Russia-Africa anti-drug dialogue: Recipe for death?

On the 8th and 9th of March 2016, South Africa hosted the Russia-Africa Anti-Drug Dialogue at the ICC in Durban. Here are some examples of press coverage: The Citizen, Independent On Line, TASS Russian News agency and the one intelligent piece of reporting on the dialogue by Kevin Bloom for the Daily Maverick.

Russia has some of the most harmful and punitive of all drug policies. Despite their “no tolerance” approach they have more injecting drug users than any other population, have some of the highest drug-user statistics in the world, have a totally ineffective substance use disorder treatment system that is in violation of basic human rights and have massive rates of HIV infection, all as a result of a refusal to implement evidence based policies. Why would Africa want to share experiences with Russia, and why would they even consider issuing a joint declaration of recommendations on international drug policy?

It should also be noted that while this event was made 'public' on the SAPS website, attempts by researchers and journalists to participate or observe this event were met with strong exclusionary processes including a complex accreditation process for registration.

I briefly describe the context of the event and then provide the evidence that shows that almost all of the 16 recommendations made in the draft declaration are counter-productive, ignore international evidence, ignore current drug policy evidence and if implemented would significantly increase the harms caused by drug use.

Click here to read the full article.

Click here to access the South African Drug Policy Facebook page.

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

Thumbnail: Flickr CIDSE - together for global justice