World Drug Day 2026: Why Our Policy Responses Need a Reality Check

On June 26, 2026, the national observance of the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking brought together high-level stakeholders, including the chief of staff to the Narcotics Control Commission (NACOC), the Ministry of Education, the Interior Minister, chiefs, and religious leaders. The theme, “The World Drug Problem: Persistent Challenges, New Threats, and Innovative Responses", was timely.

However, as we reflect on the speeches and data presented, a stark disconnect emerges between our official rhetoric and the evidence-based realities on the ground. While the Chief of Staff and the UN Secretary-General spoke of a balanced approach, the policy directives from the Ministry of Education and the enforcement focus of NACOC suggest we are still doubling down on an outdated, punitive playbook. The Awareness Paradox: Why "Don't Start It, to leave in regret" Isn't Enough

The most illuminating moment of the day came during the research presentation by the UPSA and NACOC. The findings were clear: 95% of young people in the sampled districts are already aware of the harmful effects of drugs.

If 95% of our youth already know the risks, why are we still investing in slogans like "DON’T START IT, TO LEAVE IN REGRET" as our primary intervention?

The data confirmed that awareness is not the problem; the problem is behavioural change, access to support, and the crushing weight of peer pressure. We are treating a knowledge gap that does not exist while neglecting the behavioural health crisis that does. The Failure of Zero Tolerance

The most alarming development was the Minister of Education's call for zero tolerance in schools, with dismissal as a primary disciplinary measure.

From a harm reduction perspective, this is a regressive step. Expelling a student found with substances does not remove their dependency; it removes them from the only structured support system, the school, that can effectively intervene. It pushes vulnerable youth further into the margins, increasing their exposure to criminal networks and destroying their future prospects.

Ghana’s Narcotics Control Commission Act, 2020 (Act 1019), was designed to move us toward a public health model. Dismissing students is counter to this progress. A Way Forward: Evidence-Based Solutions

We must pivot from a model of enforcement and exclusion to one of identification and support. Here is my proposal for the way forward:

For the Ministry of Education (MoE) & GES:

1. The ministry should replace expulsion with referral protocols. Instead of disciplinary committees, schools must establish referral and support protocols. When a student is identified as struggling with substance use, the trigger should be a mandatory assessment by a trained school counsellor or addiction health professional, not an exit interview.

2. We need to integrate peer-refusal training. We have the data to show that 43% of substance initiation is driven by peer influence. Our assembly time should be used for life skills training, teaching students how to resist peer pressure rather than just repeating slogans.

3. We need to create support hubs. Every district must have a designated mental health support hub accessible to students, ensuring that those in need can access clinical care without being severed from their education, and we also need to ensure that these environments are stigma-free.

For the Narcotics Control Commission (NACOC):

1. NACOC needs data-driven hotspot interventions. The study confirms that substance use is highly concentrated (e.g., Madina at 73.5%). NACOC’s resources should be disproportionately allocated to these hotspots, not just for enforcement but for community-led outreach and the establishment of local drop-in centres (DICs).

2. They need to invest in rehabilitation, not just scanners. While modern detection technology is vital for traffickers, it does nothing for the 85% of individuals who relapse. We need to shift a significant percentage of the budget from security-only tech to subsidising rehabilitation beds in our public health system.

3. They also need to foster community integration. Use traditional leaders and religious institutions, as discussed during the event, not just to preach against drugs but also to serve as mechanisms for the reintegration of individuals in recovery.

The reality is that we cannot continue to treat a health crisis with criminal justice tools. As James Ebo White so eloquently reminded us, we are in a position where we must choose whether to "build for" our communities or "come for" our addicts.

The bill for our current policies in lost potential, broken families, and strained social systems is coming due. It is time for our policymakers to stop looking at the drug problem through a lens of moral failure and start viewing it through a lens of human development.

Let us honour the potential of our youth not with speeches, but with systems of support that actually work.

YOUTH PROMISE TO ADVOCATE FOR HUMANE DRUG POLICY IN GHANA

Until recently, the West Africa region has been perceived as only a transit zone of drugs from Latin America to European Countries Markets. This general perception started changing since June 2014 with the release of WACD flagship reports titled ‘’Not just in transit, drugs, the States and Society in West Africa’’.

Early 2013, Kofi Annan (Former UN General Secretary) conveyed the West Africa Commission on Drugs (WACD) chaired by the former President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo. The Commission comprised of commissioners from diverse background in West Africa such as politics, civil society, health, security and the judiciary.

After 18 months of research, looking at the evidence, consulting experts from the region and visiting some of the most affected countries and communities in the region, WACD in June 2014, released its flagship report, including a series of evidence-based recommendations for drug policies across the region.

The report shed lights on the impact of drug market in West Africa. According to the report, drug trafficking is a new threat to the development of West Africa. West Africa region is not only a transit zone of drugs from Latin America to Europe but also local production and consumption are on the rise which continues to be a major issue. Organised crime syndicates exist at all levels of society in West Africa and pose a threat to good governance, peace and stability, economic growth and public health in West Africa, a region that has only recently emerged from decades of violent conflict.

A pervasive situation that is corroborated with statics from the United Nations (UN) and the United Nations Organisation on Drug and Crime (UNODC). According to the UNODC, the yearly reports on the world drug problem, the prevalence rate of cannabis uses in West and Central Africa combined (12.4%) is higher than Africa and the global average, 7.5% and 3.9% respectively.

In the above statistics, the youth mostly formed the majority of the affected population. Per the Narcotics Control Board Statistics, the youth in Ghana make up the majority of the drug user community particularly youth in the Junior/ Senior High Schools and tertiary institutions.

It is in light of this worrying situations and also, recognizing the specific needs of young people, and that they are more vulnerable to drug-related harms, the Ghana chapter of the West Africa Drug Policy Network (WADPN) set to increase the level of youth awareness and engagement on drug policy debates and calls for decriminalization and support for harm reduction measures in the region.

The initiative by WADPN-Ghana is also to strengthen youth advocacy in the area of Human Rights and Drug Policy Reform.

In view of these challenges, the West Africa Drug Policy Network, Ghana Chapter (WADPN-Gh) with support from Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) and in collaboration with civil society activist in the country recognized the need to bring together youth, particularly, students, and other stakeholders who are the most vulnerable to the dangers of drugs and the need for drug policy reform to trigger drug and policy reform debates and processes. The forum focused on various approaches to effectively respond to the drug challenges with possible commitments to educating them on the need to contribute to playing advocacy role, building their capacity on understanding Ghana’s  drug policy and how to engage with their institutions to develop effective campus based strategies and not the usual 'Just say No" to drugs and also  engaging policy makers and lobbying for drug policy reforms and finally sensitizing the public and communities about the impacts of drugs on democracy, governance and the society.

Present at the forum was the African consultant for the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) who sensitized the groups about the current state of global drug policy as well as Ghana; and called on them to engender interest in advocacy and research among them. She further explained that, the youth forum was part of an advocacy within the region for evidence -based drug policy that is grounded on public health and human rights and to promote the active participation of young people in drug policy development by building the capacity of youth organizations to advocate for the rights of vulnerable people who use drugs.

Mrs. Loglo further called on the youth to join the advocacy platform for Humane Drug Policy for people suffering from problematic drug use and the need to engage in smart drug prevention programmes.

At the end of the program, the participants committed to a series of actions within their own communities including raising awareness of the rights of people who use drugs, involving community leaders, organizing social and health campaigns on drug use and facilitating activities in schools with teachers and students.

Leaders from the various youth groups pledged to called on the relevant authorities to promote the rights and inclusion of people who use drugs including establishing links between prisons, health services and civil society to ensure follow ups and continuation of services for people who use drugs after release from prison.

The day also saw the inauguration and birth of Youth Rise for Drug Policy Reform Ghana, a youth movement whose aim is to mobilize young people concerned with the impact of drugs and drug policies on individuals, families and communities in Ghana.  

Drug Policy in Africa-Towards a Human Rights -based Approach

The predominant drug control approach used around the world has been rooted in punitive criminal justice responses, at the expense of human rights and public health – with more resources being spent on police, judges, prosecutors and prisons now than ever before. Today, more people than ever are being imprisoned for producing, trafficking, selling or using drugs, and yet the problems remain unsolved: in the world today, there are more producers and consumers of drugs than ever before. The UNODC has openly identified a number of ‘unintended negative consequences’ of the so-called ‘war on drugs’, including severe human rights violations directly related to the criminalisation and stigmatisation of people who use drugs and vulnerable people involved in illicit drug production and trafficking.

This situation has led Paul Hunt (the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health between 2002 and 2008) to conclude that the UN human rights system and the global drug control regime behaved ‘as though they exist in parallel universes’. Global drug control is based on three international conventions from 1961, 1971 and 1988, which all open with a commitment to promote the ‘health and welfare of mankind’. Yet the 1961 and 1971 Conventions make no reference to human rights, and the term only appears once in the 1988 Convention in the context of crop eradication. As for the current UN human rights system, it dates back to the 1945 UN Charter, which is built on three pillars: human rights, peace and security and development. In Articles 55 and 56, the UN and its member states pledge to promote social development and universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all. Three years after the Charter was adopted, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was also approved, outlining 30 universal rights that set ‘a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations’. Several decades later, in 1981, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (also known as the Banjul Charter) was agreed and has since been ratified by every African country except South Sudan. The Banjul Charter outlines more than 20 rights.

Current drug policies in Africa continue to be very repressive, with the widespread marginalisation and treatment of people who use drugs as criminals, morally weak ‘addicts’ and/or social outcasts; while non-violent low-level drug offenders generally make up the largest share of those sent to the criminal justice system. This approach has often exacerbated human rights abuses, such as ill-treatment and extortion by police, mass incarceration and arbitrary detention, in many cases without trial or due process. In recent years, the media in Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone have documented incidents of people who use drugs being killed or injured by police officers during raids.

These issues require urgent redress across Africa. Both ECOWAS and the African Union have developed action plans on drugs which highlight the need to respect, protect and fulfil human rights. This IDPC advocacy note attempts to provide a non-exhaustive overview of how current drug policies violate universal human rights, and what a rights-based approach to drug policy looks like in practice, based on the Banjul Charter. 

You can access the entire advocacy note by following the link below;

http://idpc.net/publications/2017/04/drug-policy-in-africa-towards-a-human-rights-based-approach#.WQDDFi_uSyM.facebook

The New ECOWAS Action Plan on the Drug Problem in West Africa

Experts and ministers on drugs from the 15 ECOWAS countries met in Abuja, Nigeria on 5th September as part of an on-going effort to address the drug problem and organised crime within the region. The meeting sought to appraise and review the implementation of the current ECOWAS “Regional Action Plan on Illicit Drug Trafficking, Organised Crime and Drug Abuse within West Africa”, and to approve its successor.

Governments within the sub-region have always made efforts to address the drug problem through the adoption of various methods and strategies over the years. ECOWAS initially put in place, adopted and endorsed its Political Declaration and Regional Action Plan on drugs for 2008 to 2011, which was then extended until 2015.

Prior to the ministerial meeting, experts on the subject matter – as well as stakeholders from member states, the African Union (AU), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), INTERPOL and the European Union (EU) – deliberated on strategies to address the drug problem in West Africa, and to agree a new Regional Action Plan for 2016-2021.

The new Action Plan has seen some improvements in terms of the strategies to be adopted by Governments of the sub-region in addressing the global drug problem. For example, it specifically targets high and middle-level drug offenders, while offering alternatives to incarceration for people who use drugs – including treatment, rehabilitation and reintegration services where needed.

ECOWAS continues to demonstrate a strong commitment to addressing the drug problem in the region by facilitating the availability of a wide range of evidence-based treatment options, including opioid substitution therapy. The Action Plan also calls for harm reduction services to be made available, which is a great step taken by ECOWAS. It also includes a commitment to review and collate drug policies across the region.

In addition, ECOWAS has set up the West African Epidemiology Network on Drug Use (WENDU) for the collection and collation of epidemiological data at the regional and national levels. The Network is present in all 15 ECOWAS members states and includes a focus on drug treatment demand indicators and aggregate data on drug supply to inform policies.

The key role of civil society in the fight against drugs cannot be downplayed, not least because civil society organisations often offer services for marginalised groups that most governments are unable to provide themselves. The Action Plan recognises this, and clearly calls for strong partnerships with civil society as well as continued work with the West Africa Commission on Drugs.

In as much as ECOWAS is to be commended for these efforts and positive steps taken, there is still the need to address key issues like the need for decriminalisation (which is distinct from legalisation), proportionality in our sentencing, and government support for proven harm reduction services. These need to be strong calls made by ECOWAS, as people continue to be punished, marginalised and tormented through inhumane criminal justice responses, with lives being ruined just for the possession of small amounts of a drug. 

One other issue that has not been given enough attention in the ECOWAS Action Plan is needed to protect the basic human rights of people who use drugs. Everyone has the right to life, to health and to freedom from persecution: it is no different when it comes to people who use drugs. Yet in most West African countries, these people are considered violent and a threat to society, and are denied access to quality healthcare facilities. ECOWAS needs to urgently address the lack of quality health services available for people who use drugs, and work to make them accessible.

Finally, West African governments should also be providing alternative livelihoods for people who engage in cannabis cultivation in the region. Even though the ECOWAS Action Plan seeks to create employment avenues for people who grow cannabis as a source of livelihood, the on-going criminalisation of subsistent farmers needs to be critically reviewed.

By Maria-Goretti Ane,