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The Alternative World Drug Report
Counting the Costs of the War on Drugs
Transform
June 2012The Alternative World Drug Report, launched to coincide with publication of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime’s 2012 World Drug Report, exposes the failure of governments and the UN to assess the extraordinary costs of pursuing a global war on drugs, and calls for UN member states to meaningfully count these costs and explore all the alternatives.
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The War on Drugs and HIV/AIDS
The global war on drugs is driving the HIV pandemic among people who use drugs and their sexual partners. Throughout the world, research has consistently shown that repressive drug law enforcement practices force drug users away from public health services and into hidden environments where HIV risk becomes markedly elevated. Mass incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders also plays a major role in spreading the pandemic. Today, there are an estimated 33 million people worldwide living with HIV – and injection drug use accounts for one-third of new HIV infections outside of sub-Saharan Africa.
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The Prohibition of Illicit Drugs is Killing and Criminalising our Children
... and we are all Letting it Happen
Bob Douglas and David McDonaldReport of a high level Australia21 Roundtable
April 2012It is time to reopen the national debate about drug use, its regulation and control. In June 2011 a prestigious Global Commission stated that the 40-year “War on Drugs” has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. It urged all countries to look at the issue anew. In response to the Global Commission report, Australia21, in January 2012, convened a meeting of 24 former senior Australian politicians and experts on drug policy, to explore the principles and recommendations that were enunciated by the Global Commission.
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Considering New Strategies for Confronting Organized Crime in Mexico
Eric OlsonMexico Institute
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
March 2012Mexico has experienced an unprecedented rise in crime and violence over the past five years with over 47,000 people killed in crime related violence during this period. For some, the increase in violence is a tragic by-product of President Calderón’s full frontal assault on criminal organizations. For others, the government’s actions, while well intended, have only marginally impacted trafficking while exacerbating the violence.
READ MORE...Download the document (PDF)Drug Policy in the Andes
Seeking Humane and Effective Alternatives
Socorro Ramírez Coletta YoungersInternational Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance - International & The Carter Center
December 2011Fifty years after signing the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and 40 years after the U.S. government declared a "war on drugs," many obstacles remain despite the partial successes of efforts to counter the problem. The Andean-United States Dialogue Forum, noted with concern how drug policy has monopolized the diplomatic and economic agenda between the Andean countries, contributing to tensions among the governments and impeding cooperation on other crucial priorities, such as safeguarding democratic processes from criminal networks.
READ MORE...Download the full report (PDF)Download the Executive Summary (PDF)The global war on drugs has failed
Fifty years after the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs was launched, the global war on drugs has failed, and has had many unintended and devastating consequences worldwide. It empowers criminal cartels, destroys lives, infringes civil rights, and fails to reduce drug use or availability. It is time to consider alternatives to the current criminalising approach to drug control. The Global Initiative for Drug Policy Reform, launched at the House of Lords on November 17, 2011, released a Public Letter calling for a new approach.
Read the public letter (PDF)The Global Initiative for Drug Policy Reform is an initiative of the Beckley Foundation.
READ MORE...Drug Control Policy: What the United States Can Learn from Latin America
Coletta YoungersLASA Forum
Spring 2011Since the 1912 signing of the Hague Opium Convention—the agreement that formally established narcotics control within international law—the United States has established itself as the dominant actor in determining drug control policies around the world. A chief architect of the international drug control regime, Washington has done its best to ensure that all subsequent international conventions obligate countries to adapt their domestic legislation to criminalize virtually all acts related to the illicit market in controlled substances, with the important exception of drug consumption. The predominant focus on prohibition and criminalization has been exported to Latin America, where the vast majority of the cocaine and heroin consumed in the United States originates.
READ MORE...Download the article (PDF)Global Commission on Drug Policy Report
Global Commission on Drug Policy
June 2011The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. Fifty years after the initiation of the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, and 40 years after President Nixon launched the US government’s war on drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed.
READ MORE...Download the report (PDF)The development of international drug control
Lessons learned and strategic challenges for the future
Martin JelsmaSeries on Legislative Reform of Drug Policies Nr. 10
February 2011The emergence of more pragmatic and less punitive approaches to the drugs issue may represent the beginning of change in the current global drug control regime. The spread of HIV/AIDS among injecting drug users, the overcrowding of prisons, the reluctance in South America to remain a theatre for military anti-drug operations, and the ineffectiveness of repressive anti-drug efforts to reduce the illicit market have all contributed to the global erosion of support for the United States-style war on drugs.
READ MORE...Download the paper (PDF)Toward a Paradigm Shift
Prohibitionist policies based on the eradication of production and on the disruption of drug flows as well as on the criminalization of consumption have not yielded the desired results. We are further than ever from the announced goal of eradicating drugs.
Breaking the taboo, acknowledging the failure of current policies and their consequences is the inescapable prerequisite for the discussion of a new paradigm leading to safer, more efficient and humane drug policies.Drugs and Democracy: Toward a Paradigm Shift
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Statement by the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy
February 2009Page 2 of 3
Drugs in the News
- In blow for cannabis advocates, Italy's high court blocks referendum
16.02.2022 - Schumer asks for input as Democrats finalize cannabis bill
10.02.2022 - Europe should follow Malta's example on cannabis reform, says minister
09.02.2022 - Scotland's drug deaths: Consumption room pilot on track despite warning over legal barriers
02.02.2022 - A cannabis monopoly asteroid is coming
01.02.2022 - Can delta-8 THC provide some of the benefits of pot – with less paranoia and anxiety?
31.01.2022
Hilites
Balancing Treaty Stability and Change
Inter se modification of the UN drug control conventions to facilitate cannabis regulation
Connecting the dots...
Human rights, illicit cultivation and alternative development
Morocco and Cannabis
The Rise and Decline of Cannabis Prohibition
The History of Cannabis in the UN Drug Control System and Options For Reform
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10-year Review 20 1998 UNGASS 26 2005 CND debate 8 2016 UNGASS 126 2019 HLM 5 activism 31 afghanistan 24 show allTags
10-year Review 20 1998 UNGASS 26 2005 CND debate 8 2016 UNGASS 126 2019 HLM 5 activism 31 afghanistan 24 hideafrica 9 albania 13 alternative development 118 alternatives to policing 2 amnesty 80 appellation of origin 3 argentina 32 asean 9 ATS 15 australia 96 ayahuasca 6 bahamas 4 ballot 2012 155 banking 44 barbados 11 belgium 35 belize 10 bermuda 10 bolivia 115 brazil 93 brownfield doctrine 24 burma 43 california 206 cambodia 12 canada 516 cannabinoids 96 cannabis 2966 cannabis clubs 196 cannabis industry 388 caribbean 146 caricom 33 cbd oil 1 central america 5 chile 21 china 46 civil society 37 CND 128 coca 214 cocaine 69 coffee shop 216 cognitive decline 30 colombia 149 colorado 161 compulsary detention 19 conflict 4 conventions 251 corporate capture 47 corruption 4 costa rica 10 crack 54 craft cannabis 30 crime 75 czech republic 31 dark net 4 death penalty 2 decertification 1 decriminalization 870 deforestation 8 denmark 121 drug checking 39 drug consumption rooms 191 drug courts 22 drug markets 140 drug policy index 2 drug testing 7 drug trade 51 e-cigarettes 1 e-joint 2 ecstasy 63 ecuador 22 egypt 16 el salvador 2 environment 20 eradication 127 essential medicines 25 estonia 1 eswatini 6 european drug policy 80 expert advisory group 9 extrajudicial killings 93 fair trade 15 fentanyl 78 france 111 fumigation 25 gateway theory 29 georgia 3 germany 168 ghana 17 global commission 46 greece 18 guatemala 31 guatemala initiative 47 harm reduction 337 hemp 39 heroin 134 heroin assisted treatment 79 HIV/AIDS 61 home cultivation 98 honduras 3 human rights 250 illinois 10 incarceration 52 INCB 136 india 93 indigenous rights 1 indonesia 35 informal drug policy dialogues 22 inter se modification 13 iran 14 ireland 15 israel 59 italy 41 jamaica 169 japan 3 kava 3 kazakhstan 5 ketamine 27 khat 36 kratom 31 kyrgyzstan 1 laos 2 latin american debate 115 law enforcement 400 lebanon 43 legal highs 63 legalization 1501 lesotho 7 local customization 8 luxembourg 41 malaysia 7 malta 32 medical cannabis 630 mental health 44 methamphetamine 45 mexico 209 Mid-Term Review 1 mild stimulants 41 money laundering 54 morocco 116 naloxone 15 nepal 6 netherlands 302 new york 27 new zealand 67 NIDA 5 nitrous oxide 6 norway 17 NPS 10 opinion polls 126 opioids 145 opium 92 oregon 29 overdose kits 4 pakistan 9 panama 5 paraguay 4 pardon 2 patents 18 peace 22 peru 42 peyote 3 philippines 87 pleasure 5 police pacification 18 portugal 68 potency 2 precursors 6 prevention 3 prison situation 97 producers 135 prohibition 144 proportionality 110 psychedelics 13 psychosis 53 puerto rico 3 racism 29 reclassification 117 recriminalisation 36 regulation 1264 russia 36 sacramental use 11 safe supply 27 safer crack 29 scheduling 25 scientific research 140 sdg 2 security 14 senegal 1 sentencing 66 singapore 6 social justice 70 south africa 70 spain 78 st lucia 9 st vincent and grenadines 31 substance-use disorder 18 substitution treatment 31 sweden 27 switzerland 140 synthetic cannabinoids 30 taxation 45 teen use 43 thailand 60 thresholds 50 tobacco industry 17 tramadol 17 treatment 26 trinidad & tobago 15 tunisia 13 UK 266 UN Common Position 1 UN drug control 426 UNGASS 58 UNODC 110 uruguay 144 US drug policy 1157 vaping 2 venezuela 5 vietnam 5 violence 131 WHO 62 world drug report 11