue, it is disappointing to note that the INCB does not acknowledge the fact that harm reduction measures, such as they have been implemented in an increasing number of cities and regions across the world, are the measures that most promote public health. To deny this is short-sighted and naive. For example, the INCB recognises that heroin use in some European countries has stabilised or even gone down, but fails to see the connection between this tendency and the implementation of harm reduction strategies in the concerned countries.

Heroin

The INCB, biased towards heroin, is concerned with the increase of heroin distribution programmes, since they are not based on scientific evidence.

These programmes have given hope to those who had failed in methadon programmes. In Switzerland, for example, a significant number of addicts who are involved in the heroin distribution programmes implemented in recent years have decided to become abstinent. In addition, almost all participants in these programmes have abandoned criminal activities, such as theft or small scale trafficking, since they no longer must obtain large sums of money to finance their addiction. The added value is that their health has improved substantially.

The INCB is concerned about the messages 'safer injection rooms' can send to the public. In these rooms, users can administer drugs under supervision and good hygienic conditions. The messages sent are that these kind of initiatives:

a) take addicts off the streets,

b) ensure that addicts are not having to resort to the illicit market,

c) ensure that addicts have access to clean needles,

d) reduce street-level drug-related crime, and

e) stabilize or reduce drug-use.

Instead of expressing its concern about harm reduction strategies, we believe the INCB should have questioned the intransigence of the United States government concerning the introduction of needle exchange programmes, especially since the research on NEPs clearly shows a reduction or containment of HIV disease where they were implemented early on, compared to countries where this was not done. In the U.K. for instance, the national average on HIV amongst Intravenous Drug Users is 5.5 %, compared to 30 % in the US.

This polemic has global implications as drug injecting is still the main route of HIV infections in many developing and developed countries, and drug injecting related HIV is escalating at alarming levels in developing countries.

Cannabis

Furthermore, the INCB is concerned with the increase of cannabis consumption, even though problems related to this substance continue to be minimal. The INCB alarms the reader with non-existant problems, simply to maintain repressive attitudes towards cannabis. Instead, the INCB should make it clear to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs that it should promote non-repressive policy such has been enjoyed in some countries where the level of consumption is high and a large majority of consumers are abandoning the false stereotype of marginalised and problematic individuals.

If it is the INCB's intention to help people with drug-related problems, the best support for the large majority of cannabis users would be to stop stigmatising and persecuting them. Likewise, the medical use of cannabis should be immediately authorised in applications where its utility has been scientifically proven, instead of waiting for the moment that the pharmaceutical industries will obtain the monopoly on this product through the legalisation of its synthetic derivatives, while the persecution on its natural derivatives continues.

Erradication

The report calls on drugs producing developing countries to increase their efforts to eliminate cultivation of drug-linked crops. In doing so, the INCB neglects the overwhelming amount of evidence that elimination strategies implemented so far have been counterproductive. While leading to an increase of violence, corruption, militarisation and human rights violations, these strategies have not been capable of achieving any significant reduction of drug production or related problems, such as increasing drug abuse and trafficking in developing countries.

These strategies have created a climate of pressure and blackmail, which further undermines the possibilities of development projects to generate alternative income sources for the involved population. In the Andean countries, forced erradication of crops have provoked the death of hundreds of citizens and have fuelled political violence, while in parts of Southeast Asia where erradication of crops has taken place, rural societies are now seriously affected by problems related to consumption and trafficking with illicit drugs.

United Nations' Principles

In our view, the content of the INCB report is violating the Political Declaration adopted at UNGASS in 1998, which states that "action against the world drug problem is a common and shared responsibility requiring an integrated and balanced approach in full conformity with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and international law, and particularly with full respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of States, the principle of non-intervention in internal affairs of States, and all human rights and fundamental freedoms".

With a view to the implementation of these principles, the INCB should have paid attention to a special chapter of the UN Charter dealing with International Economic and Social Co-operation, where the following aim is formulated: "The promotion of full employment, and conditions of economic and social progress and development", and "solutions of international economic, social, health and related problems". However, current open-market policies promoted worldwide by industrialised countries are turning agriculture in developing countries unprofitable. In this situation, the cultivation of drug-related plants is becoming more and more attractive.

Money-laundering

Law enforcement measures only manage to capture at most about 10% of the illicit drugs trade, which has become one of the most important economies in the world. Like any other business, organised crime has gone global, and the drugs trade is its most profitable sector. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations (G7) has estimated that at least $120bn from the drugs trade are laundered through the world's financial system a year. According to more alarmist estimates of its value, it could even be starting to catch up with the United States as the leading player in the world economy.

While the INCB expresses its satisfaction that legislation against money-laundering has been adopted in several countries, there is no indication that this legislation has so far led to a reduction of global money-laundering operations. On the contrary, recent measures to facilitate the free trade of goods and capitals in the world have made it easier to carry out these operations.

Futility of the War on Drugs

Today, more resources, more police, more judges, prosecutors and prisons are dedicated to the drugs issue than at any time in history. A recent report in the European Parliament states that about 50 % of the prisoners in Europe are in jail because of drug-related offences. However, drugs have not disappeared from society, more drugs are being consumed than ever and prices have not risen but rather decreased.

The heaviest burden of current drug control policies is carried by those who have virtually no involvement in drugs trafficking, i.e. marginalised drug consumers and peasants involved in the cultivation of drug-linked plants. Among those who state that drugs control policies create more harm than drugs themselves are prominent public figures, as shows the Open Letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, published in June 1998. **

Conclusion

The INCB report has been guided by the wrong concerns. It asks: Which is the most heavily consumed drug? How and where is it trafficked? These questions have brought us failure because they have impeded us from asking the most important questions: What would be the wisest policy to decrease the harm caused by the production, trafficking and consumption of drugs?

And why are there people who need to consume drugs, and need to produce them? It is time that UN agencies and the leaders of the world community face these questions with an open mind.

It will not be easy to provide answers on these questions, but only if we try that, will we be able to transform the fight against drugs in to what it should be: a struggle to humanise life itself.

The International Coalition of NGO's for a Just and Effective Drugs Policy

On its behalf,

* As members of an International Coalition that consists of approx. 90 citizens' associations from across the world, we are dedicated to find sustainable solutions to problems related with drugs production, trafficking and consumption. Our Coalition came into being in order to denounce the negative impact of current international drug policies and propose alternatives at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Drugs held in New York in June 1998, where some of us participated.

The International Coalition of NGO's for a Just and Effective Drugs Policy is formed by both peasant producers of drug linked plants in developing countries, drug consumers in developed countries, as well as treatment centres, research institutes, organisations working in the field of development co-operation, environment, human rights, drugs policy and drugs prevention, proceeding from 24 different countries. Our common opinion is that current drugs control policies are not capable of resolving the problems related to drug production and consumption, for two reasons:

1 - because their focus is fighting drugs, rather than the social problems that have caused the drugs phenomenon to increase.

2 - because the way the war is fought through prohibition fails and in fact may cause more harm than drugs themselves.

** This letter was published in The New York Times, on 8 June 1998.