Global Commission on Drug Policy Report - It's Here!

Here it is, the 24-page report from the Global Commission on Drug Policy that calls this whole Drug War a bust. I have not read it yet having lost my internet connection for well over 20 hours. I posted a link to this at the bottom of my other thread announcing this report along with what the commissioners had to say, essentially that the Drug War has failed with devastating consequences.

I hope everyone gets a chance to read this and give their comments on it. Please, no mention of personal substance use or pleas for l****ization or they will likely 404 this thread. Also, watch your comments that might get your post censored and possily points deducted. Thanks.

www.globalcommissionondrugs.org...

Here is more about what is inside -

Background Papers

» DEMAND REDUCTION AND HARM REDUCTION
Dr Alex Wodak AM

» DRUG POLICY, CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND MASS IMPRISONMENT
Bryan Stevenson

» ASSESSING SUPPLY-SIDE POLICY AND PRACTICE: ERADICATION AND ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT
David Mansfiled

» THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNATIONAL DRUG CONTROL: LESSONS LEARNED AND STRATEGIC CHALLENGES FOR THE FUTURE
Martin Jelsma

» DRUG POLICY: LESSONS LEARNED AND OPTIONS FOR THE FUTURE
Mike Trace

» THE DRUG TRADE: THE POLITICIZATION OF CRIMINALS AND THE CRIMINALIZATION OF POLITICIANS
Moisés Naím

The Report itself starts out:

Executive summary
The last three decades have witnessed a global increase in the criminalization of improper drug
use. Criminalization has resulted in increased use of harsh punitive sanctions imposed on drug
offenders and dramatic increases in rates of incarceration. These policies have had limited
impact on eliminating or reducing illegal drug use and may have resulted in adverse
consequences for social and community health. The criminal justice system has proved to be
an ineffective forum for managing or controlling many aspects of the drug trade or the problem
of illegal drug usage. In recent years, some progress has been reported when governing
bodies have managed drug use and addiction as a public health problem which requires
treatment, counseling and medical interventions rather than incarceration.

Primarily as a result of drug policy, the number of people currently incarcerated worldwide is at
an all time high of ten million.

In the United States, the prison population has increased from 300,000 in 1972 to 2.3 million
people today. One in 31 adults in the United States is in jail, prison, on probation or parole.
The American government currently spends over 68 billion dollars a year on incarceration.

It should be interesting reading. Enjoy! -Eron

Their press release is 5 .pdf pages. here is the Executive Summary:

Mods - this is their words and it's not from some pro-pot stoner magazine, these are global-policy makers speaking.

The Commission’s recommendations are summarized in the Executive
Summary below this release. They include:

● End the criminalization, marginalization and stigmatization of people who
use drugs but who do no harm to others.

● Encourage experimentation by governments with models of legal regulation
of drugs (especially cannabis) to undermine the power of organized crime and
safeguard the health and security of their citizens.

● Ensure that a variety of treatment modalities are available – including not
just methadone and buprenorphine treatment but also the heroin-assisted
treatment programs that have proven successful in many European countries
and Canada.

● Apply human rights and harm reduction principles and policies both to
people who use drugs as well as those involved in the lower ends of illegal
drug markets such as farmers, couriers and petty sellers.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The 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.

Vast expenditures on criminalization and repressive measures directed at
producers, traffickers and consumers of illegal drugs have clearly failed to
effectively curtail supply or consumption. Apparent victories in eliminating one
source or trafficking organization are negated almost instantly by the
emergence of other sources and traffickers. Repressive efforts directed at
consumers impede public health measures to reduce HIV/AIDS, overdose
fatalities and other harmful consequences of drug use. Government
expenditures on futile supply reduction strategies and incarceration displace
more cost-effective and evidence-based investments in demand and harm
reduction.

Our principles and recommendations can be summarized as follows:
End the criminalization, marginalization and stigmatization of people who use
drugs but who do no harm to others. Challenge rather than reinforce common
misconceptions about drug markets, drug use and drug dependence.
Encourage experimentation by governments with models of legal regulation of
drugs to undermine the power of organized crime and safeguard the health
and security of their citizens. This recommendation applies especially to
cannabis, but we also encourage other experiments in decriminalization and
legal regulation that can accomplish these objectives and provide models for
others.

Offer health and treatment services to those in need. Ensure that a variety of
treatment modalities are available, including not just methadone and
buprenorphine treatment but also the heroin-assisted treatment programs that
have proven successful in many European countries and Canada. Implement
syringe access and other harm reduction measures that have proven effective
in reducing transmission of HIV and other blood-borne infections as well as
fatal overdoses. Respect the human rights of people who use drugs. Abolish
abusive practices carried out in the name of treatment – such as forced
detention, forced labor, and physical or psychological abuse – that contravene
human rights standards and norms or that remove the right to selfdetermination.

Apply much the same principles and policies stated above to people involved
in the lower ends of illegal drug markets, such as farmers, couriers and petty
sellers. Many are themselves victims of violence and intimidation or are drug
dependent. Arresting and incarcerating tens of millions of these people in
recent decades has filled prisons and destroyed lives and families without
reducing the availability of illicit drugs or the power of criminal organizations.
There appears to be almost no limit to the number of people willing to engage
in such activities to better their lives, provide for their families, or otherwise
escape poverty. Drug control resources are better directed elsewhere.

Invest in activities that can both prevent young people from taking drugs in the
first place and also prevent those who do use drugs from developing more
serious problems. Eschew simplistic ‘just say no’ messages and ‘zero
tolerance’ policies in favor of educational efforts grounded in credible
information and prevention programs that focus on social skills and peer
influences. The most successful prevention efforts may be those targeted at
specific at-risk groups.

Focus repressive actions on violent criminal organizations, but do so in ways
that undermine their power and reach while prioritizing the reduction of
violence and intimidation. Law enforcement efforts should focus not on
reducing drug markets per se but rather on reducing their harms to
individuals, communities and national security.

Begin the transformation of the global drug prohibition regime. Replace drug
policies and strategies driven by ideology and political convenience with
fiscally responsible policies and strategies grounded in science, health,
security and human rights – and adopt appropriate criteria for their evaluation.

Review the scheduling of drugs that has resulted in obvious anomalies like
the flawed categorization of cannabis, coca leaf and MDMA. Ensure that the
international conventions are interpreted and/or revised to accommodate
robust experimentation with harm reduction, decriminalization and legal
regulatory policies.

Break the taboo on debate and reform. The time for action is now.

I can't say I'm entirely in disagreement.

And once again scientific and rational evidence will be ignored in favor of a continuation of current policies that ruin millions of lives a year and empower corporate prisons.

The Obama administration is horribly like the Bush administration, it's sickening. We need actual intellectuals in charge, not morons who prefer the injustice of modern society perpetuated by an even more moronic president (Nixon) and his moralistic dope of a wife.

reply to post by Evanescence


I fear you will be correct, the US won't go down this path without a fight. Other countries' representatives have spoken the same sentiments regarding the US, it is, after all, their Drug War.

I moved to Mexico partly and initially get out of the heat of this fiasco policy but in a couple years Mexico had elections that led near immediatly to US Drug War policies being carried out with a vengeance. No need to elaborate on that as everyone knows problems what that has created here. I fear Mexico is just to close to the US and itself won't see the reforms that will be carried out as in other countries.

The world is now declaring peace but the war will not be over until the last soldier is done fighting. The US is likely to slug this one out till the end, more tenaciously than its other wars. The US economy has become too dependent on the Drug War and its hidden agendas in back-room deals.

I have been looking for updates or news magazines to run with this a bit but I see nothing. Not surprisingly it looks like the US wants to sweep this under the rug. I have had some spotty internet service since about the time of this report with some loss of coverage for 12 and 20 hours a couple times so may have missed something.

Finally a realistic look at drug policy with the only logical recommendations - essentially to end the War and try another more balanced approach. Of course we know the Drug War has never really been about trying to solve the difficulty of substance abuse but a way to make massive profit off an artificially inflated price structure, and in that way it has been successful.

Along with this also are more insidious motives that center around creating instability, creating wealth for certain factions, and political motives to change governments of developing nations to those who can be easily manipulated. Just very unfortunate that in recent years Mexico lost its balls and began to be manipulated as well. They are seeing the error in this and expect to remedy it in the next elections.

It appears this Commission Report is hoped to be swept under the rug and forgotten. I am hoping here we can look at some of the report's recommendations to experiment with drug policy solutions and come up with some of our own. I will make some suggestions along these lines myself and post them here very soon. I believe we all have some good ideas along these lines and I expect ATS will give us the leeway to discuss solutions that are called for by this commission made up of former headds of state. Hell, maybe they are all stoners too.

In the meantime don't let my seeming reticence to produce volumes on this subject be any barrier to posting your own ideas. It may be less a matter of my reticence than it is that blasted black helicopter that kjeeps buzzing by and knocking out my internet service at critical moments. Just kidding about the helicopter, but I am concerned about those white guys in sunglasses parked nearby in the phone company van.

They all know the WOD cant be won. It's about politics. Nothing more; nothing less.

-B