Members of EP and NGO representatives discussed the possible ways to influence the 10 years evaluation of the UN drug policy
The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), a fraction of the European Parliament organized a public meeting on Thursday, 6 March in Brussels, in order to discuss the past 10 years of global drug control policies and “to address all the aspects of the UN Drug Control Strategy and the steps to be taken to ensure that the Member States, the EU and the UN promote a more pragmatic approach on drugs strategies at the national, European and international level”. Beside MEPs, the organizers invited the representatives of UNODC (but nobody showed up from their side finally), the Drugs Unit of the European Commission (represented by Timo Jetsu), EMCDDA (represented by Danilo Ballotta and Carla Rossi) and NGO advocates. The meeting was chaired by Marco Cappato (from the Transnational Radical Party, Italy), Chris Davies (Liberal Democrats, UK), Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert (VVD, the Netherlands) and Sophie in 't Veld (D66, the Netherlands). The Civil Liberties Commission hold a meeting at the same time so many MEPs attended the hearing, but Cappato ensured us that the printed and video materials of the meeting will be sent to all MEPs, so the message will be delivered.
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Timo Jetsu from the EC emphasized that there is no common EU drug policy like in the field of agriculture for example, and this limits the competence and jurisdiction of his department, but EU institutions produced important recommendations and non-binding papers (like the drug strategy and action plan) on common goals and means. The Commission never supported a “war on drugs” approach and favours a “ballanced” and “evidence-based” drug policy. He sounded skeptic about the possibilities to change the basic framework of the UN drug control system, even though he acknowledged we need changes, and he said the Commission has already done a lot to influence global drug policies in the proper direction.
Carla Rossi and Roberto Ricci made a presentation on possible new policy evaluation tools on the global drug control system, which failed to reduce the supply and demand of illicit drugs according to available data. The Afghan opium industry is growing and became a profitable business for a country where the war destroyed legal means of living. There are new drugs coming from the pharmaceutical industry, the activities of the drug trade became global, drug traffickers cooperate with terrorist groups to counterbalance eradication programs in producer countries. Law enforcement agencies usually can neutralize only small scale traffickers. They emphasized the need for "a new macro economic model to mirror the relationships between the various actors and sub-systems".
Matsakis Marios (independent MEP, Cyprus) expressed a compassionate criticism toward the EC and especially the EMCDDA, because according to his view if they are not capable to tell us what works and what doesn’t work in the field of drug policy, there is no need to spend millions of Euros on these institutions. He said data collection itself is nothing, what we need is to evaluation and concrete recommendations on best practices. Danilo Ballotta (EMCDDA) defended his organization by pointing out that what Matsakis suggests is not in the mandate of EMCDDA, they can only provide “soft tools” for policy makers but they cannot evaluate national drug policies as such, but the European Parliament can make an official proposal to broaden the role of the EC Drugs Unit to do so. Mr. Matsakis also expressed concerns about the present attitudes of drug policies: only a very small proportion of addicts can be completely cured from addiction, and for those who do not want to be cured the only possibility is criminalization. He suggested to create a medical prescription scheme that can supply all addicts with their daily doses, in order to cut off the illegal market and prevent infections and crime.
In the second session of the meeting NGO representatives made suggestions to the Parliament on the possible ways to influence the UNGASS evaluation process. Thanasis Apostolou (Transnational Institute) proposed to create an alliance of likeminded countries to push the UNGASS to make changes in the worst paragraphs of the UN conventions. For example those paragraphs of the 1988 convention which require member states to punish drug users with imprisonment. He also suggested to change the control regime of cannabis and create a new legal framework based on the recent experiences with tobacco regulation, and to stop the forced eradication campaigns in the third world. He pointed out that the balanced approach of drug policies have to be reflected by drug budgets too. Fredrick Polak (ENCOD) described the recent political situation with regard to drug policy in the Dutch parliament. He said many Liberal MPs do not support drug policy reform because they think drugs deprive people from their free will – the capacity to make informed choices. As a psychiatrist he criticized this position and stressed that the majority of drug users do not loose their free will more than people who drink alcohol moderately. Peter Sarosi (HCLU) made four practical recommendations for the European Parliament. First, to push EU and UN institutions to create more effective tools and mechanisms to involve civil society to drug policy decision making in a meaningful way, based on the experiences of the organizations fighting HIV/AIDS. Second, to put human rights in the forefront of drug policy reform efforts: this year marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, EU has to put human rights issues to the agenda, like the upcoming Thai drug war. Third, to initiate the evaluation of drug policies involving external evaluators instead of self-congratulating government agencies. Fourth, he expressed the need of more public advocacy efforts and media campaigns: high level meetings and consultations will not change drug policies until the public opinion is against reform.
Danny Kuschlick (Transform) reminded the participants that 10 years ago he witnessed the same discussions in the drug policy reform movement, and almost nothing changed, we are still not able to do more than write letters. There is no real chance to change the drug conventions next year, said Kuschlick, according to his predictions drug prohibition still needs at least two decades to end. Drug prohibition as a system will destroy itself, but we can speed up this process with effective campaigning. High standard evaluations can show to the public the consequences of drug prohibition and make the system transparent, even if the government tries to hide the inconvenient truth as the UK government did. According to the estimations of Transform, every single dollar spent on the enforcement of prohibition will cost 9 dollars for repairing the harms it creates. Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch (OSI) said the real question is not if the UN political declaration could achieve its goals, but what are the costs of its implementation for public health and human rights. Many countries report increasing numbers of treated drug addicts, but UNODC has no standard for what are the acceptable ways of drug treatment. In some Asian countries treatment means forced labour, chains and humiliation. In China authorities claim heroin users are not compliant of the rules of methadone clinics – but the explanation is that these clinics create prison-like atmosphere and guarded by policemen, so drug users are not willing to enter. In Russia drug addicts are “treated” in closed wards of hospitals, which led to the tragedy of more than 40 women burning inside a Moscow hospital last year. Instead of empty slogans on treatment of drug users, we need clear protocols and criteria from the UN on what constitutes ethical and effective treatment.
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Speech at the European Parliament
Peter Sarosi
Recently the drug policy reform movement achieved significant successes in the EU and UN levels as well. The European Commission initiated new mechanisms to involve civil society and organized a civil society forum in December. The Vienna NGO Committee organized regional consultation meetings for NGOs, Eastern-European NGOs gathered in Kyev and Belgrade, NGOs from EU member states in Budapest, to discuss the 10 years progress (or rather the lack of progress) in the implementation of the UNGASS political declaration of 1998. These meetings revealed the lack of political will of governments and underdevelopment of NGO capacities in most member states to involve civil society in drug policy decision making in a meaningful way. In addition, those people who are the most affected by drug policies are still perceived by governments as the problem and not the solution of the problem: their human rights are often sacrifised for the „greater good” of drug control. Current reports from the Beckley Foundation and IHRA pointed out that human rights conventions are superior to drug control conventions. Most NGOs at the Beyond 2008 meeting in Budapest also emphasized that human rights, especially the right to health have to be at the heart of drug control policies. I think that we have to put the concept of a human rights based drug policy to the centre of our advocacy efforts in the eve of the 2009 UNGASS meeting, especially because 2008 also marks the 60th aniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We can use this occasion as an opportunity to direct attention to the failure of international drug control system to address the human rights of drug users.
How to achieve this goal in practice?
My first recommendation: during the preparation of the new EU Action Plan on Drugs EP has to urge national governments to create effective ways to make the voices of drug users and NGOs helping drug users heard. My country, Hungary can be set as a good example for the meaningful involvment of civil society in the field of drug policy: last year the Hungarian goverment invited all NGOs involved in drug related activities to a meeting where they elected 4 representatives, who can now attend the meetings of the interministerial Drug Coordination Commission as full members. As one of these NGO representatives, I can tell that these mechanisms can be extremely useful in the work of advocacy groups like mine, because we can put the most important issues on the agenda of the government. But even in Hungary, there is not a single active drug user invoved in any decision making forum as a partner. This attitude should be changed. The involvment of people living with HIV/AIDS by international organizations can serve as a good example for the world of drug policy how to engage in a dialouge with people who use drugs.
Second, there is a lot of talk about evaluation and assessment with regard to UN drug policy, but the real substance of this process is rather disappointing: the evaluation only exists in the slogans. In his fifth report on the world drug problem (prepared for the Commission on Narcotic Drugs) Mr. Antonio-Maria Costa, Executive Director of UNODC plays with a new magic word, „containment”: he says the global prohibition managed to contain the drug problem in an acceptable level in comparison with licit drugs. His purpose is obvious: to present the past 10 years of the drug control system as a major success, without facing the evidence about its harmful consequences on security, public health and human rights. One of the most important role of reform activists is to refute the self-congratulating claims of UN officials and governments that make society believe that the recent system works effectively, or at least it will work better if we strengthen our committment and be more tough on crime. European NGOs, political parties and national governments have to put human rights issues on the agenda of the CND and other international decision making forums, like the devastating „war on drugs” of the Thai government, killing more than 2000 people on the streets without trial, the inhumane conditions of drug treatment centers in many transitional and developing countries, where drug users fell victim to systematical abuse and humiliation, or the federal ban on substitution treatment in Russia, denying access to essential medicines for drug users.
We also have to fight the dangerous utopia of drug-free society in the local and national level: with encouraging and facilitating the evaluation and monitoring of drug policy in the EU. The EU drug strategy and most of national drug strategies aim to reduce significantly the demand and supply of illicit drugs, and all of them failed to achive these goals. But there are no real evaluations in place. According to the recent annual report of the EMCDDA, there were only two countries in Europe who attempted to evaluate the implementation of their national drug strategies with the involvment of external evaluators: Hungary and Portugal. Even in Hungary where an evaluation – with rather limited scope – took place with the help of the Trimbos Institute, the findings of the researchers had minimal impact on decision makers and generated quite few public discussions. I think we can draw a very pessimistic picture on the evaluation of global drug policies if even the most developed part of the world makes so few efforts to evaluate their own national drug policies. NGOs, activists and political parties interested in drug policy change have to urge national and local governments to allocate resources to make external and independent evaluations of the effectiveness of drug policies, with special regards to the field of supply reduction, on which the most money is spent, without any proof that these efforts can really reduce the supply of drugs. In my country the government spends 8 Billion Forints on the criminal justice related costs of drug policy while it spends only 2 Billion Forints on public health and social care interventions. While there are significant evidences that treatment and harm reduction can effectively reduce drug related harms for society, there is not a single proof that the 4 times more money spent on supply reduction will result in any improvement of the situation.
We have to go beyond the superficiallity of drug statistics if we would like to raise awareness on the disastrous effects of the restrictive policies on our communities. For example the new annual report of the EMCDDA claims there is a large increase in the number of people who seek treatment for cannabis related problems, and this was reflected by media as if cannabis would have become more potent and more dangerous than ever before. But very few journalists observed that the increase in the number of cannabis related problems can be mostly attributed to newly developed criminal justice referal schemes. If you look at the countries reported the greatest increase in cannabis treatment demand, you can see that in most of the cases people did not enter treatment voluntariliy but they were refered to treatment by the criminal justice system, simply because they were arrested by the police for using illicit drugs. In Hungary for instance, thousands of occasional cannabis users are forced to undergo treatment programs every year, but heroin addicts have to wait months to start methadon maintenance treatment because of the lack of funding, and there is no money for targeted HIV prevention programs for IDUs. The coverage of harm reduction programs is much lower in the new member states, and – in violation with the EU Drugs Action Plan itself – there is no access to substitution treatment in most of the prisons – but the public discussion on drug policy is dominated by unproven statements on the „growing harms“ of cannabis use. This is something which we have to change.
And this is my third point: drug policy reform advocates have to see that it is not enough to engage in high level decision making processes at the EU or UN level, we need to mobilize communities and change public attitudes. We have to create an optimal environment in which politicans can make the right decisions, without fearing to loose votes and power. There are many professional networks, think thanks and lobby groups promoting drug policy reform in Europe, with different approaches and focuses: IDPC, TNI, IHRA, Senlis Council, INPUD. All of them are engaged in high level discussions with political decision makers from national governments and international organizations. This is a very important work – but only part of the solution. What is missing from the drug policy reform arena in Europe is public advocacy: to open the eyes of the general public on the harms of drug prohibition. In some countries there are very good initiatives for changing public attitudes, and definitely we can learn a lot from NGOs in the US, where civil society is doing a much more professional work with the media (even if they have to fight a stronger resistance). The members of the European Parliament can take the political leadership in the movement for a drug policy based on human rights, they have the necessary capacities, assistance from professional organizations and access to media.
Useful links:
TNI's blog on the UNGASS review
