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The Alternative World Drug Report
Counting the Costs of the War on Drugs
Transform
June 2012The Alternative World Drug Report, launched to coincide with publication of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime’s 2012 World Drug Report, exposes the failure of governments and the UN to assess the extraordinary costs of pursuing a global war on drugs, and calls for UN member states to meaningfully count these costs and explore all the alternatives.
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The War on Drugs and HIV/AIDS
The global war on drugs is driving the HIV pandemic among people who use drugs and their sexual partners. Throughout the world, research has consistently shown that repressive drug law enforcement practices force drug users away from public health services and into hidden environments where HIV risk becomes markedly elevated. Mass incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders also plays a major role in spreading the pandemic. Today, there are an estimated 33 million people worldwide living with HIV – and injection drug use accounts for one-third of new HIV infections outside of sub-Saharan Africa.
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The Prohibition of Illicit Drugs is Killing and Criminalising our Children
... and we are all Letting it Happen
Bob Douglas and David McDonaldReport of a high level Australia21 Roundtable
April 2012It is time to reopen the national debate about drug use, its regulation and control. In June 2011 a prestigious Global Commission stated that the 40-year “War on Drugs” has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. It urged all countries to look at the issue anew. In response to the Global Commission report, Australia21, in January 2012, convened a meeting of 24 former senior Australian politicians and experts on drug policy, to explore the principles and recommendations that were enunciated by the Global Commission.
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Considering New Strategies for Confronting Organized Crime in Mexico
Eric OlsonMexico Institute
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
March 2012Mexico has experienced an unprecedented rise in crime and violence over the past five years with over 47,000 people killed in crime related violence during this period. For some, the increase in violence is a tragic by-product of President Calderón’s full frontal assault on criminal organizations. For others, the government’s actions, while well intended, have only marginally impacted trafficking while exacerbating the violence.
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Drug Policy in the Andes
Seeking Humane and Effective Alternatives
Socorro Ramírez Coletta YoungersInternational Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance - International & The Carter Center
December 2011Fifty years after signing the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and 40 years after the U.S. government declared a "war on drugs," many obstacles remain despite the partial successes of efforts to counter the problem. The Andean-United States Dialogue Forum, noted with concern how drug policy has monopolized the diplomatic and economic agenda between the Andean countries, contributing to tensions among the governments and impeding cooperation on other crucial priorities, such as safeguarding democratic processes from criminal networks.
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Download the Executive Summary (PDF)
The global war on drugs has failed
Fifty years after the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs was launched, the global war on drugs has failed, and has had many unintended and devastating consequences worldwide. It empowers criminal cartels, destroys lives, infringes civil rights, and fails to reduce drug use or availability. It is time to consider alternatives to the current criminalising approach to drug control. The Global Initiative for Drug Policy Reform, launched at the House of Lords on November 17, 2011, released a Public Letter calling for a new approach.
Read the public letter (PDF)
The Global Initiative for Drug Policy Reform is an initiative of the Beckley Foundation.
READ MORE...Drug Control Policy: What the United States Can Learn from Latin America
Coletta YoungersLASA Forum
Spring 2011Since the 1912 signing of the Hague Opium Convention—the agreement that formally established narcotics control within international law—the United States has established itself as the dominant actor in determining drug control policies around the world. A chief architect of the international drug control regime, Washington has done its best to ensure that all subsequent international conventions obligate countries to adapt their domestic legislation to criminalize virtually all acts related to the illicit market in controlled substances, with the important exception of drug consumption. The predominant focus on prohibition and criminalization has been exported to Latin America, where the vast majority of the cocaine and heroin consumed in the United States originates.
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Global Commission on Drug Policy Report
Global Commission on Drug Policy
June 2011The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. Fifty years after the initiation of the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, and 40 years after President Nixon launched the US government’s war on drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed.
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The development of international drug control
Lessons learned and strategic challenges for the future
Martin JelsmaSeries on Legislative Reform of Drug Policies Nr. 10
February 2011The emergence of more pragmatic and less punitive approaches to the drugs issue may represent the beginning of change in the current global drug control regime. The spread of HIV/AIDS among injecting drug users, the overcrowding of prisons, the reluctance in South America to remain a theatre for military anti-drug operations, and the ineffectiveness of repressive anti-drug efforts to reduce the illicit market have all contributed to the global erosion of support for the United States-style war on drugs.
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Toward a Paradigm Shift
Prohibitionist policies based on the eradication of production and on the disruption of drug flows as well as on the criminalization of consumption have not yielded the desired results. We are further than ever from the announced goal of eradicating drugs.
Breaking the taboo, acknowledging the failure of current policies and their consequences is the inescapable prerequisite for the discussion of a new paradigm leading to safer, more efficient and humane drug policies.Drugs and Democracy: Toward a Paradigm Shift
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Statement by the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy
February 2009Page 2 of 3
Drugs in the News
- Magic mushrooms show promise in treatment for depression, study says
14.04.2021 - Overdose deaths have surged during the pandemic, C.D.C. data shows
14.04.2021 - Marijuana becomes legal in a third of US states as New Mexico signs off on drug
13.04.2021 - This cannabis giant has European targets in its sights ahead of U.S. legalization frenzy, CEO says
12.04.2021 - Generations of Albanians lived off cannabis production. Can they stop?
12.04.2021 - Cannabis should be legal but controlled in France, says MP
12.04.2021
Hilites
Balancing Treaty Stability and ChangeInter se modification of the UN drug control conventions to facilitate cannabis regulation
Connecting the dots...Human rights, illicit cultivation and alternative development
Morocco and Cannabis
The Rise and Decline of Cannabis ProhibitionThe History of Cannabis in the UN Drug Control System and Options For Reform
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10-year Review 20 1998 UNGASS 26 2005 CND debate 8 2016 UNGASS 126 2019 HLM 5 activism 22 afghanistan 24 show allTags
10-year Review 20 1998 UNGASS 26 2005 CND debate 8 2016 UNGASS 126 2019 HLM 5 activism 22 afghanistan 24 hideafrica 8 albania 12 alternative development 116 alternatives to policing 2 amnesty 69 appellation of origin 3 argentina 32 asean 9 ATS 15 australia 94 ayahuasca 6 bahamas 4 ballot 2012 155 banking 44 barbados 11 belgium 33 belize 10 bermuda 9 bolivia 115 brazil 93 brownfield doctrine 24 burma 42 california 202 cambodia 12 canada 499 cannabinoids 90 cannabis 2845 cannabis clubs 189 cannabis industry 372 caribbean 145 caricom 33 cbd oil 1 central america 5 chile 21 china 46 civil society 37 CND 127 coca 212 cocaine 62 coffee shop 211 cognitive decline 30 colombia 149 colorado 161 compulsary detention 19 conflict 3 conventions 250 corporate capture 38 corruption 3 costa rica 10 crack 51 craft cannabis 27 crime 70 czech republic 31 dark net 4 death penalty 2 decertification 1 decriminalization 839 deforestation 8 denmark 120 drug checking 36 drug consumption rooms 182 drug courts 22 drug markets 135 drug testing 7 drug trade 48 e-cigarettes 1 e-joint 2 ecstasy 59 ecuador 22 egypt 16 el salvador 2 environment 16 eradication 127 essential medicines 25 estonia 1 eswatini 5 european drug policy 68 expert advisory group 9 extrajudicial killings 92 fair trade 14 fentanyl 76 france 105 fumigation 25 gateway theory 29 georgia 2 germany 151 ghana 17 global commission 46 greece 18 guatemala 31 guatemala initiative 47 harm reduction 330 hemp 39 heroin 128 heroin assisted treatment 77 HIV/AIDS 61 home cultivation 85 honduras 3 human rights 247 illinois 10 incarceration 51 INCB 136 india 88 indonesia 35 informal drug policy dialogues 22 inter se modification 13 iran 14 ireland 15 israel 56 italy 35 jamaica 166 japan 3 kava 3 kazakhstan 5 ketamine 27 khat 36 kratom 27 kyrgyzstan 1 laos 2 latin american debate 115 law enforcement 387 lebanon 42 legal highs 63 legalization 1404 lesotho 6 luxembourg 33 malaysia 7 malta 18 medical cannabis 606 mental health 44 methamphetamine 41 mexico 205 Mid-Term Review 1 mild stimulants 37 money laundering 53 morocco 100 naloxone 13 nepal 6 netherlands 287 new york 25 new zealand 66 NIDA 5 nitrous oxide 6 norway 16 NPS 10 opinion polls 121 opioids 135 opium 90 oregon 29 overdose kits 4 pakistan 9 panama 5 paraguay 4 pardon 2 patents 18 peace 22 peru 42 peyote 3 philippines 86 pleasure 5 police pacification 18 portugal 66 potency 2 precursors 6 prevention 3 prison situation 96 producers 123 prohibition 141 proportionality 110 psychedelics 12 psychosis 53 puerto rico 3 racism 24 reclassification 116 recriminalisation 36 regulation 1206 russia 36 sacramental use 11 safe supply 21 safer crack 28 scheduling 24 scientific research 135 sdg 2 security 14 senegal 1 sentencing 66 singapore 6 social justice 61 south africa 65 spain 76 st lucia 9 st vincent and grenadines 30 substance-use disorder 18 substitution treatment 30 sweden 26 switzerland 134 synthetic cannabinoids 30 taxation 40 teen use 43 thailand 55 thresholds 40 tobacco industry 15 tramadol 17 treatment 22 trinidad & tobago 15 tunisia 13 UK 254 UN drug control 423 UNGASS 58 UNODC 108 uruguay 143 US drug policy 1132 vaping 2 venezuela 5 vietnam 5 violence 131 WHO 60 world drug report 11