Los extremos de la política de drogas en el Medio Oriente y África del Norte: Drogas, militantes y derechos humanos

Noticias

Los extremos de la política de drogas en el Medio Oriente y África del Norte: Drogas, militantes y derechos humanos

4 abril 2016
Vanda Felbab-Brown

Luego de décadas de conformidad con una política de mano dura basada en la "guerra contra las drogas", hay opiniones cada vez más divergentes en la comunidad internacional sobre cómo lidiar con los costos y daños relacionados a las drogas. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

Suscríbase a las Alertas mensuales del IDPC para recibir información sobre cuestiones relacionadas con políticas sobre drogas.

By Vanda Felbab-Brown, Harold Trinkunas and Sultan Barakat

This April, the U.N. General Assembly will meet for a Special Session on the World Drug Problem. After decades of conformity with a hardline “war on drugs” formerly promoted by the United States, there is increasing dissensus within the international community about how to best address the costs and harms posed by drugs. For years, some European countries have quietly diverged from policies based on aggressive suppression of drug production and the criminalization of users. More recently, some key Latin American states have openly challenged the global counternarcotics regime and called for reforms.

Yet the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) states still cling to hardline drug policies, an approach that is also supported by Russia and many Asian countries.

On March 7 in Doha, we met with police and military officials, NGO representatives, and academics from across the Middle East to discuss the rising drug challenges in the region and the increasingly contested global regime. We found the Middle East and North Africa are grappling with intensifying drug problem—increased use, spread of drug-related communicable diseases, and widening linkages between drug production and smuggling and violent conflict and terrorism. And there is a growing sense that the repressive policies against illicit drugs long-applied in the region have not been effective in counteracting these negative trends.

Click here to read the full article.

Keep up-to-date with drug policy developments by subscribing to the IDPC Monthly Alert.

Thumbnail: Wikipedia