African voices at the International Drug Policy debate

On the 8th - 11th December 2015, Civil Society, and Member States of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) met in Vienna for the Intercessional meeting, on the UNGASS Special segment and the Reconvene session to deliberate on preparations towards UNGASS.

Some member states from Africa were in attendance and presented their opinions on the international drug policy debate.

A summary of the positions of the African group who were in attendance is presented below.

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South Africa on behalf of the African Group – We welcome the convening of the Special Segment. We should take this opportunity to consolidate our final preparations. We want to reiterate the following points: our commitment to the effective implementation of the 3 drug conventions as the cornerstone of drug control, the 2009 political declaration and the joint ministerial statement. The UNGASS will be an opportunity to review progress made since 2009 to counter the world drug problem. We underscore that the UNGASS will be a step to further enhance our obligations to implement the 2009 political declaration within the framework of the 3 drug conventions under the principle of shared responsibility. We should develop combined measures to address drugs. Decriminalisation and legalisation are contrary to the spirit of the conventions. We should combat the illicit production, trafficking and use of drugs as part of the balanced approach. We thank the UNGASS Board for its continued efforts and take note of the revised elements paper.  We support the decision that the CND should produce a short, concise and action oriented document with a set of recommendations, including an assessment of achievements and remaining challenges within the framework of the 3 drug conventions. The CND is mandated by the UNGA and is embarked in formulating recommendations. This should be finalised before the commencement of the CND for adoption at the UNGASS. We welcome the proposal for the preparations of the UNGASS with co-chairs with one being member of the UNGASS Board, and roundtables. A summary of the roundtables should be made available by the chairs of the roundtables. We assure you of the full support of the African Group states in the preparations.

Algeria – I align my statement with that of the Africa Group. We welcome resolution 58/8 and fully support the drafting of the brief and concise document. We are of the view that this should not lead to a political declaration, but offer an assessment of the 2009 political declaration. We also recall that the UNGASS should not serve as an opportunity to revise the UN drug conventions which are a result of consensus and that should be upheld. On the new version submitted, we should follow the model of 2009. We also believe that recommendations should lead to the implementation of the political declaration. I want to support the link between trafficking and organised crime. The 2009 political declaration stipulates that governments should ensure proportionality and international cooperation in full application of the law. Turning to specific comments, we will come back to this point later on.

Angola – We support the statement of the African Group. Drug policies have been largely ineffective in controlling production. National drug laws and policies seek mainly to punish possession, use and even dependency. Drug users are scapegoats for a range of social problems. Angola’s drug policy is not that way. Combatting drug use and trafficking is the responsibility of the executive. The public health and human rights must be central in protecting society where drug use is accepted as a way of life. Prevention, harm reduction, treatment and rehabilitation are critical. This discussion can bring solutions to create more jobs. We recognise that substances provide a barrier to education and employment. This is an opportunity for a wide ranging discussion towards 2019. Within the framework of the 3 conventions, and the 2009 Political declaration, we need a comprehensive and balanced strategy to counter the world drug problem. We must reduce demand and counter trafficking to achieve our objectives.

Morocco – Thanks to the UNGASS Board for its leadership. We support the statement of the African Group. Today is a very important time for international cooperation as we are confronted to multiple challenges of the drug scourge. Trafficking is feeding organised crime and financial flows to criminal organizations that have the same resources than some states. Traffickers are undoubtedly a global threat and require an approach based on solidarity. We must work together on mutual legal assistance. The recent UNODC report shows a clear increase in drug trafficking and use and we will deal with this at the UNGASS. it also refers to the NPS issue, the dark net. UNGASS is extremely relevant, and all stakeholders must do everything possible to respond to the world drug problem, including economic, health and social issues.

We must use wisdom and efficiency which Amb Shamaa is embodying. We should work on the themes proposed by the chair to address issues and challenges that UNGASS should address. We have consensus on the subject of the 5 roundtables shows the consensus on this. It will enable member states to share experiences on the issue. As for the draft document, the elements paper is a basis for a credible and workable negotiation. The few differences on structure and substance are not impossible to overcome. We should give new impetus to the international community in their fight against the scourge of drugs. We have participated actively to the preparatory process. We support the current structure of the document as it fits with the roundtables. We have stressed prevention, health measures and AD which are fundamental axes for our strategies to combat drugs. The positive momentum that enabled us to adopt the themes of the roundtables should continue to ensure the adoption of the final document. We need a new operational road map to define our goals and the means to reach them, including an evaluation of progress made in accordance with resolution 58/8.

Despite differences in approach and cultural specificities (which must be taken into account), the international community shares the same goals, to protect society from the harms caused by drugs. This does not mean we all have the same opinion on how to implement national anti-drug strategies. We must express caution on decriminalising and legalising drug use. If we go from a general ban to a general legalisation, it could be counterproductive and lead to the opposite of what we are trying to achieve. We have spent combating drugs through all legitimate means under the principle of the rule of law and under guidance from UNODC and UNCB. We adjust our strategy to the needs of society.

Thanks to the role of UNODC and the INCB, the anti-drug policy guided by the conventions has made significant progress for a stable, legal and political framework. Data and statistic show that consumption, trafficking and production continues to increase and we must adopt a new approach to address increasingly difficult realities. We must adapt national and international drug policies. This is the aim of UNGASS 2016. We hope that all stakeholders will show good will and compromise and work together to avoid controversies to adopt a final document based on consensus to adapt to new realities of drugs, protect public health.

Nigeria – We align ourselves with the African Group statement and the UNGASS elements paper. We align ourselves on issues of decriminalisation and legalisation – this can be counterproductive and can hinder our efforts, providing a window for flourishing drug cartels. The 3 drug conventions should be the cornerstone of our system. We need a continued assessment and revision of drug policies. We should also tackle crime networks that promote drug use via the internet. We acknowledge the 5 thematic themes for the UNGASS and align ourselves on AD and look forward to discussions. We as a global community need to address alternative livelihoods as is the case currently in Nigeria for cannabis. We look forward to harm reduction programmes that will address drug abuse and cannabis substitution to address cannabis dependence.

For more details follow the link below to see what each country said;

http://cndblog.org/2015/12/ungass-special-segment/

Credit: Commission on Narcotic Drug blog (www.cndblog.org)

IDPC Webinar on the 2016 United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on Drugs

The International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) Webinar on the 2016 United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on Drugs, which took place on Wednesday, 16 December 2015, at 11:00 (GMT) was meant to update you on the UNGASS itself, and the latest developments taking place around the world ahead of this important meeting. It focused on the positions and engagement of countries from Africa and the Middle East regions, and the global and regional opportunities for engagement. The one hour webinar was hosted by Jamie Bridge (Senior Policy and Operations Manager, IDPC), Maria-Goretti Ane (Africa Consultant, IDPC) and Nathalie Rose (Advocacy Officer, PILS).

The recorded webcast is available here:

https://t.co/Pzt6Arf9Px

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XyveIG4Pso&feature=youtu.be

Credit: International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC)

          www.idpc.net

Boosting political will to address drug-related challenges in Africa

The International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) has called on African member states to avoid making the mistakes of other regions, particularly Latin America, by thinking that they can eradicate drug markets through an arms race with drug traffickers or by meting out harsh punishments on people who use drugs.

“A drugs-free world is never possible”, Ms Maria-Goretti Ane, IDPC’s consultant for Africa, stated during the first meeting of the African Union (AU) Specialized Technical Committee (STC) on Health, Population and Drug Control – which took place from April 12th – 17th in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Experts of the Specialized Technical Committee meeting on Health, Population and Drug Control at Addis Ababa, April 2015

The harsh sanctions applied to people who use drugs create suffering and actively undermine efforts to restore a safer and healthier society – and also impede the availability of essential medicines, such as opiate-based painkillers, to those in need.

Mr Gunashekar Rengaswamy from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said, “Many Africans are suffering without being able to access pain relieving medications due to legislative restrictions placed on them… About 93 per cent of our populations are suffering from cancer, HIV or tuberculosis; women in labour are dying without being able to have access to pain relieving medication which is a gross violation to their fundamental human rights”.

He therefore urged governments of African countries to review national laws, and to put in place mechanisms to prevent the diversion of controlled medicines into illicit channels.

The STC meeting sought to sensitized ministers and experts on the nexus between drugs and health. It lay down a five-year strategic framework on drug control, with specific focus on drug use prevention and treatment standards. This platform also gave an opportunity to establish national and regional drug observatories, and to discuss a common African position for the UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on the world drug problem, to be held in April 2016 in New York.

Addressing participants at the conference, the drug control expert from South Africa highlighted the necessity of the conference. She noted that the conference was being held at a time when illicit drug use and trade poses a veritable threat the security of states, social and economic development on the continent.

She pointed out an urgent issue that requires the keen attention and response from decision makers across Africa: “There is a need to recognise drug use as a public health problem”, she said. She recommended that member states must roll out interventions targeting vulnerable groups.

Ministers were specifically urged to treat drug use as a public health issue rather than as a criminal justice matter while confronting political and governance weaknesses with traffickers and some corrupt officials.

The meeting brought together experts on health, population and drugs control, United Nations partner agencies, media, academics and civil society organisations working in the field of health, population and drugs control and ministers from the following AU member states: Algeria, Angola, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea Conakry, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, the Sharawi Arab Democratic Republic, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan Swaziland, Togo, Tunisia , Zambia and Zimbabwe. In addition to these member states were AU officials, Regional Economic Communities, UN agencies, international governmental and non-governmental organisations, and other cooperating partners.

During the meeting, IDPC reiterated the need for Africa to be very active in the global debate, and to have a common voice at the UNGASS and beyond. Africa cannot afford to miss this opportunity to take stock of the negative consequences of the current system and to ensure that the drug control treaties remain ‘fit-for-purpose’ in the coming decades. However, the debate around a common Africa position – supported by IDPC – could not be concluded at the meeting itself with several countries asking for more time to review and comment on the draft. A final document should be available in the summer.

SETTING THE RECORDS STRAIGHT: DECRIMINALIZATION IS NOT LEGALIZATION OF CONTROLLED DRUGS

The war on drugs represents more than 50 years of wasted resources, lost lives and preventable harms in the lives of people around the world. It has been a war on human beings since the coming into force of the UN Single Convention on Narcotics Drugs in 1961.

Rather than reduce drug use or drug markets, this war has simply washed immense amounts of money down the drain through adopting repressive measures – mainly directed at what has described as the ‘small fry’ (small scale producers and consumers of illicit drugs), rather than the ‘big fish’ who are profiting from this global illicit economy. 

All over the world, repressive drug policies are mostly an ideological and reactionary response to the situation on the ground, and are not based on evidence. It is a massive failure: this situation has not only stigmatized people who use drugs, it has also led to misguided and harmful policy making, an ongoing concerted effort to overstate the dangers of drugs – the primary actors being politicians, law enforcement agencies, and an ill-informed media – and led to a situation where billions of people are unable to access essential medicines for pain relief and palliative care.

The current policy discourages people who use drugs from accessing health services through fear of arrest, and there have been countless violations of the human rights of people in the name of the war on drugs. As a result, the war on drugs is fueling the global HIV epidemic as drug using communities are driven underground and faced with increased risks such as the sharing of needles and syringes that can lead to blood-borne infections.

Mounting evidence shows that there is the need to move towards a new policy approach – one in which progress is measured by public health indicators such as the number of people receiving drug treatment, rather than being measured by seizures and arrests.

New policy initiatives around the world have taken the form of reducing punitive penalties for minor, non-violent drug offenses, and stepping up harm reduction and public health measures to protect people who use drugs (and their communities) from harms such as HIV.

In these debates, decriminalization is often confused with legalization – sometimes by accident, but sometimes on purpose to confuse the discussions. They are not the same thing. Under legalization, the sale, acquisition, use and possession of drugs are legal and regulated by Government. Our current policies regulating alcohol and tobacco are core examples of this approach in practice. Under this regime, the drug trade is taken away from criminal gangs, whose lucrative illegal markets are undercut and reduced.

On the other hand, under the decriminalization model adopted by a number of countries around the world, the use and personal possession of drugs remains prohibited – but is no longer a crime: it is instead punishable by administrative sanctions much like traffic violation offenses are. Sanctions may include fines, community-based service orders, warnings, education classes,   – or  no penalty at all.

The crucial difference is that, under this regime, drugs are still illegal, but violations do not attract criminal sanctions or criminal records which can create significant barriers to obtaining employment, housing, government benefits, treatment, etc. At the same time, the supply, production and trafficking of these drugs remains illegal and criminal – and greater law enforcement resources can be focused on these ‘big fish’ instead of the ‘small fry’.

Decriminalization is not a new concept. Some countries never actually criminalized drug use in the first place, and the much-documented experiences of Portugal date back to 2001, when the Government made the decision to decriminalize all drugs for personal use, and reinvest the criminal justice savings into health and treatment services.

This debate globally has often generated more heat than light. You often hear questions like "So, are you saying that we should legalize drugs? Should we create a free-for-all for drug users and drug dealers in our communities?” But we just need to look at how this has worked out for Portugal: they have been able to: increase their spending on prevention and treatment; decreased spending for criminal prosecutions and incarceration; dramatically reduce levels of drug-related deaths; and reduce drug use itself among certain age groups. Drug use remains an issue in Portugal, but they have tackled the confounding challenges of stigmatization, marginalization and high incarceration of a substantial proportion of their population just for minor drug offenses.

The rationale behind decriminalization is to reduce the harms associated with criminalizing people who use drugs, because there are several risks associated with drug use – not least HIV and other infections, and the thousands of drug-related deaths every year.

Although the international drug control Conventions restrict the use of controlled drugs to medical and scientific purposes, they should not be interpreted as a validation for the repressive war on drugs. The criminalisation of the possession of illicit drugs for personal use was introduced by the 1988 UN Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychoactive Substances – with Article 3(2) stating:

‘...each Party shall adopt such measures as may be necessary to establish as a criminal offense under its domestic law when committed intentionally, the possession, purchase or cultivation of narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances for personal consumption”.

As has been noted by Release and others, the commentary for this Convention says plainly that this paragraph “amounts in fact also to a penalization of personal use”. However, Article 3(2) begins with the statement that any measures adopted shall be "subject to its constitutional principles and the basic concepts of its legal systems." Furthermore, Article 36 of the 1961 Convention states that countries “may provide, either as an alternative to conviction or punishment or in addition to conviction or punishment, that such abusers shall undergo measures of treatment, education, aftercare, rehabilitation and social reintegration”.

This therefore allows countries to adopt less punitive approaches to drug possession and use – including decriminalisation – without breaching their international responsibilities, as has been formally acknowledged by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Prohibition is built upon a premise that repression will act as a deterrence to drug use and supply. Yet no links exist between levels of criminalisation and levels of drug use – as was recently noted by the UK Home Office in their ‘Drugs: International Comparators’ report. In Ghana, prohibition has not seen a decline in drug use in the country since the coming into force of the Provisional National 

Defence Council Law 236 in 1990. The use of drugs such as marijuana and cocaine is on the ascendency, with thousands of people, particularly the youth, using drugs.

The current bill in Ghana focuses more on punishment than on providing a legal framework to support people who use drugs as an alternative means of curbing our drug problems. There are very few effective drug treatments available to people who suffer as a result of drug addiction. The current review process of our drug laws (for the first time since 1990) is an excellent opportunity for Ghana to make an assessment of what has worked and what has not worked over the years, and to adopt an effective drug law grounded on the health and well-being of its citizens.

Ghana needs to take a cue from other progressive countries and consider the decriminalization of drugs, as well as other alternatives to incarceration.