Alternative Development and Eradication

Drugs & Conflict Debate Paper 4, March 2002

In the area of failed alternative development (AD) projects, the Andean region has its sorry share to contribute. The constant peasant uprisings n the Bolivian Chapare and the social tensions rife among cocalero peasants in the South of Colombia are woeful indicators of such failure.

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To prepare for the NGO Forum a series of regional consultations the have been or are to be held. See: Beyond 2008 Regional Consultations for reports on the regional consultations.

Some reports of participants at the Regional NGO-Consultation “Beyond 2008” meetings:

Western Europe: Budapest, Hungary, January 24-25, 2008

• Report on the Regional NGO-Consultation meeting ”Beyond 2008” for Western Europe, by Fredrick Polak, M.D., psychiatrist, member of the ENCOD steering committee

• Beyond 2008 – Within and Beyond the Current Framework, by Peter Sarosi of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union

North America: Vancouver, February 4-5, 2008

• Vancouver Conference Sends a Message to the UN, from Drug War Chronicle, February 8, 2008

Polarisation & Paralysis in UN Drug Control

Drugs & Conflict Debate Paper 5, July 2002

The past decade has seen an increasing polarisation between divergent trends in global drug policies. On the one hand, there has been an escalation in the US driven War on Drugs, which has created a drug gulag domestically and increased and militarised forced eradication abroad. On the other hand, in Europe and several like-minded countries, a more flexible and pragmatic approach has gained ground in domestic drug policy-making, taking distance from indiscriminate repression and the zero-tolerance approach. In these countries, the trend towards greater leniency has become irreversible and rational thinking is gradually replacing the dogmas of the past. Such tolerant approaches have reached their legal limits within the framework of the current UN Drug Conventions.

The forced crop eradication policy implemented by the Peruvian government over the past 25 years has failed. The official strategy has exacerbated social conflicts; contributed to various types of subversive violence; jeopardized local economies, also affecting the national economy; and destroyed forests as crops have become more scattered. Worst of all, it has not resolved any of the underlying causes of drug trafficking, such as poverty, marginalisation and government neglect.

Broken promises and coca eradication in Peru
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 11, March 2005
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At the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in March 2008 in Vienna three resolutions on cannabis were tabled. They were all clearly against 'lenient policies' in some countries depenalising or decriminalizing the use of cannabis. One of the resolutions called for the criminalization of drug abuse that would have significantly expanded the UN drug conven­tions. 

TNI briefing, March 2008