What to expect from 2026: Defending drug policy reform through dark times

At the start of a new year, it is always worth taking a moment to reflect on the past 12 months. In 2025, the tensions and contradictions at the heart of international drug policy became even harder to ignore. Despite the ever-expanding support for human rights standards and health-centred approaches at the UN level, political momentum in many regions continued to tilt towards repression, punishment, and securitisation. These opposing forces now shape the terrain on which reform efforts must operate.

The closing months of 2025 illustrated how fragile reform gains remain. The deeply disappointing recommendation from the WHO on the critical review of the coca leaf exposed enduring power dynamics and harmful colonial legacies within the drug control system, as scientific evidence and Indigenous rights were essentially ignored. While this setback should not be minimised, it also reinforces a broader truth: the international drug control system is irreparably broken and, crucially, it is resistant to modernisation. The coca review sought to rectify a historical wrong within the confines of the system - we now know this will not be possible any time soon. Governments seeking to reform the regime and bring it in line with modern day realities and human rights obligations will have to start considering options outside of the rigid limits of the UN drug control treaties.

Fortunately, there are several key moments in 2026 to progress these discussions. April marks the tenth anniversary of the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on drugs. The 10-year mark is a timely reminder of both progress and unfinished business. The UNGASS helped shift the global conversation, embedding human rights, public health and development more firmly in international drug policy discourse. Yet implementation has lagged, and the gap between commitments and realities remains wide. IDPC’s soon-to-be-released assessment of the UNGASS legacy underscores this tension, while also pointing to clear pathways for change.

In this context, the independent panel of experts established by CND Resolution 68/6 will be an important reform opportunity. Its mandate to assess the functioning of the international drug control system creates rare space to reflect on, and question, whether the current regime is fit for purpose in a world grappling with overlapping crises. The appointment of the panel should be completed in March, allowing the independent experts to begin their work, consultations and deliberations later this year.

The parallel UN80 reform initiative, focusing on the entire multilateral system more broadly, further makes this review extremely timely. In a time of both diminished UN resources and appetite for multilateral cooperation, the panel must seriously consider how to ensure an efficient global drug control system that truly incorporates health, human rights and development. As global HIV funding faces growing uncertainty, and UNAIDS faces imminent closure, the panel’s work offers an opportunity to rethink how harm reduction, HIV responses and community-led services are structurally embedded and protected within UN drug policy governance, rather than treated as optional or peripheral. This should be one of the key questions that the independent panel must seek to address.

Sadly, the first days of 2026 have seen the intensification of a deeply troubling trend: the securitisation of drug policy. Across regions, drugs and drug markets are increasingly framed through the language of threat and warfare, sidelining approaches rooted in care, harm reduction and social investment. The revival and weaponisation of concepts such as 'narcoterrorism' is emblematic of this shift. The recent US military intervention in Venezuela, publicly justified through anti-drug rhetoric while openly entangled with resource interests, illustrates how drug control narratives are used time and time again to bypass legal safeguards and weaken multilateral norms, even as decades of evidence show that punitive approaches have failed to reduce illegal markets or related harms.

A global revival of securitisation will unfortunately reinforce 'tough on crime/tough on drugs' posturing by governments, which will continue to have devastating consequences for health and human rights. The roll-back of decriminalisation initiatives in North America, justified by the political misrepresentation of these policies’ impacts and outcomes, and their scapegoating for deeper societal issues will not only escalate drug-related harms but further exacerbate exclusion, entrench inequality and normalise state violence.

This trend is not limited to the Americas. In Europe, recent policy signals suggest a drift towards a more security-led drugs agenda, risking the erosion of the region’s historically 'balanced approach' and the marginalisation of harm reduction at a moment when evidence points clearly to its necessity and chronic underfunding.

Yet this trajectory is far from uncontested. In the coming year, civil society and affected communities will continue to point to the failure of punitive, securitised approaches and defend reforms. This will need to happen even as civil society organisations face increasing hostility and severe funding cuts. Over the past year, these constraints have encouraged deeper collaboration and solidarity across movements. Campaigns such as Support. Don’t Punish continue to demonstrate the collective power of rights-based advocacy, even in adverse conditions – and the June 26th Global Day of Action will again be a key moment for our movement.

Importantly, 2026 will also bring openings for progress. Beyond the independent expert panel, the growing engagement of the UN human rights system with drug policy — including a forthcoming report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) focused on women and girls — will provide additional avenues for accountability. The rights of Indigenous Peoples should also continue to gain prominence in UN debates, and the disappointing outcomes of the critical review of the coca leaf will not constitute the end of the efforts to decolonise the UN drug control system. Whether Member States will officially question the WHO recommendation remains to be seen, but civil society will certainly point to the hypocrisy and embedded racism behind the WHO’s conclusions and bring this alongside other urgent areas of incoherence and ineffectiveness to the attention of the independent panel.

While there seem to be few reasons to be optimistic, if we look at developments in some of the places that have traditionally been most draconian in their responses, we may find cause for hope. In Southeast Asia, the first-ever engagement of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights on drug policy in 2025 marked a meaningful step towards acknowledging the human rights impacts of punitive approaches, with potential implications for the region’s next drugs workplan. Rodrigo Duterte, charged with thousands of extrajudicial killings in a bloody 'drug war', now sits in the Hague awaiting his trial at the International Criminal Court. In addition, there are signs of cautious but real change emerging at the country level. Accountability processes are advancing, pilots of legal regulation and decriminalisation are underway, and health- and rights-based responses are gaining ground. These developments may be uneven and politically fragile, but they matter: they demonstrate that alternatives to punitive prohibition are not abstract ideals, but practical policy choices.

As IDPC looks ahead to 2026 – which will mark our 20th anniversary – our focus remains clear. We will work with our members and partners to challenge the renewed rhetoric of the “war on drugs”, to defend civic space and human rights, and to ensure that emerging review and reform processes are grounded in evidence, rights and lived experience. The global context is undeniably dark. But the persistence of reform efforts, the growth of cross-movement solidarity, and the opening of new institutional debates remind us that progress is rarely linear — and that sustained, collective advocacy continues to be both necessary and possible. Nothing is inevitable, the future is not written, and we are not powerless.