En dépit de l'investissement déjà important de ressources publiques pour permettre à la police de mener des raids, des arrestations et des saisies pour lutter contre la drogue, un marché criminel violent continue de croître aux Philippines. Pour en savoir plus, en anglais, veuillez lire les informations ci-dessous.

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Last week, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, a candidate in the upcoming presidential election, pledged to declare drug-related problems as a national security threat and to allocate two divisions of the Philippine Army and 3,000 policemen to fight it. It is highly questionable whether this is an effective response. Despite already significant investment of state resources in law enforcement for police to conduct raids, arrests and seizures to tackle drugs, a violent criminal market continues to grow in the Philippines.

It seems that harsh penalties are not a deterrent, as despite having some of the harshest penalties for drug offenses in Asia, more and more people are arrested for drug use and possession every year in the Philippines. These tough sanctions are also unjustly disproportionate. Possession of drugs alone can lead to a sentence of life imprisonment, while the maximum sentence for homicide is 17 years imprisonment. These measures have led to the highest prison overcrowding rates (over 700 percent in some regions) in Southeast Asia. Over half of those in prison are held for drug-related crimes, mostly low-level offenses. It is often those who are already poor and vulnerable that suffer most from these punitive policies. For example, while women are a minority in the prison population, one out of every two women is incarcerated because of a drug-related crime.

The unbalanced investment in heavily punitive measures has diverted attention and resources away from ensuring access to evidence-based drug treatment and harm reduction services, such as the provision of needle and syringe programs to prevent the spread of HIV among people who inject drugs. This lack of investment in health services means that those who are looking for help with problems relating to their drug use cannot get it. The Philippines now has a health crisis on its hands, with the world’s second highest rate of HIV prevalence among people who inject drugs.

In other parts of the world, governments are turning away from the use of harsh punishment to manage drug-related problems. After a century of prohibitionist drug policies, with vast resources poured into law and military enforcement and increasingly severe punishments imposed for drug use and supply, the world is very far from achieving the “drug-free world” envisaged by the last UN General Assembly Special Session (Ungass) on the world drug problem in 1998. The reality is that even in countries that have meted out the most excessive brutality in an attempt to eliminate drugs—from Thailand’s 2003 “war on drugs” (which resulted in 2,800 people dead from extrajudicial killings in the first three months) to Mexico’s militarization of its drug war in 2006 (which provoked outbreaks of violence with drug cartels leading to over 164,000 homicide victims between 2007 and 2014)—no claim of success in even suppressing drug markets, least of all eliminating them, can be made. Year after year, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime reports expanding and diversifying drug markets, especially for methamphetamine in Southeast and East Asia.

It is the devastating consequences of prohibitionist and punitive drug policies that motivated the heads of state of Mexico, Guatemala and Colombia to call for the first Ungass on the world drug problem in almost two decades, which started in New York April 19 and will end today. The Ungass was envisaged as a critical juncture to evaluate the effectiveness of existing drug policies and to debate alternative strategies that could achieve better outcomes for the health and welfare of humankind—the objective of the international drug treaties. In the lead-up to the Ungass, many governments including the United States, Uruguay and Colombia, called for a shift in drug policies from a focus on law enforcement toward public health. Notably last year, Thailand’s minister of justice, Gen. Paiboon Khumchaya, publicly acknowledged the goal of eradicating drugs as counterproductive, leading only to systemic police corruption, and prisons overcrowded with low-level drug offenders from impoverished backgrounds.

With the Ungass, the Philippines was similarly presented with an opportunity to revisit and revise its drug policy and move away from punitive drug laws that are ineffective in addressing drug problems and are detrimental to public health. It should review its laws criminalizing people who use drugs and disproportionately punishing low-level offenders, and create new policies that allow evidence-based harm reduction services such as needle-and-syringe exchange programs.

In this context, it is disconcerting that Duterte is proposing to divert resources toward militarizing the drug enforcement response. Such action risks escalating violence, at great cost to human life and the security of communities, with virtually no chance of success in even suppressing drug markets. This is the lesson learned by governments around the world that have attempted to fight drug problems with violence and punishment. Many of them are now calling for drug policies based on health and human rights. For the Philippines to go against this trend is to perpetuate the devastating consequences of unjust and ineffective drug policies, and the waste of already scarce resources, without improving outcomes for the health and security of communities.

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Les solutions sévères au problème de la drogue sont un échec cinglant

Le document final de l’UNGASS ne semble pas suggérer que les pays seront mieux capables de réduire les problèmes sanitaires, sociaux et économiques associés aux marchés illicites de drogues. Pour en savoir plus, en anglais, veuillez lire les informations ci-dessous.

I have just watched the closing plenary session of the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session on the world drug problem here in New York. Presidents and Prime Ministers will now move on to the climate change summit that opens tomorrow, and the thousands of government and NGO delegates who have filled the UN building in Manhattan over the last 3 days will catch their flights back to all corners of the globe. So was it worth it – three years of preparation, tens of millions of dollars of travel and meeting costs, and countless hours of debate and negotiation. Is the international community any better placed to reduce the health, social and economic problems associated with illicit drug markets?

Judging by the consensus declaration agreed here by all member states, the answer has to be no. It is 14 pages of dense text that, despite some welcome statements on some issues, is broadly a recommitment to current policies, and fails to engage with the serious questions facing a drug control regime that is no longer fit for purpose.

There have however been some signs that the presumption in favour of repression and law enforcement approaches to drug markets and drug use is breaking down. A strong opening speech by Margaret Chan (Director General of the World Health Organisation) set the tone for many, by making a clear call for prioritising resources and attention to protecting the health of drug users, rather than criminalising them. Many countries took up this theme, some specifically calling for decriminalisation of drug consumption, and others condemning the application by repressive regimes of the death penalty for drug offences. In a sign of the growing rift between reforming and hardline countries, Indonesia responded with a statement on behalf of a group of around a dozen death penalty states, arguing that the use of the death penalty was effective, and it is the sovereign right of governments to decide whether to use it.

he UN headquarters – it could just as well be describing their approach to drug policy (Source: Henry Fisher)

A small number of progressive member states went further in their calls for an entirely new approach. Leaders from Colombia, Bolivia, Uruguay, Mexico, Jamaica, the Czech Republic, New Zealand and Canada, for example, all made it clear that they favoured urgent and significant reforms – including the introduction of regulated markets – and some of them will continue to pursue these reforms, despite the lack of agreement at UN level.

The UNGASS was called by the Presidents of three Latin American countries – Mexico, Colombia and Guatemala – who were increasingly concerned that the war against drug production and trafficking in their region was making the problems of organised crime and violence worse, and that a serious review of the dominant policies of the last 50 years was therefore needed.

Meanwhile, the real world of drug markets and consumption was not waiting for any UN agreements. Rates of drug production, supply and consumption are continuing to increase (no sign of that drug free world that the previous UNGASS hoped for in 1998); the introduction of new drugs – and new methods of production and supply – is far outstripping the ability of governments to respond; and many governments and local administrations are pursuing policies that call into question the principles behind the drug control regime, or (in the case of regulation of recreational cannabis markets) are actually in breach of the UN drug treaties.

In the light of these realities, the most remarkable thing about the UNGASS, and specifically the outcome declaration, is what has been left out.

There is no discussion on the hottest topic of drug policy debate around the world – whether legalised and regulated markets can effectively undermine the harms of an illegal market, without creating greater new problems. These are crucial policy questions that need to be carefully reviewed, particularly as 6 jurisdictions are already implementing legal markets for cannabis, and several others are planning to. These policies are in clear breach of the UN drug control treaties. But no country wants to talk about it.

There is no discussion of the reality that, despite decades of massive political commitment and investment, the illicit drug market is now larger, more diverse, and established in more countries, than ever. Prices to consumers are lower, and profits to organised crime higher, than when the drug control treaties were enacted. Despite all the surreal talk of creating a ‘drug free world’, or a ‘society free of drug abuse’, it is clear that some form of market for psychoactive substances is here to stay – the question is, what sort of a market is least harmful? There are a number of possible answers to that question, but I’m almost certain that none of them is ‘a market controlled by criminals’. But no country wants to talk about it.

There is no discussion of the right to health. One of the human rights obligations that all member states have signed up to is to take all reasonable steps to promote and protect the health of their citizens. The scientific evidence on how to achieve this – in treating drug dependence, in preventing HIV and Hepatitis infections, and in preventing overdose deaths – is clear. But many countries refuse to implement evidence based interventions because they think it undermines a zero tolerance approach to drugs. As a result, they are breaching the right to health of their citizens, and knowingly exposing thousands of their citizens to early and avoidable deaths. But no country wants to talk about it.

There is no discussion of the fact that all the relevant UN agencies – those that deal with health, development, human rights, gender and families – all made clear calls to member states to use the UNGASS to signal a clear turning point in global drug policy – ending the repressive war on drugs approach, and integrating drug policies into the wider objectives of the international community. All UN bodies joined in a call to member states to decriminalise drug consumption – while the drugs and crime agency failed to join this call, it did also provide member states with much progressive advice on how to reform their domestic policies. But very little of this advice found its way into the UNGASS declaration, and no country wants to talk about it.

This avoidance of difficult topics arises from the increasing polarisation of countries’ views on how to deal with drug markets and drug use. There are some powerful countries that are determined to preserve the war on drugs – Russia, China, Pakistan, Indonesia and Egypt form a formidable barrier to change – while others are desperate for change. Significant powers such as the USA and the European Union stayed on the sidelines – the USA because it is in the embarrassing position of having for decades been the cheerleader for the war on drugs, but now one of the first countries to be in breach of the drug control treaties. The European Union because drug policy is not high on their political agenda, and because they themselves find it hard to get any sort of consensus between their 28 member states.

So, the idea that all governments can get together and agree a common way forward through the United Nations seems rather unlikely now. They will meet again in three years time, and a reasonable prediction is that many of these diplomatic dynamics will be the same – this inertia in the face of such urgent situations on the ground is indefensible, and runs the risk of making the UN system irrelevant as countries just get on with the policies that they think are best for their citizens.

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Pourquoi est-il si difficile pour les Nations Unies de parler de la drogue?

Le nombre croissant d'Etats optant pour des alternatives politiques pourrait finalement rendre les traités internationaux de contrôle des drogues obsolètes. Pour en savoir plus, en anglais, veuillez lire les informations ci-dessous.

At the urging of Mexico, Guatemala and Colombia, world leaders met at the United Nations in a special session last week to discuss saner ways to fight the drug trade. They did not get very far toward a shift in approach. Nonetheless, there was a consensus that investing in health care, addiction treatment and alternatives to incarceration would do more to end the drug trade than relying primarily on prohibition and criminalization.

“A war that has been fought for more than 40 years has not been won,” President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia said in an interview. “When you do something for 40 years and it doesn’t work, you need to change it.”

Mr. Santos and the presidents of Mexico and Guatemala argue that the war on drugs, which has been largely directed under terms set by the United States, has had devastating effects on their countries, which are hubs of the cocaine, marijuana and heroin trade. “When two elephants fight, the grass always suffers the most,” President Jimmy Morales of Guatemala said, referring to the drug cartels and American law enforcement agencies.

Thumbnail: Flickr Office of Public Affairs

Repenser la guerre mondiale contre la drogue

Vous êtes invités à envoyer des informations sur les derniers développements depuis le 18 Décembre 2014 relatifs à la question d'un moratorium sur l'usage de la peine de mort. La date limite est le 15 Mai 2016. Pour en savoir plus, en anglais, veuillez lire les informations ci-dessous.

You are invited to submit information covering developments since 18 December 2014 relevant to the question of the moratorium on the use of the death penalty. Send (maximum 1500 words) by 15 May 2016 with subject [SG report - moratorium - death penalty] to: registry@ohchr.org.

OHCHR’s work on the death penalty issue

Moratorium sur la peine de mort: appel à contributions

La réforme tant attendue du sommet des drogues de l'ONU a accouché d'une souris. C'est en substance la synthèse qu'en fait Drugreporter, un site d'information sur les réformes drogues et la réduction des risques. Entre déceptions et enthousiasmes, colère et fierté, l'article enrichi de nombreuses interviews revient sur ce qui a manqué mais aussi ce qui a marché lors de la Session spéciale sur les drogues qui s'est tenue entre le 19 et le 21 avril 2016 à New York.

Lire l'intégralité de l'article (en Anglais).

Actualités

Les solutions sévères au problème de la drogue sont un échec cinglant

Pourquoi est-il si difficile pour les Nations Unies de parler de la drogue?

Repenser la guerre mondiale contre la drogue

Moratorium sur la peine de mort: appel à contributions

ONU 2016 sur les drogues: une réforme avortée