Release is the UK centre of expertise on drugs and drugs law - providing free and confidential specialist advice to the public and professionals. Release also campaigns for changes to UK drug policy to bring about a fairer and more compassionate legal framework to manage drug use in our society.

Release es un centro británico de expertos en drogas y políticas de drogas. La organización ofrece consejos expertos, gratuitos y confidenciales al público y a profesionales. Release lanza también campanas para que la política actual del Reino Unido en materia de drogas sea sustituida por un marco jurídico más justo y más humano para gestionar el problema de las drogas en nuestra sociedad.

Release est un centre britannique d’expertise en matière de drogues et des politiques qui y sont liées. L’organisation fournit des conseils experts, gratuits et confidentiels au public et aux professionnels. Release développe des campagnes afin que la politique des drogues britannique actuelle soit remplacée par un cadre juridique plus juste et plus humain.

Release

In July 2022, the Home Office of the United Kingdom published a white paper titled Swift, Certain, Tough: New Consequences for Drug Possession, outlining a new three-tiered punishment system for drug possession.

Aimed at targeting middle-class people who use drugs recreationally, who the government blames for fuelling crime in the country, the white paper proposes to require first-time offenders to pay for and attend a “drugs awareness course”; second-time offenders to be subjected to randomised drug tests and to attend more extensive drugs awareness programmes; and third-time offenders to be charged and, if convicted, punished under a new Drug Reduction Order. According to the white paper, this new order would include four possible “interventions”: exclusion from certain venues and events, passport confiscation, driving licence disqualification and “tagging” with drug use monitoring bracelets (however, the Home Office itself admits the technology that would make the fourth intervention possible does not yet exist).

The draconian white paper is the latest offensive in the UK government’s decades-old war on drugs in which it has repeatedly attempted – and failed – to reduce the demand and supply for drugs through punishment and coercion.

The UK is still waging an unwinnable war on drugs 

 is embedded in the human experience – both now and historically – yet it's arguably one of the most socially controversial human habits. In the UK, controlling drug use has become a key policy issue for every government since the 1960s. 

However, there is a growing consensus that the current approach has failed, with the Home Office's 

 evidence demonstrating intense criminalisation of drug use and a crackdown on those that grow or distribute drugs is not reducing drug use nor addressing the harms that the criminal market creates. In fact, it is making things worse. 

That is why we’re incredibly concerned by the Home Secretary’s previous comments on drugs. Not only has Suella Braverman continued her predecessor’s vendetta against “middle-class” recreational drug users, but she has apparently also gone further by supporting the reclassification of cannabis from a class B to a class A drug (via 

 itself from these reports, it's still concerning that the laws around drug use in the UK show little sign of reform. 

Here, we explain why the UK's criminalisation of drug use will most likely increase harm for those already stigmatised within society, including women who are particularly vulnerable to tough drug policies.

'Women use drugs too': Why reforming our drug laws will reduce harm for *all* of us

By Imani Mason-Jordan & André Gomes / TalkingDrugs / Release

In March 2022, the revelation that a 15-year-old Black pupil had been strip-searched by police in a London school after being wrongly accused of having drugs in her possession sent shockwaves across the United Kingdom – and for good reason.

Everything about the 2020 incident is absolutely harrowing. An independent child safeguarding report found that her own teachers called the police on the young girl after suspecting she may be carrying cannabis. Once they arrived at the school, Metropolitan police officers took the girl into a medical room and strip-searched her without appropriate supervision, despite being aware that she was menstruating. After the invasive and traumatising search, she was asked to “go back into the exam” she had been sitting, with no teacher asking about her welfare.

The safeguarding report concluded that the treatment of the child was unjustified and racism was “likely” a reason why she was strip-searched in the first place.

While the trauma inflicted on Child Q understandably shocked the nation, the actions of the police in this case can hardly be considered an anomaly. It is well known that communities of colour are disproportionally policed in the UK, and British police commonly respond to alleged drug offences – especially when the suspect is a person of colour – with violence.

The abuse of Child Q should make Britain rethink its drugs laws

This paper builds on Release’s national research on the disproportionate policing of ethnic minority individuals and other disadvantaged groups, and evaluates regulatory frameworks emerging in North America and beyond. It outlines an evidence-based roadmap to prioritise and protect those most vulnerable to the harms of prohibition in legal recreational markets, while still ensuring the benefits of cannabis legalisation and regulation for all.

Whilst countries across the globe - from the US to Canada, Uruguay to Germany - acknowledge the failure and damage of cannabis prohibition, the UK is left faltering behind. However, with over half of Britons, and nearly two-thirds in the capital, having already signalled their support for the legalisation of cannabis for recreational use, the reality is that cannabis reform in the UK is inevitable. The question is not when, but 

Release present guiding principles in preparation for the eventual legal regulation of cannabis in the UK. These principles are designed to ensure that the same people who are locked up by punitive drug policies are not locked out of the legal market, and that cannabis reform is an opportunity to repair historic injustices caused by the war on drugs.

Regulating right, repairing wrongs: Exploring equity and social justice initiatives within UK cannabis reform

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

Reflections on a webinar on drug policies and Indigenous rights

For decades, drug policy has been a vehicle of oppression violating Indigenous rights. From forced crop eradication to the ban on traditional uses of psychoactive plants, repressive drug policy has taken away lives and livelihoods, while ripping Indigenous peoples away from their ancestral identities and ways of living.

It was primarily for this reason that Indigenous rights’ advocates gathered online last month, on this year’s International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, to debate how we shall move forward and repair these harms in the webinar ‘The War on Drugs and the Denial of Indigenous Rights’.

Taking its cruellest form in the imperialist 'war on drugs', drug prohibition operates alongside other systems of oppression and exploitation, from corporate and state-funded land grabs or extractivism, to mass incarceration and globalised police power.

Such oppressive structures have disproportionately harmed Indigenous peoples and other communities of colour. For example, Tuari Potiki - Director of Maori Development at University of Otago – noted during the webinar that Indigenous Māori people make up only 16 percent of the population of Aotearoa/New Zealand, but nearly 60 percent of the country’s prison population is comprised of Māori people. The situation is similar, if not worse, for Indigenous peoples elsewhere – exacerbated by numerous systemic factors like poor access to healthcare and housing.

Lest we forget, these colonially rooted forms of oppression are not as old as humanity’s long and complex history with consciousness altering experiences, such as the medicinal and spiritual uses of psychoactive substances (either from plants, fungi, or even animals) and practices like trance-inducing dance, healing and other rituals core to a number of Indigenous traditions. Indigenous peoples, rights activists, and the drug reform movement must come together to ensure that Indigenous practices outlive prohibition.

There have been signs of progress when it comes to the UN system and its various mechanisms to support Indigenous rights. Note the 1989 Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (despite it being ratified by only 24 states), and the importance of documents like the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which was adopted by unanimity at the UN General Assembly, and later cited briefly in the Outcome Document of the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session on drugs.

Still, the contradictions and obstacles within the UN system are most starkly illustrated by the tensions between drug control and Indigenous rights. The foundational treaty of the UN drug control system, the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, is inherently colonial and racist. It aims to eliminate the non-medical (including traditional and Indigenous) uses of substances grown and used by racialised communities, namely the coca leaf, cannabis, and opium.

During the webinar, the intervention of Bolivia’s Vice-President, David Choquehuanca (read by Ambassador Roberto Calzadilla) highlighted Bolivia’s 2009 request to amend the 1961 Convention to reclaim the cultural significance of the coca leaf. This move was blocked by a group of countries led by the United States. Bolivia then withdrew from the 1961 Convention and later signed it again with a reservation to coca prohibition. Though this reservation applies to Bolivia alone, a group of rich countries once again joined forces to attempt to thwart this gracious effort to repair this undemocratic system. Vice-President, David Choquehuanca concluded his intervention with a call on all countries that protested against Bolivia’s reservation to formally remove their objection, directing this in particular to Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The growing recognition that drug policies must be compliant with human rights provisions has started to encompass more seriously the need to ensure cultural, traditional, and Indigenous rights are not violated in the name of drug control. As Natalia Rebollo – a human rights lawyer working at the International Centre for Ethnobotanical Education, Research and Service (ICEERS) – explained in the webinar, in Europe these dynamics have also helped advocates challenge the criminalisation of Andean and other migrants who use the coca leaf as part of their cultural practices.

Nevertheless, these efforts are not enough. To truly support Indigenous rights, we need to pay attention to the bigger picture and look beyond drug prohibition.

The commodification of and value extraction from nature has been central to a wide array of imperial and colonial projects. This has included psychoactive plants like coca, cannabis, opium (in addition to other crops like tea and entire ecosystems like forests). Such projects not only brought immense wealth for the privileged few, but they also disrupted peoples’ relationship with nature, as for example shown in the transformation of cannabis culture in the Rif (Morocco) between 1912 and 1956.

These processes of empire-building through extraction and dispossession long preceded the global drug prohibition era (part of which was even shaped by the economic interests of pharmaceutical companies from the global north). In fact, these processes continue until today, affecting Indigenous communities albeit in more subtle ways.

Thus, we need to make visible (and seek to dismantle) unjust forms of value extraction and profit maximisation done on the backs of the oppressed, especially those happening in tandem with the global drug control regime. These include, but are not limited to, the growing power of corporations and investors (many of whom notorious for violating Indigenous rights) in psychedelic therapy, in legal cannabis, in the security-industrial complex, as well as in medicine and healthcare.

Though well beyond the scope of this piece, other related forms of dispossession should also be factored in, such as land grabs and forced displacement for the sake of agribusiness, ‘conservation’, and infrastructure projects. All these factors undermine the rights of Indigenous peoples as a whole, especially their right to self-determination as upheld by international human rights law. Such destructive forces have also worsened our climate crisis, while undermining Indigenous communities who have long served as the guardians of our planet (and whose sustainable practices might as well be the key to ensuring our future on Earth).

Beyond recognition: Indigenous liberation through a radically decolonial lens

As the global drug prohibition discourse slowly crumbles, so too does the taboo surrounding ancestral and Indigenous traditions involving psychoactive substances. In recognition of the medicinal potential of substances like psilocybin, researchers and companies are seeking funds and patents in the name of scientific and medical breakthroughs.

But we need so much more than recognition. Supporting Indigenous rights and liberation requires us to take a radically decolonial approach to systematically address the trans-sectoral and transnational nature of oppressive structures, which, though significantly influenced by European colonialism, extend well beyond it. Thirteenth century Egypt, for example, adopted anti-cannabis policies to suppress a movement deemed subversive by the elite. These policies were rarely enforced and did little to undermine cannabis’ medicinal importance, but the motives behind them were not far different from those of colonisers who banned peyote in Mexico in 1620, and surely of (neo)colonial and imperial powers in the 20th and 21st century.

More importantly, supporting Indigenous rights and self-determination means rallying around a 

‘communal approach, in which we are all in this together, no one is left behind, and everything is shared’, 

as highlighted in the webinar by Freddy Condo Riveros, Member of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. In the case of drugs, we need to challenge neoliberal developments in psychedelic research that use intellectual property to privatise and commodify – rather than respect and honour – Indigenous cultures. We also need to support Indigenous growers in fighting neocolonial cannabis policies anchored in accumulation, as we have witnessed in many Latin American and African countries (especially those with fertile soil and abundant resources long coveted by global north elites). As voiced by Greek Zweni (traditional health practitioner and spokesperson for Umzimvubu Farmers Support Network), Indigenous growers in Mpondoland might lose their income and/or be subject to further criminalisation due to South Africa’s new cannabis bill. Though praised by some, the bill neglects the fact that only the rich few are privileged enough to grow cannabis solely for their own consumption, while much of South Africa’s rural poor grow cannabis to make ends meet.

In line with this collective spirit of Indigenous critique of modern society, we also need to abolish structures of exploitation to restore the communal uses of land, the rivers, and the seas. We need to fight for biodiversity, epistemic justice, reparations, and so much more. The struggle for epistemic justice is a controversial but crucial one – for decolonial struggles in general, and Indigenous liberation in particular. This requires taking a critical (albeit constructive) stance towards the international human rights corpus and Western biomedicine, whose practices should integrate Indigenous epistemologies.

Needless to say, Indigenous leaders and communities around the globe have no other option but to reclaim their space. Tuari Potiki, in his rationale behind the International Indigenous Drug Policy Network, underlines:

‘As Indigenous peoples, we need to get together ourselves… put our own motions and recommendations forward… rather than constantly having to knock on their door, rather than continuing being a subgroup or a subset of another group, or having to try to convince people who have shown through history to be unwilling to change their mind – that there’s a different way of doing things…’

As noted by Freddy Condo Riveros, Indigenous cultures ‘

respect life, harmony, reciprocity, and complementarity.

’ Like them, we need to stop operating in silos and acknowledge the interconnectedness of today’s crises, from drug-related imprisonment to forest fires. Fulfilling Indigenous rights in drug policy is an important step. But in the long run, in order to achieve Indigenous liberation, we need to go beyond drugs – for this is key to ending all the interdependent systems of oppression that have torn us apart.

Beyond drugs and drug policy: Towards transformative Indigenous liberation

The sex work movement has been effective at challenging narratives and policies that conflate sex work with criminal offenses such as human trafficking, and as similar narratives around modern slavery are playing out in drug policy, with often racist undertones. It is imperative that stakeholders from both camps discuss, strategise, learn from each other and act in ways that end criminalisation and undue hardship, increase safety and harm reduction, and advance rights agendas.

 is the CEO of National Ugly Mugs (NUM) a UK-wide charity providing support and resources to adults harmed in sex industries. Raven’s primary duties include decision-making, planning, formulating strategies and securing the (financial and social) capital needed to ensure NUM achieves its mission. She has an MA in Criminology and a PhD in Sociology. Her research interests are in methodologies, research ethics, the sociology of work, transitioning or ‘exiting’, and what she terms ‘duality‘- concurrent involvement in sex work and square (mainstream) jobs. Raven’s involvement in community development with sex workers spans almost three decades in Canada and the UK. She founded and contributed to several sex worker support projects, advocacy organisations and research projects and initiatives. She is unapologetic about the need to include sex workers as experts, as leaders, and as our greatest assets in combating injustice, exploitation and violence. Raven stands against unethical, exclusionary politics and hypocrisy in general! She works towards the full cultural citizenship of sex workers, inclusive of safety, rights, recognition, choice and other entitlements.

 is Executive Director of Release, the UK’s centre of expertise on drugs and drugs law. Niamh has co-authored a number of Release’s policy papers including “A Quite Revolution: Drug Decriminalisation across the Globe” and “The Colour of Injustice: “Race”, Drugs and Law Enforcement in England and Wales”. Niamh is also responsible for drafting many of Release's briefings for parliamentarians and policy makers. She has presented at international and national conferences and is regularly invited to comment in the media. Niamh is a member of the Expert Steering Group for the Global Drug Survey, a visiting lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University and at Middlesex University. She is also a committee member for DrugScience and has been a technical advisor to the Global Commission on Drug Policy.

 is a researcher, advocate and social entrepreneur in promoting the rights of marginalised and often criminalised communities globally. She has a passionate belief in the transformative potential of leadership amongst marginalized groups which led her to establish the nationwide sex worker-led project Umbrella Lane, which is now part of a larger project Anastacia founded – SISU, which empowers women and girls to build resilience through adversity and trauma. She is on the board of Recovering justice.

Supporting sex worker rights within drug policy

Around the world, drug law enforcement disproportionately targets people of African descent, with heightened negative social, economic, health, and legal impacts. Research on different countries consistently shows that Black people are systematically discriminated against in all stages of the criminal justice process, being disproportionately policed, arrested, harshly sentenced, and incarcerated for drug offences. This has distinct repercussions not only on their liberty, but also on their health, and on the health and safety of their communities. The disparity is such that drug policy has been described as a “key mechanism for racial and social control within society”. Far from being unintended consequences, drug control is in fact being employed “to justify excessive surveillance, criminalization and the targeting of people of African descent worldwide."

That drug control works to criminalise and dehumanise certain individuals more than others also emerged in the case of George Floyd, where the presence of ‘potential intoxicants in his system’ was reported as a potential reason for his death, in an attempt to deflect from the responsibilities of police officers who ended Mr. Floyd’s life.

In March 2019, the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent stated that: “Enduring and entrenched racial disparities in the criminal justice system – as well as ongoing tolerance of race-based outcomes in policing, entrenched racial disparities, and ongoing selective enforcement of the law – reflect harmful stereotypes grounded in the historical legacies of the global trafficking in enslaved Africans, colonisation, and the ways in which modern social narratives evolved from rhetoric designed to justify these institutions and the exploitation of people of African descent.”

Similarly, in its 2015 study on the impact of the world drug problem on the enjoyment of human rights, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has acknowledged that ethnic minorities “may be particularly subject to discrimination in the context of drug enforcement efforts.”

This report focuses on racism and discrimination against people of African descent in drug law enforcement. A detailed reconstruction and in-depth analysis of the racial undertones of drug control laws, their enforcement, and their impacts on people of African descent around the world goes well beyond the scope and space of this report. As such, this submission merely provides some (among many) examples from the USA, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Brazil, on policing, arrest, sentencing and incarceration of people of African descent for drug offences; and comments on some social and health impacts of this phenomenon, whilst referring to more detailed sources.

Release and Harm Reduction International's submission to the OHCHR on human rights and the policing of African people and people of African descent

Drugs like opium and cannabis have been used in cultures around the world for millennia. Drug regulation, on the otherhand, arrived when settlers and colonizers did—particularly in African and Asian countries.

“Criminalization is a colonial legacy,” Tripti Tandon, deputy director with the Lawyers Collective, told 

Lawyers Collective is one of the oldest human rights organizations in India. Tandon had just spoken on the impact of colonization on drug policy within the country during a May 26 panel hosted by Harm Reduction International, Release, Dejusticia, the International Drug Policy Consortium, the Transnational Institute, and Voices of Community Action & Leadership, Kenya. The panel, 

Decolonising Drug Policy: Dismantling Racism and Colonialism Through Drug Policy Reform

, was the first of a four-part series. Speakers from India, South Africa and Kenya shared their experiences.

“The American experiment in drug prohibition … really became one of the flagship foreign policies of the USA,” said Kojo Koram, a lecturer at the Birkbeck School of Law, during the panel. “[It] had the consequences of actually reproducing, and in some cases accelerating, the racial and geographical divisions within the world.” Koram’s research points to implementation of drug prohibition and penalization policies as a way to “civilize” Indigenous peoples.

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