Elementa considers that the war on drugs has failed, generating a range of grave human rights violations in the past decades. Historically discriminated groups in Latin America have been particularly affected. Elementa works with other civil society groups and government institutions through academic investigation, juridical studies, advocacy and dialogue to develop a regional drug strategy grounded on human rights.

Elementa, Consultoría en Derechos fundada en 2014, es una firma de consultoría y litigio especializada en derecho internacional y constitucional. Creemos en el uso creativo del derecho como instrumento de cambio social para aportar a la causa de los derechos humanos. Somos un engranaje de personas de distintas nacionalidades, visiones profesionales e intereses, lo que hace de ELEMENTA un proyecto con una visión amplia, regional y con aspiraciones a la multidisciplinariedad. Los derechos humanos son la columna vertebral que define nuestras 4 áreas de acción: Política de Drogas y Derechos Humanos, Justicia y Reparación, Sociedad y Derechos Humanos, Género e Identidades. En Elementa consideramos que la fallida guerra contra las drogas ha generado una diversidad y multiplicidad de graves violaciones a derechos humanos en las últimas décadas, la cual ha tenido un impacto diferenciado en Latinoamérica en contra de grupos históricamente discriminados. La necesidad imperante de una reforma a la política de drogas requiere superar el prohibicionismo y transitar hacía el diseño e implementación de legislación y políticas públicas de producción y consumo de sustancias psicoactivas bajo un enfoque de derechos y salud pública. En Elementa trabajamos como socias de la sociedad civil y las instituciones del Estado, a través de investigación académica, construcción de estudios técnico jurídicos y estrategias de diálogo e incidencia, que contribuyan a consolidar en la región una política de drogas respetuosa de los derechos humanos.

Elementa, Consultoría en Derechos est organisation fondée en 2014 pour offrir des services de consultation et de litigation centrés sur le droit international et constitutionnel. Nous croyons en l'utilisation du droit comme outil de promotion de changement social. L'organisation est composée de personnes de différentes nationalités et d'intérêts professionnels divers, permettant à l'organisation d'avoir une vision large et régionale. Les droits humains sont au centre de nos activités dédiées aux thématiques suivantes: politiques des drogues et droits humains, justice et réparation, société et droits humains et genre et identité. Elementa considère que la guerre contre la drogue a échoué, engendrant tout un tas de graves violations des droits humains ces dernières décennies. Les groupes historiquement discriminés en Amérique Latine ont particulièrement souffert. Elementa travaille avec les acteurs de la société civile et les agences gouvernementales à travers des études académiques et juridiques, le plaidoyer et le dialogue afin de développer une stratégie sur la drogue fondée sur les droits humains en Amérique Latine.

Elementa, Consultoría en Derechos

Tuesday, 27 February 2024 / 14:00 (London) - 

This ninth edition of the IDPC webinar on the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) focuses on its 

 (including the mid-term review of the 2019 Ministerial Declaration), which will take place in Vienna from 14-22 March 2022.

The webinar will shed light the key issues that are likely to structure the debates, discuss tabled resolutions and opportunities for engagement, and showcase the experience of IDPC network members in navigating and leveraging this forum for political advocacy.

This event will be available in English, Spanish and French.

 (International Drug Policy Consortium - IDPC).

CND 67: Key issues and opportunities

To: Ms Ghada Waly, Executive Director, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

Subject: Open letter on UNODC statement on International Human Rights Day 2021

We urge you to mark International Human Rights Day 2021 by calling on Member States to change drug policies and practices that violate human rights and perpetuate inequality and discrimination.

We are writing to you ahead of International Human Rights Day 2021, which will take place on the 10th December amidst escalating global demands for the reform of laws and practices that entrench racial discrimination and social inequality, including drug policies. Last year, IDPC – together with dozens of other civil society and community organisations – called on you to issue a statement on International Human Rights Day urging Member States to change drug laws and practices that undermine health and human rights. A year later, we ask you to seize this day as an opportunity to show UNODC´s alignment with other UN entities in calling for an end to drug policies and practices that perpetuate inequality and discrimination, and violate human rights.

For decades, punitive drug policies have driven widespread human rights abuses, as has been amply documented by the UN. These include the death penalty for drug offences; extrajudicial killings; arbitrary detention, often masquerading as ‘rehabilitation’; the denial of access to life-saving harm reduction services; widespread barriers to accessing controlled medicines for pain relief; the criminalisation of people who use drugs, subsistence farmers and others groups in situations of vulnerability; corporal punishment; and mass incarceration. In all of these cases, draconian drug policies have disproportionately affected people marginalised on the basis of their gender, race, ethnicity, and economic status, thus entrenching inequality and discrimination.

Along 2021, a broad range of UN entities called on Member States to reform drug policies with discriminatory outcomes. In June 2021, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention released a landmark study on arbitrary detention and drug polices, which found that ´

the war on drugs may be understood to a significant extent as a war on people. Its impact is often greatest on those who are poor, but also frequently overlaps with discrimination in law enforcement directed at vulnerable groups

´. At the same time, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights published a new ‘Agenda towards transformative change for racial justice and equality´, highlighting that ´

The discriminatory application of criminal law must be tackled at every stage, including by reforming drug-related policies

´. The High Commissioner´s proposal led to Human Rights Council Resolution 47/21, which contains key commitments to uproot systemic racism in the law enforcement and criminal justice systems. The Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS, adopted in June 2021, also showcased the international community´s commitment to ending inequalities as a step towards ending AIDS. Lastly, the new UN system Common Position on Incarceration, led by UNODC in partnership with other UN entities, notes ‘

the overrepresentation of minority and marginalized groups among prisoners, many of whom are charged with petty and nonviolent offences

support reform efforts aimed at ensuring proportionate and individualized sentencing and alternatives to conviction or punishment in appropriate cases, including for minor drug-related offences

These various commitments emerging across the United Nations are aligned with the 2018 Chief Executives Board’s UN System Common Position on drug-related matters, which makes clear that ‘

should be designed and implemented by States in accordance with their human rights obligations

’, and commits all UN agencies, including UNODC, to support drug policies ‘

that put people, health, and human rights at the centre

Similar human rights concerns have been highlighted in the just-released Global Drug Policy Index, which measures and ranks the national drug policies of 30 countries according to how well they align with the UN system Common Position on Drugs and its Task Team report of March 2019.

The theme of the 2021 International Human Rights Day is ‘Equality: Reducing inequalities, advancing human rights’, and is aimed at ´

addressing and finding solutions for deep-rooted forms of discrimination that have affected the most vulnerable people in societies

´. As such, it presents a crucial opportunity for UNODC to align itself with other UN entities in calling for the end of policies that perpetuate inequality and discrimination, while highlighting its commitment to the promotion of human rights, in line with the UN system Common Positions.

It is in this context that we urge you to issue a strong statement on International Human Rights Day, calling on states to change the drug laws, policies and practices that violate health and human rights, and entrench inequality. To be credible, such a statement should explicitly acknowledge the disproportionate impact of drug laws and drug control on people marginalised on the basis of their gender, race, ethnicity, and economic status, and urge Member States to:

Abolish the death penalty in all circumstances. Imposing capital punishment for drug offences has been found to be contrary to international human rights law by the Human Rights Committee, and the Human Rights Council.

Put an immediate end to extrajudicial killings committed in the name of drug control, as has been repeatedly called for by the Human Rights Council and UN human rights experts.

Permanently close compulsory drug detention centres, including those that masquerade as ‘rehabilitation’, and implement voluntary, evidence-informed, and rights-based health and social services, as recently called for by sixteen UN agencies, including UNODC.

Stress the urgent need to provide accessible, affordable, and adequately funded harm reduction services in community and closed settings, to fulfil the right to health and the right to life of people who use drugs, as demanded by several UN human rights bodies and experts. This is also central to UNODC’s core role as lead UNAIDS co-sponsor regarding prisons and HIV amongst people who use drugs.

Take immediate measures to address prison overcrowding, as already recommended by UNODC and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, by promoting alternatives to incarceration, and ensuring proportionate sentencing for all drug offences, including by taking into account mitigating factors – in line with the basic principle that prisons should only be used as a last resort in all circumstances.

Ensure that people who use drugs are not subject to arbitrary detention, torture, or ill-treatment – whether in state custody or public or private drug services. While under detention, people with a drug dependence or health problems associated with their drug use must be offered evidence-based treatment, harm reduction and other drug services on a strictly voluntary basis.

Promote the end of all punishment for drug use, and drug possession and cultivation for personal use, as permitted within the three drug control conventions. Such policy shifts will help to end the stigma, criminalisation, and exclusion faced by people who use drugs, and to facilitate access to health and social services, as called for by the UN system Common Position, UNAIDS, and UN human rights bodies.

Make sure that drug policies incorporate a gender-sensitive perspective. This should be done by tailoring drug services to the specific needs of women, and by ensuring that criminal laws take into account the circumstances of women involved in drug offences, as most of them come from backgrounds of poverty, marginalisation, and oppression.

Clearly outline the ways in which UNODC will work to achieve these changes, and the measures being taken to ensure that human rights are effectively embedded as a core strand for all of the Office’s work.

As the lead UN agency in drug-related matters, UNODC has the responsibility to promote drug policies that respect, protect, and fulfil human rights, in a way that is consistent with the standards developed by the UN system, and in line with the commitments set in the UN system Common Positions on drugs and on incarceration. A strong statement in the forthcoming International Human Rights Day would be an important and welcome step to signal UNODC’s unequivocal commitment.

We look forward to discussing these concerns and recommendations with you.

NGOs urge UNODC's Executive Director to mark Human Rights Day with a call to reform drug policies that entrench inequality

Colombia’s government is moving closer to reinstating a program, suspended in 2015, that would spray herbicides from aircraft over territories where coca is cultivated. Twenty-five U.S. and Colombian organizations have joined on this letter to President Joe Biden urging him to avoid supporting a renewed “fumigation” program, succinctly laying out the reasons why this would be an unfortunate policy mistake. The letter was shared with the White House on March 26.

President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
The White House
Washington, DC

We write out of strong concern about the imminent restart of a program that your administration is inheriting from its predecessor: an effort to eradicate coca in Colombia by spraying herbicides from aircraft. 

We encourage you not to provide funding for this program

, which not only failed to achieve past objectives, but sends a message of cruelty and callousness with which the United States should no longer be associated. It will undermine the peace accords that are a powerful legacy of the Obama-Biden administration.

Aerial fumigation can bring short-term reductions in the number of acres planted with coca. But past experience shows not only that these gains reverse quickly, but that the strategy undermines other U.S. and Colombian security objectives. Recurring to fumigation is like going back in time, ignoring much that we have learned about what does and does not work.

Many of our organizations have published studies documenting the harm that fumigation has done in the past. The December 2020 report of the U.S. government’s bipartisan Western Hemisphere Drug Policy Commission found that forced eradication brought “enormous costs and dismal results.” Just since the end of February, we have seen strong critiques of forced eradication and fumigation from the International Crisis Group; the Ideas for Peace Foundation, a Colombian business sector think tank; a list of over 200 scholars, and seven UN human rights rapporteurs.

Between 1994 and 2015, a U.S.-backed program supported a fleet of aircraft, and teams of contract pilots and maintenance personnel, that sprayed the herbicide glyphosate over 4.42 million acres of Colombian territory—a land area 3 1/2 times the size of Delaware. In 2015 the Colombian government suspended the spray program, citing public health concerns based on a World Health Organization study finding glyphosate to be “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

For a few years afterward, the Colombian government failed to replace the strategy with anything—neither eradication nor assistance to affected areas. During the late 2010s, Colombia’s coca crop increased to record levels. Nearly all of the increase 

happened in the exact municipalities and communities where fumigation had been heaviest

. After 20 years of constant eradication, farmers continue to face the same on-the-ground reality.

Most Colombian producers of the coca bush are not organized crime-tied criminals or supporters of illegal armed groups. They are families with small plots of land. Estimates of the number of families who make a living off of coca vary from “more than 119,500” to 215,000. If one assumes four people per family, then more than 2 percent of Colombia’s 50 million people depend on coca. Households earn about $1,000 per person per year from the crop, making them by far the lowest-paid link in the cocaine supply chain.

They live in “agricultural frontier” zones where evidence of Colombia’s government is scarce. Paved or maintained roads are nonexistent. The national electric grid is far off. There is no such thing as potable water or land titles. In some areas, even currency is hard to obtain, and stores offer the option of paying for groceries with coca paste.

These people need to be governed and protected by their state. An aircraft flying anonymously overhead, spraying chemicals on populated areas, is the exact opposite of that. But the program has other important disadvantages:

Because it targets poor households in ungoverned areas, chemical fumigation sends a 

, and associates that message with the United States. Your administration is steadily working to undo the Trump administration’s cruel migratory measures, which imposed suffering on a weak, impoverished population at the U.S.-Mexico border. We ask that you also avoid returning to “deterrence though cruelty” in rural Colombia.

Like any eradication without assistance, fumigation further 

weakens governance and threatens to worsen security

 in Colombia’s ungoverned territories, where illegal economies and armed groups thrive. Forced eradication, especially when uncoordinated with efforts to physically bring government services into territory, sends families from poverty to extreme poverty, with no official help in sight. This hurts the government’s legitimacy in frontier areas where it badly needs to be built up.

After perhaps a short-term drop in cultivation, fumigation is not effective at reducing the coca crop. Past experience shows 

 and other means of minimizing lost harvests, in contexts of absent government and few alternative crops.

Fumigation goes against what Colombia’s 2016 peace accord promised

. That document’s first and fourth chapters offered a blueprint for reducing illicit crops: first by engaging families in substitution programs, and then by carrying out a 15-year “comprehensive rural reform” effort to bring state presence to rural areas. Fumigation was meant to be a last resort, for circumstances when families were refusing opportunities to substitute crops and when manual eradication was viewed as too dangerous. Rushing to fumigate is a slap in the face to brave farmer association leaders who took the risky step of defying traffickers and leading their communities into the fourth chapter’s crop substitution programs.

fumigation risks large-scale social discord

 in rural Colombia. In 1996, after the program first got started, much of rural Colombia ground to a halt for weeks or months as mostly peaceful coca-grower protests broke out around the country. Today, farmers are even better organized than they were 25 years ago.

risks for human health and the environment

. The 2015 WHO document is one of many studies that give us reasonable doubts about the health impacts of spraying high concentrations of glyphosate over populated areas from aircraft. Bayer, the company that purchased glyphosate producer Monsanto, has agreed to settlements with U.S. plaintiffs potentially totaling over $11 billion—another reason for reasonable doubt. While the environmental impacts are less clear, glyphosate’s own labeling warns against spraying near standing water sources, and we are concerned about its use in proximity to rainforest ecosystems. The largest environmental impact, though, is likely to be the way many past farmers have responded after losing crops to fumigation, while remaining in a vacuum of government presence: they move somewhere else and cut down more rainforest to grow coca again.

Like all forced eradication unaccompanied by assistance, fumigation is 

 themselves. In 2013, not long before the program’s suspension, FARC guerrillas shot down two spray planes within the space of two weeks. While planes and their escort helicopters will be more armored than before, the vulnerability remains. Eradication is far safer when it is agreed with communities by a government that is physically present in its own territory.

In March 2020, Donald Trump met with Colombian President Iván Duque and told him, “You’re going to have to spray.” The country’s highest court has required Duque’s government to meet a series of health, environment, consultation, and other requirements. Colombia’s Defense Minister is now predicting that the spraying could restart in April.

This time, U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg has stated, the U.S. role in the program won’t be as extensive. Still, during the Trump administration, the State Department supported maintenance of the spray plane fleet, upgrades to bases, and training of eradication personnel, among other services. State Department reports sent to Congress in late February and early March hailed fumigation’s imminent restart as a sign of progress.

we reiterate our hope that the Biden administration will turn away from supporting Colombia’s spray program while there is still time

. The United States should not support aerial fumigation in Colombia again. Nor does it have to. We know what to do.

Farmers with land titles hardly ever grow coca. Farmers who live near paved roads hardly ever grow coca. Criminal groups are badly weakened by proximity of a functioning government that is able to resolve disputes and punish lawbreaking.

This is a longer-term project, but Colombia’s 2016 peace accord offered a good blueprint for setting it in motion: a fast-moving, consultative crop substitution program, tied to a slower-moving but comprehensive rural reform program. Though those programs exist and parts of the Duque government are carrying them out diligently, they are underfunded and well behind where they should be as accord implementation enters its fifth year.

It’s not too late to help Colombia jumpstart the model offered by Colombia’s peace accord, which the Obama-Biden administration so effectively supported. We urge you to take that path instead of that of renewed fumigation, which we know to be a dead end.

Center for International Environmental Law

Centro Estudios sobre Seguridad y Drogas, Universidad de los Andes (Colombia)

Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America

Consultoría para los Derechos Humanos y el Desplazamiento (Colombia)

Fellowship of Reconciliation: Peace Presence

Institute for Policy Studies, Drug Policy Project

Institute on Race, Equality, and Human Rights

Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Washington Office

Presbyterian Church (USA), Office of Public Witness

United Church of Christ, Justice and Witness Ministries

25 organizations call for an end to U.S. support for aerial herbicide fumigation in Colombia

Four years after the signing of a historic peace accord, hundreds of thousands of Colombian families continue to rely on the coca crop. The government, with U.S. support, has already broken its annual record for forced eradication, during the pandemic, and little of it has been coordinated with food security or rural development assistance. Now, a revival of a controversial aerial herbicide fumigation program is looming.

How are coca cultivating communities responding? How does all of this relate to the peace accord? What might happen if fumigation restarts? What are the costs of eradication, both financially and in terms of rights? Will pursuing the same strategies pursued during the past 30 years really yield a different result? What happened with the peace accords’ crop substitution program? What would a better coca policy look like? How should the new U.S. administration adjust its assistance programs?

WOLA, Elementa, CODHES, the Instituto Pensar of the Universidad Javeriana, the Alianza de Mujeres Tejedoras de Vida, and the Corporación Viso Mutop look forward to addressing these topics on Wednesday, December 9, from 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. (U.S. eastern and Bogotá time).


Mujeres Tejedoras de Vida, Mocoa, Putumayo


Instituto Pensar, Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá

Simultaneous interpretation will be available

Coca and eradication four years into Colombia’s “Post-Accord” phase

This report presents Colombia's experience in the implementation of the current drug policy with the purpose of contributing to the debates that will take place in the international arena over the next decade about how to address problems related to substances declared illicit To this end, the coalition Actions for Change shows the progress that has been made in Colombia in relation to the goals set out in the 2009 Political Declaration and Plan of Action, describes the repercussions over the past ten years of the current policy on the rights of persons in Colombian territory, highlights good drug policy practices in the country, and identifies the risks and challenges faced in this area.

Colombia's experience in drug policy in the last decade

Cesar Gaviria Trujillo
Ex-president of the Republic of Colombia
Member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy

The undersigned organisations express our deep concern about your endorsement of a presidential candidate that promotes drug policy proposals contradictory to the recommendations made by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, of which you are a member. The Commission’s recommendations are crucial for the transition process in which Colombia finds itself and in order to achieve the transformation of a policy that requires structural change – the reason for which the Commission was created in 2011.

To date, the Global Commission has published 7 reports that have promoted:

Breaking the taboo: Promoting an open debate and policies that effectively reduce consumption, as well as prevent and reduce the harms related to drug use and drug control policies. This includes increased investment in the research and analysis of the impact of different policies and programmes.

Replacing the criminalisation and punishment of people who use drugs with the provision of health services and treatment for those who need them, including harm reduction programmes.

Eliminating criminal punishments for peasants and day laborers involved in the drug market by participating in the cultivation, processing, transportation or sale of drugs as a means of subsistence for their families; policies should instead focus on long-term socio-economic development efforts.

Encouraging governments to experiment with models for the legal regulation of drugs (like cannabis) that are designed to undermine the power of organised crime and safeguard the health and safety of citizens.

The proposed drug policy included in the government programme that you – and the party which you lead — have publicly supported are contrary to the Global Commission’s recommendations and the evidence from available research. The proposal:

Does not support drug policy change, although this is the reason for the existence of the Global Commission on Drug Policy.

Opposes the core elements of point 4 in the peace agreement.

Calls for the return of forced eradication strategies such as aerial spraying, which has proven to be ineffective in containing or reducing the cultivation of crops declared to be illicit.

Fails to embrace harm reduction as a strategy to protect the health of people who use drugs, while the Commission’s recommendation, based on a public health approach, has been precisely the opposite.

Proposes the prohibition of a ‘personal dose’, which in practice criminalises people who use drugs.

Opposes voluntary crop substitution, while supporting the return of aerial fumigation and the implementation of hard-line policies towards growers, while the Commission has recommended reducing the harms related to drug control policies in rural areas.

Does not agree with market regulation strategies, including that of medicinal cannabis.

It is also important to highlight that the Global Commission was explicitly included as an international monitor for the implementation of point four in the peace agreement between the government and FARC, which refers specifically to drug policy. This is particularly worrisome given that the government plan that you publicly support includes the revision and modification of point four of the accord.

We express deep concern that the positions that you have taken regarding drug policy in Colombia, despite your role as a member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, weakens the role that the Commission may play with regards to the Colombian peace process.

We ask that you clarify your stance on the drug policy proposals made by the presidential candidate in question, that you state your position on these proposals, and consider whether that implies a change in your position with respect to those taken by the Global Commission on Drug Policy.

In conclusion, the peace process currently underway in Colombia necessitates a transformation of drug policy, along the lines of the recommendations provided by the Global Commission. The presidential candidate that you and your party have publicly supported contradicts everything that the Commission defends and proposes drug policies whose effectiveness have proven to be counterproductive for the protection and the guarantee of human rights of the people involved in illegal economies.

The civil society organizations listed below as signatories will continue working to support peace in Colombia, accompanied by a transformation in drug policy that is consistent with human rights, health, development and social justice.

Open letter to Cesar Gaviria on the upcoming Colombian elections

Em tempos de radicalização da violação de direitos e ameaça à democracia, é preciso defender a radicalidade da potência do cuidado. Para tanto apresentamos esta 

[1], região da cidade do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, onde se situa a Fundação Oswaldo Cruz[2] e diversas favelas e comunidades pobres que são constantemente atingidas pela nefasta e violenta política de guerra às drogas que criminaliza e autoriza ações bélicas, neste como em tantos outros territórios periféricos de toda a América Latina.

O mundo vive um momento de avanço das forças conservadoras, que na América Latina se expressa através da fragilização dos processos democráticos; no aprofundamento das iniquidades socioeconômicas; no aumento da fragmentação e segregação social. Tais dinâmicas, em seu conjunto, põem em risco direitos fundamentais. Exemplo emblemático foi a recente intervenção no bairro da Luz, na cidade de São Paulo. Durante quatro anos sustentou-se um projeto intersetorial inspirado nos princípios da Redução de Danos que visava articular ações de garantia de direitos à moradia, trabalho/renda e cuidado na região conhecida como “cracolândia”. Em maio de 2017 foi realizada uma operação policial com a intenção de uma “limpeza social”, com utilização do pânico moral para atender a interesses da especulação imobiliária. A violência e as arbitrariedades contra pessoas em situação de extrema pobreza e vulnerabilidade social, rotuladas como “viciados em crack”, seguiram-se por dias. Assim, uma política pública de cuidado, promoção da saúde e de direitos foi substituída pela repressão e violação de direitos.

Arbitrariedades como estas não são exclusivas do Brasil, e casos similares são encontrados em muitos lugares da América Latina, onde a droga funciona como pretexto para intervenção territorial. Ocorrem também outras situações de violência estrutural, como dificuldade de acesso a políticas públicas, assassinatos, prisões, exposição a doenças infectocontagiosas, falta de acesso a medicações e a políticas que garantam a cidadania.

As políticas de Redução de Danos, em seus esforços pela promoção da saúde, cidadania, direito à cidade, justiça social e direitos humanos das pessoas que usam drogas, não está isenta dos efeitos da conjuntura conservadora. O atual modelo de política de drogas opera seletivamente, criminalizando, encarcerando e estigmatizando sobretudo as populações mais pobres, moradoras de regiões periféricas, e de modo diferenciado as pessoas em situação de rua, negras, indígenas, mulheres e jovens.

As experiências bem sucedidas de cuidado são opostas à violência intervencionista defendida pelas políticas conservadoras. As evidências e o acúmulo político da Redução de Danos rejeitam propostas que não reconhecem a diversidade da experiência humana, e que se utilizem apenas da racionalidade biomédica e da criminalização de condutas consideradas desviantes. A Redução de Danos que realizamos no cotidiano de nossas práticas, em todo o continente, se apresenta como alternativa concreta ao fracasso de concepções e intervenções dicotômicas e simplistas. Não obstante, é preciso avançar ainda mais na direção de uma Redução de Danos interseccional, capaz de articular a defesa da reforma das políticas de drogas às lutas das mulheres, da população negra, dos povos indígenas, LGBTI’s e das múltiplas juventudes.

Diante disso, propomos a formulação de uma Redução de Danos inserida num projeto despenalizador e emancipatório, em que experiências subjetivas e corporais não sejam objeto de ações repressivas e disciplinadoras. A Redução de Danos, no atual contexto, é ferramenta potente de questionamento dos modelos de controle, implicando a afirmação e respeito à liberdade e autonomia das pessoas que usam drogas.

Consideramos urgente compartilhar nossas experiências e resistências, promovendo intercâmbios que consolidem nossa articulação Latino Americana em defesa de políticas públicas de Redução de Danos conectadas a reforma da política de drogas.

Assinam a Carta de Manguinhos as seguintes organizações e instituições:

Institutional Program on Alcohol, Crack and other Drugs of Oswaldo Cruz Foundation - PACD/Fiocruz (Brazil)

International Drug Policy Consortium – IDPC

Brazilian Association of Harm Reduction Workers – ABORDA (Brazil)

Brazilian Platform on Drug Policy - PBPD (Brazil)

Brazilian Association of Collective Health – ABRASCO (Brazil)

Brazilian Association of Mental Health – ABRASME (Brazil)

Brazilian Network for Harm Reduction and Human Rights – REDUC (Brazil)

Intercambios Asociación Civil (Argentina)

Asociación Costarricense para el Estudio e Intervención em Drogas – ACEID (Costa Rica)

Acción Técnica Social – ATS (Colombia)

International Network of People who Use Drugs - INPUD

Pares en Acción-Reacción Contra la Exclusión Social - PARCES (Colombia)

Centro Cáritas de Formación para la Atención de las Farmacodependencias y Situaciones Críticas Asociadas (Mexico)

Associação Brasileira Multidisciplinar sobre Drogas - ABRAMD (Brazil)

Grupo Tortura Nunca Mais Rio de Janeiro – GTNM/RJ (Brazil)

Iniciativa Negra por uma Nova Política de Drogas – INNPD (Brazil)

Associação Redes de Desenvolvimento da Maré (Brazil)

Agência Piaget para o Desenvolvimento - APDES (Portugal)

Drug Policy Alliance – DPA (United States)

Washington Office on Latin America – WOLA (United States)

International Centre for Science in Drug Policy – ICSDP (Canada)

South Indian Harm Reduction Network – SIHRN (India)

Transform Drug Policy Foundation (United Kingdom)

Union for Improved Services, Communication and Education (Ireland)

Teenswatch Community Harm Reduction (Kenia)

Centro de Prevención de las Adicciones de Bariloche (Argentina)

Fundación Latinoamérica Reforma (Chile)

Centro de Orientación e Investigación Integral - 

Students for Sensible Drug Policy (Jamaica)

Fédération Bruxelloise Francophone des Institutions pour Toxicomane – FEDITO (Belgium)

Association de lutte contre le sida – ALCS (Marocos)

Global Call to Action Against Poverty - GCAP (Burundi)

Students for Sensible Drug Policy (Australia)

Association des Guides du Congo – AGC (Congo)

Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies - MAPS (United States)

Washington Heights Corner Project (United States)

New York Harm Reduction Educators (United States)

Students for Sensible Drug Policy - SSDP (United States)

Elementa Consultoría en Derechos (Colombia)

Andean Information Network - AIN (Bolivia)

Puente, Investigacion y Enlace - PIE (Bolivia)

Estudiantes por una Política Sensata de Drogas (Costa Rica)

Asociación de Vecinos La Teja Barial (Uruguay)

Observatorio de cultivos y cultivadores declarados ilícitos - OCCDI (Colombia)

Corporación Humanas - Centro Regional de Derechos Humanos y Justicia de Género (Colombia)

Instituto Helena Greco de Direitos Humanos e Cidadania (Brazil)

Conselho Regional de Serviço Social do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)

Coletivo Balance de Redução de Danos (Brazil)

Associação Brasileira de Estudos Sociais sobre o Uso de Psicoativos - ABESUP (Brazil)

Laboratório de Estudos Interdisciplinares sobre Psicoativos – LEIPSI (Brazil)

Centro de Pesquisa, Intervenção e Avaliação em Álcool e Drogas – CREPEIA (Brazil)

Centro de Referência sobre Drogas e Vulnerabilidades Associadas da UNB Ceilândia (Brazil)

Rede Nacional de Feministas Antiproibiocionistas - RENFA (Brazil)

Associação Multidisciplinar de Estudos sobre a Maconha Medicinal - AMEMM (Brazil)

Grupo Interdisciplinar de Estudos sobre Substâncias Psicoativas - GIESP/UFBA (Brazil)

Fórum Intersetorial de Drogas e Direitos Humanos de São Paulo - FIDDH (Brazil)

Fórum Estadual de Redução de Danos de São Paulo - FERD (Brazil)

Dispositivo de Abordaje Territorial Rosario - DIAT (Argentina)

New Parents for Addiction Treatment & Healing – New PATH (United States)

Carta de Manguinhos: Um apelo global para proteger a redução de danos na América Latina

At a time when rights violations and threats to democracy are deepening, it is necessary to defend the fundamental role of care. With this in mind, we present this 

, a region of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where Fiocruz[2] and, much more drastically, many favelas and poor communities have been constantly hit by despicable and violent war-on-drugs policies that criminalize drug users and authorize warlike actions on whole populations, like in so many other marginalized regions across Latin America and the world.

The world is currently witnessing a rise in conservative forces which, in Latin America, has translated into the weakening of democratic processes; the deepening of socioeconomic inequities; and an exacerbation of social breakdown and segregation. Taken together, such dynamics risk undermining fundamental rights. One emblematic example is the recent intervention that took place in the District of Luz, in the city of São Paulo. For four years, a multisectoral project inspired by the principles of harm reduction aimed to articulate actions to guarantee the right to housing, work / income and care in the region known as "

" A police operation aimed at "social cleansing" took place in May 2017, using moral panic to serve the interests of real estate speculators. This was followed by weeks of violence and arbitrary actions against socially vulnerable people living in extreme poverty, labeled as "crack addicts." A public policy focusing on care, health and promoting rights was thus replaced with repression and rights violations.

Such arbitrariness is not limited to Brazil – similar cases can be found in many areas of Latin America, where the presence of drugs serves as a pretext for territorial intervention. Other forms of structural violence include difficulties in accessing public services, murders, incarceration, exposure to infectious diseases, lack of access to medicines and absence of policies that aim to protect citizens’ rights.

Because of their focus on promoting health, citizenship, the right to access the city, social justice and drug users’ human rights, harm reduction policies have not been exempt from the effects of the conservative juncture. The current drug policy model is implemented selectively, by specifically criminalizing, imprisoning and stigmatizing the poorest groups living in marginal regions, homeless people, black and/or indigenous people, as well as women and youth.

Successful approaches focusing on care reject the interventionist violence defended by conservative policies. The evidences, ethic and political knowhow of harm reduction reject policies that fail to recognize the diversity of human experience and only rely on biomedical rationality and the criminalization of what is considered to be divergent behaviors. The harm reduction interventions that we are carrying out in our daily lives across the continent - and perhaps in other parts of the world - represent a concrete alternative to failed binary and simplistic concepts and interventions. It is nevertheless necessary to move even further towards a multisectoral harm reduction approach that is capable of articulating support for drug policy reform with the struggles of women, blacks, indigenous peoples, LGBTI and youth.

Given this situation, we propose a harm reduction approach grounded in decriminalization and emancipation, in which subjective and corporeal experiences are no longer exposed to repressive and disciplinary actions. Harm reduction is a powerful tool to question current models of control, and includes the promotion and respect for the freedom and autonomy of people who use drugs.

We consider it urgent to share our experiences and resistance, and promote a dialogue in Latin America - and elsewhere - with the view of consolidating our argument in defense of public harm reduction policies as they relate to drug policy reform.

The following organizations and institutions sign the 

Centro de Orientación e Investigación Integral - 

Elementa, Consultoría en Derechos

Region

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