Practical proposals for UNGASS docs [1]
‘Member states decide to…’
Demand Reduction
[Crossover]
Human Rights
[Crossover]
Supply Reduction

Public health – orientation of
drug policy

UN Special Rapporteur on Drugs
and Human Rights

Organised crime indicators
cover a broader approach

Link all approaches of supply
reduction to SDG-agenda

Promote the WHO/ UNODC
treatment guidelines – make
sure they are in the outcome doc
& run alongside event there & at
CND event

Focus international action on saving
lives everywhere

Balance approach
supply/demand

Articulate cost-benefit argument
for proportionate LE approach

Governments should decriminalise
personalise possession and
subsistence level of farming of illicit
crops

Law enforcement and
human rights

To have in mind the ‘shared
responsibility principle’ and
cooperation source countries
cannot themselves solve the
problems of consumer countries

Review current scheduling of most
used substances based on
scientific assessment of risks of
that substance
Treatment

MS Should define evidencebased & appropriate drug
dependence treatment

Be bold in setting out treatment
evidence base (OST, needle
exchange, naloxone)

Governments should support
broad range of harm reduction
services and evidence based
UN Action


Big Fish
Put human rights at the top of the
agenda and outcome text and set
up body to articulate what it means.
Body: Tech. Human rights.
Independent and multistakeholder.
Establish a mandatory and regular
session of the human rights council
on the state of human rights abuses
on the implementation of drug
policy
1

MS should: acknowledge that
goals and targets need to be
reviewed & need to be meaningful

Member states should: review
legislative / enforcement
measures to include alternatives
to prosecution/incarceration for
drug consumption

Alignment of law enforcement with
treatment

Adoption WHO/ UNODC
treatment guidelines in outcomes
doc

Move debate beyond ‘treatment’
to recovery (psych support, jobs,
housing)
Prevention
*In outcome doc


Be clear what does not work in
prevention (mass media
campaign. Ex users -> schools)
Be clear what does work; work
on prevention (life skills,
resilience, targeted approaches)

Joint task force: CND – Executive
Board (WHO)
Alt to Car

Reduce sentences of minor crimes
to avoid mandatory prison

No punishment or criminalisation of
drug use or related activities

Encourage alternatives to
incarceration

Guidelines on alternatives to
incarceration

MS should: commit to principle of
overarching aims of drug policy

Protection of individual health and
rights of drug user

Protection of public health and
security

In line with UN principles

Strengthen international
cooperation to identify and bring to
justice main actors in the drug
market , inter alia, by tracing the
illicit financial flows

Establish regional drug tribunals
and showing of judges to
prosecute main actors in the drug
market

Create a mechanism clarifying the
role of LE / criminal justice in
international drug policy

Strengthen police and customs
cooperation to get the “big fish”
during transit actions
Financial Flows

Focus more on proportionate
sentences for low level members
of the trafficking chain, typically
“mules” (Costa Rica model as
inspiration)

Understanding of range of
proportionate criminal justice
responses

Transparency of political party
finance
principle of support. Don’t punish,
as in US paper.

Children
Advocate for the protection of children
in conflict with the law to protect their
future and ensure they have
appropriate treatment
Recognising that smart means
recognising the fluid offer +
markets are unstoppable and
huge demands will not decrease

Address money laundering by
large/global financial institutions.

Targeted law enforcement  illicit
financial flows

Open ended group CND CCPCJ

Take planned measures to end
impunity for major criminals and
their protectors including through
extradition

Measure, legislate and prosecute
drug money coming into the
political system

Police focus on addressing
vulnerability
Explore non-punitive responses.
Including regulation of markets
DP
Link Enforcement and Health

Governments should put a
moratorium on death penalty for
drugs

Participation of civil society in drug
policy design (including users
organisation)


Member states should: not assume
other countries problems and
cultures mirror theirs. Define
precisely what the terms they use
mean. Focus on practical
deliverable solutions not grand
strategies of principle.

Ensure a close cooperation
between law – enforcement
and social and health
services

Identify 6000 practices on
cooperation between
health-justice

Building bridges between
enforcement and treatment
to promote health and
reduce crime

Ensure coordination
between police and health
Proportionality

To provide for a definition of
proportionality of sentences, in
relation to drugs, because the
concept is not defined at
international level

Treat proportionally with low level
community drug dealing

Focus more on proportionality
regarding sentences for low level
members of the trafficking chain,
typically mules (no prison
sentence for low level members)

MS should...drugs and crime
ensure that sanctions for drug law
care

Member states ensure
police training should
include social service
training

Integrate drug
use/treatment components
into health programmes in
development cooperation

Member states should:
introduce provisions into
their law/ codes on
alternatives to incarceration
offences are proportionate to the
seriousness or minor nature of the
offence

Addressing cultural barriers to
proportionality. How can you have
proportional response to cannabis
if eg in Ghana is regarded as “the
devil’s tobacco”?
Practical proposals for UNGASS docs [2]
‘Member states decide to…’
New Challenges
Alternative Development
Other
Indicators
Implementation
Use

Reset indicators of success for 2019


Start a comprehensive discussion of metrics for success
for drug policy. For alignment with human rights. SDG’s
(2030 agenda).
Member states should use alternative development in a
manner which is long term, sustainable, and integrated in
the larger economic system

No forced eradication of subsistence farming until
alternative livelihoods are sufficiently in place

Aligning international drug policy with UN SDG’s and
public health principles

Include AD programmes into peace promotion, inclusive
society, development approach

Other initiate process to review objectives of drug control
system, with a new set of view to stating broad based
objectives and indicators for 2019.
Policy

De-emphasise expectations around shifts in language and
focus on shifting policy implementation and resource
allocation. Scale up HIV, HCV responses.
Agree on structures of how to deal with the drug problem
– and then – actions accordingly

Recognise imbalances in the implementation of policy

International fund for drug development programmes

Develop a plan for prioritising reviews of NPS for control.

Member states should commit to time bound deduction in
illicit crops by comprehensive strategy of alternative
development, law enforcement, and crop eradication

To highlight that alternative development is a just and
equitable public policy to tackle the drug problem

Push alternative development through I.C.A.D
Legislation

Member states should explore new ways of legislation on
NPS. Industry generate scheduling as opposed to
substance by substance scheduling.
Evaluation

Conventions

To ensure the availability and access to controlled
substances for medical and scientific purposes

Allow cultivation for personal use and for traditional and
medicinal uses

Make sure access to essential meds is in outcome doc & do
some practical work around the blocks and how to
overcome them. Pain relief is more important than fear of
diversion.
Evidence
To commit to mainstream alternative development in all
development programmes funded by UN and member
states

Member states should investigate and prosecute with its
framework of the rule of law high level trafficking, and
those who protect and support them
Develop a plan to promote availability of drugs for medical
and scientific uses while preventing diversion
Commitment



AD: member states should commit to evaluation criteria
for AD project which should include human development
indices as well as reduction in area wide illicit crops

Multilateral platform (WHO, UNODC, UNAIDS, UNODP) to
promote and share evidence-based best practices in supply,
demand, and harm reduction

Commit to creating and resourcing a comprehensive
structure for collecting and disseminating evidence and best
practices on drug policy and programmes.

MS should set up or reinforce drugs observatories to
support evidence based decision making and the definitions
of balanced, integrated, evidence-based policies and
strategies

Don’t break the conventions

Have honest debate about the conventions

If we don’t finish the conventions, can we ensure the
schedules make more space

Agreement on flexible interpretation of conventions that
allow for nations/initiatives experiments “outside of the
box”
Coordination

Implementing balanced-approach coordination of
ministries of health, interior, justice, education…

Promote the links of SDG’s and law enforcement.

New challenge: open working group on drugs policy

Effectively engage UN system of drugs in sustainable
coordination effort

Establish expert advisory group to prepare for 2019.

Specify practice/toolkit for dealing with NPS (don’t need
totally relevant wheel?)

International cooperation on implementation – a balanced
approach to NPS

Establish and connect national, regional, and global. NPS
early warning systems.

Generate a mechanism for the revision of the potential
impact of drugs and drug policy in the attainment of the
2030 development agenda. Multi-agency.