Plusieurs réseaux d’ONG ont planifié les activités liées à l’UNGASS depuis que celle-ci a été établie en 2013. Ces ONG se sont rassemblées à New York en Janvier pour discuter stratégie et futurs plans. Pour en savoir plus, en anglais, veuillez lire les informations ci-dessous.

Abonnez-vous à l'Alerte mensuelle de l'IDPC pour recevoir des informations relatives à la politique des drogues.

UN forums in recent years have witnessed more and more governments expressing their frustrations with the failing global war on drugs.

This failure goes way beyond just the goals of drug control systems to reduce illicit drug production and use. The key driver of calls for change has been the catastrophic negative impacts of the war on drugs on public health, human rights, development and security. The combination of problems related to the violent illegal trade (which are fuelled by prohibition), militarised enforcement, and mass criminalisation and over incarceration have pushed the debate past a tipping point – governments and civil society groups alike have had enough, and are finally taking decisive action.

The intensity of drug market-related violence and insecurity in Latin America has been a critical factor. It has reached such a crisis point that in 2012 a group of heads of state – from Colombia, Mexico and Guatemala – called for the UN General Assembly to convene a Special Session which resulted in UNGASS 2016.

Special Sessions of the General Assembly are called to review and debate a specific issue – in this case the “world drugs problem”. The last UNGASS on drugs took place in 1998, and whilst it was also instigated by Mexico with a more forward-looking mandate, it was effectively derailed by more conservative drug-war advocates and culminated in a pointless restatement of existing structures and a commitment to create a “drug-free world” by 2008.

Various NGO networks – notably the International Drug Policy Consortium and a coalition of harm reduction groups coordinated by Harm Reduction International – have been planning UNGASS-related activities since it was agreed in 2013. Lining up with these efforts are the Global Commission on Drug Policy’s 2014 reform manifesto (which targets UNGASS) and a range of other projects being instigated by NGOs, affected populations and activist groups. These include Support Don’t Punish, the Count the Costs initiative,the Caravan for Peace and Justice with Dignity, and INPUD’s Drug War Peace initiative. At a meeting earlier this month in New York, 30 representatives of these NGOs and networks met to coordinate activities and strategise on how to maximise impacts of the emerging coalition. Everyone invited – including a range of representatives from Europe, Africa, Asia, and North and South America – chose to attend a self-funded meeting, reflecting the obvious appetite for meaningful engagement with this UNGASS, and the need for strategic coordination.

Whilst there was evidently a range of agendas, interests and priorities amongst the many groups represented, there was also a clear reform platform that emerged, as well as a common desire to ensure that, first and foremost, the various options for reform remain on the agenda of both the UNGASS itself, and the media and political debate around it.

The strategy meeting ran for two and a half days, and included guest speakers who had worked on previous UNGASS events (both drug-related and non-drug-related), as well as UN ambassadors of member states, who shared their political insights. There were a range of concrete outcomes and collaborative work streams established that will be followed up in the coming weeks and months, so check in with the NGOs linked above for updates.

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

En chemin vers la Session Extraordinaire de le l’Assemblée Générale de l’ONU sur les drogues de 2016

L’usage de la peine de mort en Indonésie est contre-productif et constitue une violation du droit international relatif aux droits humains. Pour en savoir plus, en anglais, veuillez lire les informations ci-dessous.

Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo was elected in July 2014. Hailed as a man of the people, his campaign was built on a platform of human rights. But on January 18, Jokowi placed himself in a category of his own: he became the first president of Indonesia to execute six people in one night since the country’s democratic reformation in 1998

The people sentenced to death were people convicted of drug trafficking. Five of the six were foreigners, which prompted a swift and emphatic international outcry. Three of the countries whose citizens were among the executed recalled their ambassadors from Indonesia, and several advocacy groups condemned the executions in no uncertain terms.

The uproar is well founded—using the death penalty to solve a country’s drug problems is not a solution at all. The Community Legal Aid Institution in Jakarta,Lembaga Bantuam Hukum Masyarakat (LBHM), worked tirelessly to stop Sunday’s executions.

Les exécutions en masse de personnes condamnées pour délit de drogues n’aideront pas l’Indonésie

Plusieurs rapports montrent que les débats concernant la manière dont le marché des drogues doit être combattu sont en train de prendre une allure pragmatique. Pour en savoir plus, en anglais, veuillez lire les informations ci-dessous.

There are few subjects more emotive than the so-called “war on drugs” and drug legalisation. They are very hard to think about clearly and very easy to get angry about. Nuance tends to get drowned out in the roar of strong opinion, whether from the families of addicts, fundamentalist libertarians or — in a recent commercial addition to the debate — the public relations officers of the US’s foundling legal cannabis industry.

How police policy should respond is the subject of the multiple papers and three rounds of seminars on “Modernising Drug Law Enforcement” published by the IDPC, a consortium of well-respected drug policy NGOs, with the support of two British think-tanks, Chatham House and the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Its contributors and main audience are senior police officers and government officials. Yes, drug reform has gone mainstream. Even the US has officially dropped the phrase “drugs war” (although not much of Asia has: this month, Indonesia executed six small time drug-traffickers, including a Canadian and a Brazilian).

The US spends over $40bn a year on arresting and imprisoning users, making drug prohibition a surprising example of a big government programme.

The starting point is to decide: what should be the aim of drugs policy? The consensus is that we should seek to reduce harm. That means a change of focus from, say, increasing drug seizures or incarcerations to pushing levels of violence down. This approach can lead to obvious conclusions, such as the merit of heroin-replacement therapies. In the UK, as much as 50 per cent of acquisitive crime is committed to feed a drug habit, usually heroin. Stabilise the lives of these most chaotic drug users, therefore, and not only do crime levels fall, it also becomes possible to think about weaning the addict off drugs. But prioritising harm-reduction also leads to more surprising recommendations. Online drug marketplaces such as the Silk Road, for example, may be preferable to tolerating drug dealing in public places, as these tend to concentrate violence.

Paradoxically, drug legalisation also requires better, not less, enforcement. Of particular importance is collecting tax revenues from drug sales, a difficult task as the contraband trade in regulated drugs such as tobacco and alcohol shows. Furthermore, the idea that legalising all drugs would suddenly rid the world of narco-criminals does not wash. Mexican organised crime, for example, runs diversified lines of business almost as profitable as drug trafficking, from kidnapping and extortion to iron ore smuggling to China and oil theft (alone worth $1bn a year). Solving such problems has less to do with illicit drug markets than building the rule of law.

La guerre contre la drogue qui n’en finit pas

L'infographique ci-dessous montre, qu'en Asie, les sanctions infligées aux consommateurs de drogues sont légion. Emprisonnement, châtiments corporels, violation de la sphère privée, etc., ces peines constituent aux yeux de l'IDPC des barrières légales et politiques à l'accès de ces personnes à la prévention, aux traitements et aux soins ainsi qu'à tout autre type de soutien dans la lutte contre le HIV. En effet, alors qu'en 2011 les pays asiatiques avaient déclaré vouloir réduire la transmission du sida parmi les usagers de drogues injectables d’ici 2015, les stratégies punitives mises en œuvre ne leur permettront certainement pas d’atteindre cet objectif.

Actualités

En chemin vers la Session Extraordinaire de le l’Assemblée Générale de l’ONU sur les drogues de 2016

Les exécutions en masse de personnes condamnées pour délit de drogues n’aideront pas l’Indonésie

La guerre contre la drogue qui n’en finit pas

A travers l'Asie, les usagers de drogues sont criminalisées et victimes de sanctions sévères