Canada on drugs at the UN: Standing up for a long-overdue policy shift

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Canada on drugs at the UN: Standing up for a long-overdue policy shift

18 April 2016
Richard Elliott

By The Hill Times

Canada’s statement read like a checklist of progressive drug policy positions.

The applause persisted until the chair of the session eventually gavelled it to an end. The occasion? Canada’s statement last month at the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in Vienna, where countries were negotiating the text of a declaration to be adopted next week at the UN General Assembly’s Special Session on drugs (UNGASS) in New York.

The last time the General Assembly met on this issue was in 1998, when it absurdly declared it would pursue the goal of a “drug-free world,” largely through yet more drug law enforcement. The reality, of course, is that we cannot end drug use, whether problematic or otherwise, through prosecution and punishment. Indeed, a growing number of states are starting to openly question the orthodoxy of drug prohibition and calling for reform, while some countries are simply moving ahead with sensible, evidence-based reforms to their domestic laws in order to better protect both public health and safety.

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Thumbnail: Flickr Claudio Toledo