UNAIDS explicitly state that “In order to close the programming gap for people who inject drugs”, countries must “Transform punitive laws that criminalize the use of drugs” and “End the criminalization of people who use drugs”.
At the 2014 ECOSOC Session, Dr. Naidoo shared concerns on cannabis regulation movements and the increasing calls for alternatives to the international drug control treaties.
The report recommends changes in international donor priorities to address the crisis, and calls for greater national spending in cost effective harm reduction interventions.
The Deputy Chief of the Russian Drug Control Service has announced that there are around 100, 000 drug-related deaths in Russia each year, with a steeply increasing trend - a shocking figure resulting from Russia's punitive approach towards drug users.
The World Health Organisation called for the decriminalisation of drug use and put forward the “comprehensive” package of interventions that governments should provide.
The event undoubtedly generated attitudes in favor of medical marijuana in the country, but the Brazilian government has once again postponed a vote for the reclassification of cannabis.
In this video, INCB President Dr. Naidoo discusses drug prevention and treatment, access to essential medicines for HIV treatment and pain relief, cannabis policy reform, and the role of the INCB as a partner for implementing the conventions.
We are now seeing a long overdue, and most welcome, reassessment in US federal drug policy, but much remains to be done to move away from a punishment paradigm.
The Global Day of Action was an incredible show of people power, but we need to keep this pressure on and keep pushing for reform. If we do, we can change the public and political rhetoric around drugs.
It was refreshing to hear so many government officials at this COPOLAD meeting discussing the need for evidence-based drug treatment, but also for access to harm reduction services and for the decriminalisation of drug use.
As countries around the world grow weary of a system devised in very different circumstances and that fails to meet the policy needs of the contemporary age, the time for platitudes is surely past.