Media/News > Press Releases > UN drug Summit: "A drug free world , we can spin it!"

16/04/03

The annual Vienna meeting of the UN Commission for Narcotic Drugs draws to a close tomorrow (17.04.03). It has special significance, marking the half way point of the UN's 10 year drug strategy, agreed by world leaders in New York in 1988 under the banner "a drug free world, we can do it!".

TDPI spokes person Steve Rolles said;
"This meeting has clearly been a missed opportunity. What should be a gathering of experts to facilitate the development of effective responses to the global drug problem has instead become a futile restatement of counterproductive policies and unrealistic pledges.

"As the world drug problem continues to spiral out of control we are forced to watch the ludicrous spectacle of the CND self-righteously proclaiming that everything is getting better.

"The UN drug control agencies and UN drug treaties are aligned to US 'war on drugs' ideology that has been complete disaster everywhere it has been tried. UN drug agencies are so extreme that they are now even condemning 'lenient' countries, including the UK, for developing health based harm
reduction policies, despite compelling evidence that such interventions are highly effective.

"It is bizarre that the UK, hardly a cheerleader for the drug policy revolution, is being singled out for criticism on the basis of a minor legislative tweak to cannabis policing. We are now being talked of in the same breath as Holland and Portugal.

"The Government would do well to heed the final 2 recommendations of the last years Home Affairs Select Committee report which called called for the UN treaties 'to be reconsidered' and for the Government to 'initiate a discussion within the Commission on Narcotic Drugs of alternative ways -
including the possibility of legalisation and regulation - to tackle the global drugs dilemma'. It is time for the UN to stop the spin and admit that its drug strategy has been an abject failure that has only served to abdicate control of the drugs market to violent organised criminals, destabilising countries from Afghanistan to Colombia.

ENDS

Notes for editors;

Contacts

A TDPI spokesperson is available for print and broadcast media comment (office: 0117 941 5810, mobile 07980 213 943)

Further information

Up to date information and analysis on the Vienna CND meeting from the Transnational Institute http://www.tni.org/drugs/ungass/index.htm

Website of the International Coalition of NGO's for a just and effective drug policy http://wwwvienna2003.org

Website of the UN Office for Drugs and Crime http://www.odccp.org

HASC report
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200102/cmselect/cmhaf f/318/31802.htm