‘Taking a New Line on Drugs’ assesses the situation in the UK as regards rising health harm from illegal drugs, with reference to their context within the wider ‘drugscape’ of legal drugs such as alcohol and tobacco, and sets out a new vision for a holistic public health-led approach to drugs policy at a UK-wide level

From a public health perspective, the purpose of a good drugs strategy should be to improve and protect the public’s health and wellbeing by preventing and reducing the harm linked to substance use, whilst also balancing any potential medicinal benefits. RSPH is calling for the UK to consider exploring, trialling and testing such an approach, rather than one reliant on the criminal justice system.

Read more: Taking a New Line on Drugs

“Drugs have destroyed many people, but wrong policies have destroyed many more”, said Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary-General. Indeed, international drug policy has been fraught with inconsistency and controversy. Global drug control started when the first international drug treaty—The International Opium Convention—was signed at The Hague, Netherlands, in 1912. However, a global system against narcotic drugs was not fully fledged until 1961, when the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs was adopted. The Convention is an international treaty that seeks to prohibit production and allow supply of narcotic drugs exclusively for medical and scientific purposes, and combats drug trafficking through international cooperation. Although considered as a landmark convention in the history of the campaign against narcotic drugs and the bedrock of the current UN-based global drug control regime, the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs was also criticised as neither reflecting the huge negative impact of pursuing drug prohibition on public health and human rights nor being scientifically grounded. For the first time in two decades, the UN General Assembly’s Special Session (UNGASS; April 19–21, 2016) will be about the world drug problem. It will be a crucial moment for revisiting and reforming international drug policy.

The Lancet

The global drug problem violates human rights in five key areas – the right to health, the rights relating to criminal justice and discrimination, the rights of the child and the rights of indigenous peoples, a senior United Nations official said today.

“It is clear that the world’s drug problem impacts the enjoyment of a wide range of human rights, often resulting in serious violations,” said Flavia Pansieri, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“It is, nevertheless, a positive development that human rights are increasingly being taken into account in the preparations for the General Assembly’s Special Session on the world drug problem to be held in April 2016,” she said.

Ms. Pansieri made the remarks during her presentation of the report by the High Commissioner for Human Rights during a panel discussion on issues related to human rights and drug policy taking place on the side lines of the 30th session of the Human Rights Council underway in Geneva, Switzerland.

She said “the report addresses the impact of the world drug problem in five main areas: the right to health, rights relating to criminal justice, the prohibition of discrimination including, in particular against ethnic minorities and women, the rights of the child and the rights of indigenous peoples.”

On the right to health, she said the report therefore encourages States to embrace harm reduction approaches when dealing with drug dependent persons.

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