Could illicit drugs transform from being a source of violence into a source of political order ?

To many law enforcers, the question is completely heretical. For how could a criminal enterprise – associated with violence in so many countries across the world such as Colombia, Mexico, Afghanistan, Myanmar, or Mali – ever bring about stability? The business of illicit drugs, many say, is simply a predatory and corrupt cause of violence and disorder. To even insinuate otherwise is sacrilegious.

The evidence emerging from the experience of some countries, however, says otherwise. Rather than dismiss such evidence as heresy, policy-makers would become better informed if they could carefully look at and consider what may really be going on.

In 2009, two US-based professors of political science – Richard Snyder and Angelica Duran-Martinez – confirmed that something was amiss in the historical understanding of opium and heroin production in the conflict-affected mountainous areas of north-eastern Myanmar.

Before 1989, there were some 25 insurgent ethnic armies operating in remote regions of the country, many of them operative since the 1960s. Around eight – who also happened to be the largest armies – operated in the Shan and Kachin regions of the northeast. As the conflicts dragged on year by year, most if not all started turning to opium cultivation and trafficking to finance their armed struggles. In this sense, illicit drugs came to be seen as a direct cause of violence and instability.

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

Could the drug trade bring about political order ?

Rani Andriani was just 23 when she was sentenced to death for trafficking three-and-a-half kilograms of heroin. From a family of modest means in West Java, she had been a bright high school student and a dedicated daughter. Young, naïve, and under the financial stress that affects so many village families, she was lured by the false promises of a drug syndicate and became a drug mule.

After serving 15 years in prison for drug trafficking, Rani was executed in January 2015, along with five other drug offenders.

Poor and marginalized women like Rani are vulnerable to being sucked into the drug trade, usually as mules. Yet in its eagerness to address the drug problem, the Indonesian government ignores the conditions that trigger the involvement of everyday people in drug trafficking.

For women swept up in the drug trade, legal help that starts early

Today, the UNODC released the 2016 World Drug Report. While the report flags a number of important drug policy issues, it does little to acknowledge the need for new approaches in dealing with drug policy issues through the lens of human rights and public health. It reinforces prohibitionist and law enforcement-based strategies that continue to perpetuate violence, instability, and health crises across the world.

We wanted to call your attention to a few specific areas where the report fell short and direct you to further resources that support a different perspective:


 The report recognizes that prohibition increases the price of illicit drugs and assumes that it deters use, but does not recognize that this often pushes the market underground, causing further violence and corruption. It puts the drugs and drug market into the hands of criminals, increasing safety and security concerns, and limits government control. The analysis of drug-related violence fails to acknowledge the role of the criminal justice system and the international funding dedicated to militarization efforts, ultimately fueling state-driven violence.


 It fails to recognize the importance of coca and opium economies for some of the poorest people of the world to secure a stable livelihood. While we commend the report’s recognition that “poverty, economic disadvantage and unemployment are some of the enabling factors of illicit crop cultivation and drug production,” it lacks an operational recommendation on increasing socio-economic inclusion and sustainability.


 It recognizes that drug policies disproportionately affect women and structural violence against women further marginalizes, victimizes and disempowers women. We agree that structural changes are necessary to adequately support and treatment women but there are few recommendations outlined to take that forward.


 It fails to acknowledge that forced eradication is the driver of deforestation, displacing coca cultivation to more remote areas broadens the agricultural frontier and negatively impacts the environment.


: It does not acknowledge overwhelming failures of many prevention programs and does not indicate that prevention must be evidence-based and include much broader messaging than abstinence of drug use. There is little mention of harm reduction principles or acknowledgement that in addition to abstinence, drug users can reduce their risk through practices such as testing drugs for purity and moving away from injection towards other forms of administration.


: The report blatantly omits any mention of the death penalty for drugs and does not call for its abolition. UN human rights and drug control bodies now recognize that the death penalty for drugs violates international law, but as we see in this report and the UNGASS outcome document, the UNODC continues to fund states carrying out this practice and remains silent on this topic.


The report focuses on seizures and hectares of eradicated drugs but fails to document the true costs of the war on drugs on people and communities. Despite expenditures of billions of dollars, the global marketplace for drugs has remained largely stable, particularly with the growing synthetic market and access to drugs online. This report, however, fails to significantly document the impact of such policies on the health and well-being of people, including the impacts of incarceration, forced treatment, harm to the environment, and the unaccounted for funds spent on the war that are diverted from education, public health, and infrastructure.

2016 World Drug Report - Resources for Advocacy and Communications Efforts

"I was hoping I would never have to write this. That no one would have to write this, ever. UNAIDS and civil society campaigners have had a special relationship of trust and collaboration. But now that relationship seems to have chipped. Irreparably, even.

Two shockingly opposite statements have emerged after the adoption of the 2016 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS by Member States of the UN at the recently concluded UN General Assembly Special Session last week.

Michel Sidibe, Executive Director of UNAIDS, was quoted in the New York Times saying that he felt ‘the declaration was something to be proud of’. UNAIDS sees this Declaration as another victory in a complex political process which it was tasked with 20 years ago when it was established in 1996. Convening national governments and civil society, and building their capacities on issues related to HIV, has been the central mandate of UNAIDS.

In sharp contrast, campaigners from across the world have called the Political Declaration a ‘high level failure’. In a scathing statement issued by the global coalitions of civil society organisations, reflecting their disbelief and anger at the fatal omissions, they further called it ‘a significant set-back’ and a ‘very weak’ Declaration."

Has UNAIDS been caught napping?

, which coincided with the UN High Level Meeting on HIV in New York, Boston Medical Center (BMC) clinician researchers assessed current global evidence and found that mandatory treatment for people with substance use disorders is not effective in reducing their drug use. In addition, mandatory treatment, which is defined as treatment ordered, motivated or supervised under the criminal justice system, done without a patient's informed consent violates their human rights and does more harm than benefit to the patient.

Bulat Idrisov, MD, MSc, and Karsten Lunze, MD, MPH, DrPH, from the Clinical Addiction Research and Education Unit at BMC and Boston University School of Medicine, in collaboration with researchers in Canada and Malaysia, assessed global data and found that countries often lack the capacity to treat substance use disorders. This happens because they are not able to offer the diagnostic and therapeutic modalities and providers trained in addiction medicine that are necessary for effective treatment.

Mandatory treatment not effective at reducing drug use, violates human rights

The sudden derailing of much-anticipated reforms to legalize medical marijuana in Mexico, as well as raise the possession threshold, has raised doubts over whether President Enrique Peña Nieto's initial promotion of the ideas was ever anything more than good public relations.

"It looks like he never really wanted it," said drug policy expert and activist Lisa Sánchez, noting that it is the president's own Institutional Revolutionary Party that has blocked the reforms. "It's either that, or the PRI now considers that Peña is a liability and his opinion is worth nothing from now until the next presidential elections in 2018."

Sánchez was trying to explain what happened to make the PRI recoil from a proposal that President Peña submitted to legislators in late April. This included both the legalization of marijuana-based medication, and raising the amount of marijuana individuals can carry without risking criminal prosecution from five to 28 grams, or one ounce.

Mexico's president may have been bluffing about his support for weed decriminalization

U Bo sits on the floor of his bamboo hut and puts away a plastic tray covered with a small heap of what looks like sticky, brown tar. This is the day’s opium harvest, which he and his family scraped off the bulbs of their two-acre field of poppies.

His farm, at the foot of a lush mountain, in eastern Myanmar’s Shan state, includes another two acres of rice. Opium will provide his family of seven in Pe Kin village with much-needed cash – his 6kg of opium could fetch about $1,800 (£1,250) – while the paddy provides food.

“We grow poppies because other [cash] crops don’t grow well here. Corn is not good with the poor soil and weather,” says U Bo, 57, a farmer from the Kayan ethnic group.

“I spend most of the money [from opium] on sending my children to school, the rest I use to plant fruit trees,” he says. The opium is sold through a network of secret traders.

The opium bulbs of Myanmar: drug crop or lifeline for poor farmers?

There was praise for the bold goals in the political declaration adopted by the 193-national General Assembly at the United Nations High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS on 8-10 June, but there was also widespread condemnation of the decision to include only limited references in the declaration to those most at risk of contracting HIV – men who have sex with men, sex workers, transgender people, and people who inject drugs – and to services for these populations.

The problems started before the conference even got underway when, as reported by the Associated Press, Russia, Cameroon, Tanzania and 51 Muslim countries blocked 22 NGOs representing key and vulnerable populations, primarily of gay and transgendered groups, from attending the conference.

In the declaration, countries pledged to end AIDS by 2030. They committed to ensuring that 30 million people living with HIV have access to treatment by 2020. They also committed to reducing the number of new HIV infections to below 500,000 a year by 2020, down from 2.1 million in 2015, and bringing the number of annual AIDS-related deaths to under half a million in 2020, from 1.1 million last year.

U.N. political declaration on HIV contains bold goals, but key populations excluded

 is a broad platform for a structured dialogue between the European Commission and civil society organisations which supports policy formulation and implementation through practical advice.

As part of its current work, the CSFD is interested in civil society engagement in national drug policies. With this in mind, we have created a questionnaire for civil society organisations across Europe to tell us what they think. The questionnaire will take no longer than 20 minutes to complete, and is available 

. The CSFD hopes to get input from a large number of civil society organisations across Europe.

The deadline for filling in the survey is 

. The information you provide will be used in developing a report for the CSFD, which will:

provide an analysis of the current state of play with regard to civil society engagement in national policy structures,

highlight models of what can work in the area of civil society engagement, such that civil society organisations can identify models which may suit them,

describe linkages between national and EU structures in a way that is useful for civil society organisations

make concrete recommendations to the European Commission regarding effective CS engagement at a national level

If you have any questions, please email: 

Survey by the Civil Society Forum on Drugs‏

In the recently concluded Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGASS) on the World Drug Problem, 2016, a shift towards a "humane solution" was mooted, emphasizing that the international community should focus beyond criminalization and enforcement in order to initiate an effective drug policy. This special session on drugs, which comes after a long break of 18 years, has been considered monumental for its clear statement demanding a move away from the hardline, prohibitionist approach towards drugs. Several countries, including those worst affected by international drug trafficking and drug-related violence, like Mexico, Columbia, and Guatemala, argued for decriminalization of drugs, pointing to past experiences where repressive treatment towards drug problem have proved counterproductive. India, however, represented by its Finance Minister Mr Arun Jaitley, made a statement urging the global community to toughen its collective fight against drug trafficking and its network with terrorists.

UNGASS 2016: nations call for a humane approach to drug problem, but is India listening?

The Public Defender declared that imprisonment of drug users should be unconstitutional and on June 15, 2016 filed a lawsuit to the Constitutional Court, in which he disputes the constitutionality of article 45 of the Code of Administrative Offences and article 273 of the Criminal Code of Georgia. According to the Public Defender, the use of drugs without doctor's prescription is punished by a 15-day administrative detention, while in the repeated case drug users are punished by a fine of up to 1000 GEL and a 1-year jail, which is not in line with the public threat and interest that may be caused by the actions envisaged by the mentioned articles, and therefore, is in breach to paragraphs 1 and 2 of article 17 of the Constitution of Georgia, pertaining to protection of a person from degrading and inhuman punishment.

In addition the Public defender’s statement notes that a necessary element of a crime envisaged by article 273 of the Criminal Code of Georgia is an action, for which a person had already been held responsible; this is contrary to the principle of prohibition of repeated punishment of a person for one and the same crime, enshrined in article 42 of the Constitution of Georgia - "No one shall be convicted twice for the same offense."

Georgia: New era of drug policy change lawsuits in the Constitutional Court

"The issue about drug policies is that nothing is simple: It's all based on ideology. So we have international drug control conventions and the international drug control regime that is still very much promoting a war on drugs approach. But governments or some parts of governments are now moving forward. The UNGASS that took place in April has shown that there is a division now between countries. Some of them want to have a new approach that is very pragmatic, healthy and human-rights based but you have still quite of few countries that still promote war on drugs approach."

News