While world leaders convened at UN headquarters in Vienna today, an unprecedented pro-reform coalition led by Colombia called for a new approach to the catastrophic global drugs crisis that now claims half a million lives annually, and drives human rights violations across the world.
World leaders will meet at the UN headquarters in Vienna with conflicting visions on how to confront a global drugs crisis that claims over half a million lives annually and drives serious human rights violations across the world.
New report sheds light on governments’ complacency in perpetuating the ‘war on drugs’ despite devastating consequences for millions, and calls for change.
The Commission on Narcotic Drugs' censorship of a representative from the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention sets a first and dangerous precedent legitimising ongoing frictions between drug control and human rights agendas.
Despite some progress, in most parts of the world, governments remain wedded to draconian policies that continue to have catastrophic impact on communities and have resoundingly failed in their stated purpose of eradicating illicit drug markets.
Although welcoming the removal from Schedule IV, drug policy experts expressed serious concerns that cannabis will remain in Schedule I of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.
The resolution passed by the Human Rights Council on the situation in the Philippines does not fully acknowledge the extent of human rights violations in the Philippines.
The IDPC Principles for the Legal Regulation of Cannabis make clear that the legal regulation of cannabis must include a series of comprehensive interventions to ensure compliance with human rights and social justice goals.
Following the release of the UN World Drug Report, IDPC notes with concern that the UNODC is still unable to acknowledge the failure of decades of drug policies based on prohibition and punishment, and how these approaches fuel systemic human rights abuses such as racism, police violence and state-sponsored killing campaigns.
As a result of stigma and criminalisation people who use drugs face extraordinary barriers to accessing health care, and experience or endure higher rates of poverty, unemployment and homelessness as well as underlying health conditions.
