The UN General Assembly on Tuesday gathered to rethink global strategy in the war on narcotics for the first time in two decades as activists, UN officials and world leaders cited an international trend toward more liberal drug laws.
Despite broad agreement on the need to deal with the global drug problem, there are deep divisions among the 193 UN member states, with some favoring a shift toward decriminalization and a greater focus on reducing harm they say is caused by narcotics abuse and the war on drugs.
A number of Latin American leaders say the war on drugs has failed, having killed or destroyed the lives of thousands worldwide.
They say there is an irreversible trend toward legalizing “soft drugs” such as marijuana.
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto told the gathering that his country would soon increase the amount of marijuana that Mexicans are allowed for personal use and legalize marijuana for medical purposes.
“We should be flexible to change that which has not yielded results, the paradigm based essentially in prohibitionism, the so-called war on drugs ... [which] has not been able to limit production, trafficking nor the global consumption of drugs,” he said.
However, some major powers remain wary of the trend toward legalization and frown upon moves by US states to regulate access to marijuana, delegates said.
“One of the most important changes that the current drug policy needs is that we give priority to demand reduction rather than focusing solely on supply reduction,” Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales said.
No major decisions are expected this week, but European and Latin American delegations and activists hope this week’s special UN session taking stock of what many describe as the failed war on drugs can contribute to pushing the world a few steps closer to a more liberal drug strategy.
“Evidence shows that prohibitionist approaches have not worked: From 1998 to 2008 the number of people using illicit drugs did not change significantly and neither did the area used for opium poppy cultivation,” UN Assistant Secretary-General Magdy Martinez-Soliman wrote in the Guardian newspaper.
“Conventional policies have failed in reducing addiction and production,” Martinez-Soliman said.
The General Assembly adopted a declaration on Tuesday that activists supporting more liberal drug laws found disappointing.
They said it focused on the traditional approach of cutting off supply, not reducing the harm caused by narcotics and protecting human rights.
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, also writing in the Guardian, said: “The time has come for the world to transit into a different approach in its drug policy.”
“This is not a call for legalization of drugs,” said Santos, one of the most vocal critics of the criminalization of drug use and the heavy-handed tactics of the war on drugs. “It is a call for recognition that between total war and legalization there exists a broad range of options worth exploring.”
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