Pubdate: Mon, 11 Mar 2013
Source: International Herald-Tribune (International)
Copyright: International Herald Tribune 2013
Contact:  http://global.nytimes.com/?iht
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/212
Authors: Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Ruth Dreifuss
Note: FERNANDO HENRIQUE CARDOSO, a former president of Brazil, is
chairman of the Global Commission on Drug Policy. RUTH DREIFUSS, a
former president of Switzerland and minister of home affairs, a
member of the commission.
Page: 8

AN UGLY TRUTH IN THE WAR ON DRUGS

Human rights abuses in the war on drugs are widespread and systematic.
They must be stopped.

This week, representatives from many nations will gather at the annual
meeting of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna
to determine the appropriate course of the international response to
illicit drugs. Delegates will debate multiple resolutions while
ignoring a truth that goes to the core of current drug policy: human
rights abuses in the war on drugs are widespread and systematic.

Consider these numbers: Hundreds of thousands of people locked in
detention centers and subject to violent punishments. Millions
imprisoned. Hundreds hanged, shot or beheaded. Tens of thousands
killed by government forces and non-state actors. Thousands beaten and
abused to extract information, and abused in government or private
"treatment" centers. Millions denied life-saving medicines. These are
alarming figures, but campaigns to address them have been slow and
drug control has received little attention from the mainstream human
rights movement.

This is a perfect storm for people who use drugs, especially those
experiencing dependency, and those involved in the drug trade, whether
growers, couriers or sellers. When people are dehumanized we know from
experience that abuses against them are more likely. We know also that
those abuses are less likely to be addressed because fewer people care.

The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime recently described what it saw as
the fallout of the war on drugs. A system seems to have been created,
the agency said, in which people who use drugs are pushed to the
margins of society. What the agency failed to note, and which is clear
to those of us involved in harm reduction and drug law reform, is that
these people's human rights have also been marginalized and are too
easily ignored.

The U.N.'s International Narcotics Control Board has refused to
condemn torture or "any atrocity" carried out in the name of drug
control, claiming it was not its mandate to do so. This is both
shocking and contradictory: oversight of international drug control
treaties is the control board's very mission.

Late last year, despite the evidence before it, the U.N. Committee
against Torture failed to condemn the widespread abuse of people who
use drugs in the Russian Federation. In Russia, drug users are
routinely cramped into large numbers in one room in woeful conditions,
with inadequate food, often tied to beds for periods of up to 24
hours. Those singled out as troublemakers are injected with
haloperidol, which causes muscular spasms and spinal pain, and often
are tortured and beaten to force confessions. Requests for medical
assistance often results in more beatings.

While tolerating such abuses, the Russian government continues,
inexcusably, to prohibit the prescription of oral methadone treatment
to people who are injecting heroin or other opioids, fueling the
H.I.V. epidemic and risks of overdose.

In a report last week to the Human Rights Council, the U.N. Special
Rapporteur on Torture condemned abuses against drug users in detention
centers across Asia and called for them to be shut down. But far more
attention is needed. Just as we now view the war on terror through a
human rights lens, we need to see drug control as a human rights
concern. We need to acknowledge that not only are human rights abuses
in the war on drugs widespread, but that they are systemic. They are
an inevitable result of what governments do when they set repressive
and unrealistic goals to eliminate supply and demand for widely
available commodities and exhibit zero tolerance for human behavior.

A systemic problem demands systemic change. Recently, a U.N. General
Assembly Special Session on Drugs was announced for 2016. It is a
chance to look again at the drug control system. This time, human
rights must be at the forefront. As we move toward 2016 and this
important review, it is time for the human rights movement to take a
leading role in calling for an end to the war on drugs and the
development of drug policies that advance rather than degrade human
rights.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt