Después de las guerras contra las drogas

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Después de las guerras contra las drogas

1 marzo 2016
LSE Ideas International Drug Policy Project
John Collins

El Grupo de Expertos en Economía de las Políticas de Drogas de la London School of Economics (LSE) sugiere un nuevo conjunto de principios rectores en materia de políticas a escala nacional e internacional basados en los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

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The post-‘war on drugs’ era has begun. Prohibitionist policies must now take a back seat to the new, comprehensive, people-centred set of universal goals and targets that we know as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Nation states and the global drug regulatory system must shift to principles of sustainable development that include: public health, harm reduction of consumption and supply, access to essential medicines, and scientific experimentation with strict legal regulation.

To enable this transformation, nation states should drastically deprioritise the prohibitionist goals of the past. They must implement new comprehensive development policies dealing with the root causes of problems associated with illicit drugs.

The ‘war on drugs’ caused the international community to prioritise prohibitionist policies over sustainable development at a terrible socioeconomic cost. As the United Nations Development Programme highlights in the discussion paper excerpted in this report, ‘evidence indicates that drug control policies often leave an indelible footprint on sustainable human development processes and outcomes… [and] have fuelled the marginalisation of people linked with illicit drug use or markets.’

This report recognises that key reforms within the global regulatory system will come from changes at the national and local levels. It highlights that the UN drug control treaties recommend an approach grounded in the ‘health and welfare’ of mankind. Further, it emphasises that human rights obligations have absolute supremacy over drug control goals and as such there is sufficient interpretive scope within the treaties to experiment with social scientific policies that can further global health and welfare.

The world can shift away from counterproductive and ineffective drug policies. The UN General Assembly Special Session in 2016 is a key platform for driving debate. However, the ultimate impetus lies with countries to reform their policies based on evidence and local realities. This report provides a framework for achieving this shift.

Juan Manuel Santos, President of the Republic of Colombia
Professor Daron Acemoğlu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2005 John Bates Clark Medal
Dr. Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, Pasteur Institute, 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Professor Erik Berglöf, Director, LSE Institute of Global Affairs
Professor Paul Collier, CBE, University of Oxford
Professor Michael Cox, Director, LSE IDEAS
Sir Thomas Hughes-Hallett, Founder, LSE Marshall Institute
Professor Gareth Jones, Director, LSE Latin America Centre
Professor Emeritus Margot Light, London School of Economics
Professor Eric Maskin, Harvard University, 2007 Nobel Prize in Economics
Professor Francisco Panizza, London School of Economics
Professor Danny Quah, Director, LSE Southeast Asia Centre
Professor Dani Rodrik, Harvard University, 2007 Albert O. Hirschman Prize
Professor Thomas Schelling, University of Maryland, 2005 Nobel Prize in Economics
Professor Vernon L. Smith, Chapman University, 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics
Dr. Javier Solana, EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy (1999-2009)
Professor Oliver Williamson, University of California Berkeley, 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics

Please, find here the video of the event.

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