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поиск по ресурсному центру The present report aims to analyze the most common perceptions and fears, contrast them with available evidence on drugs and the people who use them, and provides recommendations on changes that must be enacted to support reforms toward more effective drug policies.
Drug policy reforms have been difficult to design, legislate or implement because current policies and responses are often based on perceptions and passionate beliefs, and what should be factual discussions leading to effective policies are frequently treated as moral debates. The present report aims to analyze the most common perceptions and fears, contrast them with available evidence on drugs and the people who use them, and provides recommendations on changes that must be enacted to support reforms toward more effective drug policies.
In its previous six reports, the Global Commission has highlighted the human cost of misguided policies, their inability to reduce the production and consumption of illegal drugs, and to thwart criminal organizations. The Commission has also provided a comprehensive overview of the measures required to effectively address the consequences of these failed policies. These consequences
include: the spread of infectious diseases, deaths from overdose and the use of adulterated substances, violence associated with repression and gang turf wars, corruption, a shortage of adequate drug treatment and pain relief, overcrowded prisons, and an absence of any perspective of social integration for people with a drug-related criminal record, including consumers and non-violent actors involved in the illegal production or sale of drugs. This list is far from exhaustive.
Also affected are families and friends of those in direct contact with drugs, inhabitants of areas overrun by the illegal market, and even society as a whole. Governments waste great amounts of public money on repression rather than financing efficient prevention, treatment and harm reduction measures. Society is adversely impacted by policies that abandon the control of drugs to criminal organizations.
The situation portrayed above varies from one country and region to another, depending on whether there is a health crisis and how serious it is, the degree of prison overcrowding, the level of drug-related violence, and the weight of organized crime. Within each country, different populations suffer to varying degrees from the presence of drugs and the shortcomings of drug policies.
Reforms should therefore not be the same from one country to the next, from one region to another. Drug policy reforms must take into account local parameters and the real needs of individuals and communities. Thus, it is essential for reforms to be based on an in-depth analysis of the problems that need to be solved; they must also mobilize all those who are involved in the process, and provide for an adequate evaluation of their impact.
Responses that are both rational and pragmatic, that relinquish ideology and renounce illusions about a drug-free society, are increasingly being implemented across the world. Governments are offering harm reduction services, decriminalizing use and possession for personal use, providing alternatives to punishment for non-violent, low-level actors involved in the production and sale of illegal drugs, and legally regulating cannabis and new psychoactive substances.
