Global Commission on Drug Policy’s Calls for Global Drug Decriminalization
In their newest annual report the Global Commission on Drug Policy’s has called for the global decriminalization of all drugs.
The Commission includes former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, as well as the former presidents of Colombia, Mexico and Brazil. The full report can be found by clicking here.
As part of the new report, the commission recommends that all countries end civil and criminal penalties for drug use and possession. The report lashed-out at the United Nation’s weak effort to combat drug abuse. Commission member Richard Branson called the UN’s drug war meeting in April “fatally flawed”.
The former Swiss president and chair of the commission, Ruth Dreifuss, told the Guardian: “Politicians should show and prove to the people that what they are doing is to save the lives of these people and bring them to the health services they need to avoid overdoses and to create a climate so when these people are in need, they are able to find help.”
The commission’s report highlighted effective decriminalization policies, such as those in Portugal, where criminal penalties for drug possession has been eliminated, resulting in lower addiction rates, overdose rates and a lower rate of STD deaths.
“[T]he UN drug control treaties and over-reaching national laws have helped create a situation whereby 5.5 billion people around the world suffer from little or no access to adequate pain relief medication because of, among other reasons, restrictions placed on prescribing opiates and other pain medicines,” states the report. “This lack of access violates the international right to the highest attainable standard of health.”
The report specifically calls for the abolishment of the death penalty for drug-related offenses, an end to criminal and civil penalties for drug possession and personal use, alternatives to punishment for those found with drugs, more research into regulatory models for drug use and for UN member states to remove penalization of drug possession as a treaty obligation.
Those wanting to read the full report can do so by clicking here.