Pubdate: Fri, 25 Mar 2016
Source: Guardian, The (UK)
Copyright: 2016 Guardian News and Media Limited
Contact:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175
Authors: Sarah Boseley and Jessica Glenza

TOUGH DRUG LAWS ONLY LEAD TO VIOLENCE AND DEATH, SAY EXPERTS

Global Report Urges UN to Back Decriminalisation

Commission Backs Move to Legal, Regulated Markets

Medical experts are calling for global drug decriminalisation, 
arguing that current policies are leading to violence, death and the 
spread of disease, harming both health and human rights.

The experts, working as an international commission, set up by the 
Lancet medical journal and Johns Hopkins University in the US, find 
that tough drug laws have caused misery, failed to curb drug use, 
fuelled violent crime, and helped spread HIV and hepatitis C 
epidemics perpetuated by unsafe injecting.

Publishing their report, on the eve of a special session of the UN 
devoted to illegal narcotics, they urge a reversal of the repressive 
policies that have been imposed by most governments.

Chris Beyrer, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 
a doctor and member of the commission, said: "The goal of prohibiting 
all use, possession, production, and trafficking of illicit drugs is 
the basis of many of our national drug laws, but these policies are 
based on ideas about drug use and drug dependence that are not 
scientifically grounded.

"The global 'war on drugs' has harmed public health, human rights and 
development. It's time for us to rethink our approach to global drug 
policies, and put scientific evidence and public health at the heart 
of drug policy discussions."

The commission calls on the UN to back decriminalisation of minor, 
non-violent, drug offences involving use, possession and sale of 
small quantities of substances. They say that military force against 
drug networks should be phased out, and the policing should instead 
be aimed at the most violent armed criminals.

Among other recommendations the experts suggest that prison terms for 
women, often exploited as drug mules and involved in non-violent 
crime, should be minimised. Authorities should broadly ensure easy 
access to clean needles, oral drugs such as methadone to reduce 
injecting, and naloxene, the antidote to overdoses. They advise a 
gradual move towards legal, regulated, drug markets "not politically 
possible in the short term in some places", predicting that more 
countries and US states would move that way. Aerial spraying of drug 
crops with toxic pesticides should stop, they add.

The commission, made up of doctors, scientists and health and human 
rights experts from around the world, is chaired jointly by Adeeba 
Kamarulzaman, a professor at the University of Malaya, and Michel 
Kazatchkine, also a professor and UN special envoy for HIV/Aids in 
east Europe and central Asia.

Their report finds scientific evidence on repressive drug policies 
wanting. The last UN special session on drug use, held in 1998, 
backed a total clampdown, urging governments to eliminate drugs via 
bans on use, possession, production and trafficking. But that has not 
worked, they say, and the casualties have been huge.

The decision of the Calderon government in Mexico in 2006 to use the 
military in civilian areas to fight drug traffickers "ushered in an 
epidemic of violence in many parts of the country that also spilled 
into Central America", the report notes. It adds: "The increase in 
homicides in Mexico since 2006 is virtually unprecedented in a 
country not formally at war."

Prohibitionist drug policies had had serious consequences in the US. 
"The US is ... not the only country with clear racial biases in 
policing, arrests, and sentencing," the report says. "In the US, in 
2014, African American men were more than five times more likely than 
white people to be incarcerated for drug offences in their lifetime, 
although there is no significant difference in rates of drug use 
among these populations. The impact of this bias ... is socially and 
economically devastating."

The commission gives examples of countries which have moved towards 
decriminalisation . "Portugal and the Czech Republic decriminalised 
minor drug offences years ago, with significant financial savings, 
less incarceration, significant public health benefits and no 
significant increase in drug use."

Joanne Csete, of the Mailman School of Public Health, at Columbia 
University, New York, another commission member, said: "The idea of 
reducing harm is central to public policy in so many areas ... but 
when it comes to drugs, standard public health and scientific 
approaches have been rejected ... countries are neglecting their 
legal responsibilities to their citizens. As long as prohibition 
continues parallel criminal markets, violence and repression will continue."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom