In a speech delivered last week at an international harm reduction conference, United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called drug decriminalization “a crucial step toward a more humane and effective drug policy,” saying that prohibition and criminalization “are failing some of the most vulnerable groups in our societies.”
Official: “We must adopt a transformational approach.” We need evidence-based and gender-sensitive drug policies that are grounded in public healthcare, instead of punitive steps. In place of victimizing, we need to ensure everyone can access voluntary medical care and adequate housing. “Harm reduction, which reduces drug-related deaths, is essential.”
Türk’s comments came in an address to the Harm Reduction International Conference, held in Bogotá, Colombia. Turk said that such conferences are important and useful, gathering people from all walks of life, including academics, health professionals, drug users, criminal justice workers and more.
“I particularly welcome the participation of people who use drugs, who have historically been marginalised, criminalised, discriminated against and left behind—often stripped of their dignity and their rights.”
Drug-related crimes and drug criminalization have been a failure of prohibition and criminalization.
The high commissioner emphasized that policies of prohibition and criminalization also contribute to discrimination—”particularly against Indigenous Peoples and people of African descent”—and are having “a large and growing impact on our climate and environment, from water stress to deforestation and the dumping of toxic waste.”
He said that prohibition should be replaced by “responsible regulations” which “should aim at taking control of the illegal drug markets and eliminating profits from criminality, illegal trafficking and violence,”
While Türk acknowledged that there’s “no one-size-fits-all approach to responsible regulation” of drugs, he said that “collaboration is crucial.”
Civil society is crucial in advocating and implementing policies that reduce harm. In his speech in Spanish, he also spoke via video. “Governments must prioritize an open civic environment where people from civil society and drug users can freely express themselves without being harassed or intimidated.” The seeds of hope that we plant today will help to advance drug policies focused on protecting people and promoting human rights.
Harm Reduction International (which hosted the event last week) released a report in 2017 that found nearly 13 billion dollars of U.S. tax payer money had been spent on funding worldwide anti-narcotics efforts since 2015. This was often at the cost of global poverty reduction and contributing to human rights abuses as well as environmental harm.
A year earlier, a separate HRI report found that from 2012 to 2021, 30 donor countries spent $974 million in international aid funding on drug control. This included spending $70 millions in countries that can impose the death sentence for drug offenses.
In a report from 2023, another group, International Coalition on Drug Policy Reform and Environmental Justice (ICDPREJ), wrote that the global prohibition of drugs has led to environmental destruction, which undermines efforts to combat the climate crisis.
As policymakers, governments, NGOs and activists work to craft urgent responses to protect tropical forests, which are some of the largest carbon sinks on the planet, the report says that “their efforts will fail as long as those committed to environmental protection neglect to recognize, and grapple with, the elephant in the room”—namely “the global system of criminalized drug prohibition, popularly known as the ‘war on drugs.'”
Türk, for his part, said late last year that the global war on drugs “has failed, completely and utterly.”
He said at a Warsaw conference that criminalisation and prohibition had failed to reduce the use of drugs and deter crime related to drug abuse. His comments were similar to those he made this week. “These policies are simply not working—and we are failing some of the most vulnerable groups in our societies.”
Türk similarly urged a shift to a more evidence-based, human rights-centered approach to drug policies “prioritising people over punishment.”
These remarks follow on from a declaration made by UN Special Reporters, Experts and Working Groups in early 2024 that the “drug war has resulted in serious human rights abuses, documented for years by UN Human Rights experts.”
This statement stated that “we collectively urge Member States, and all UN agencies, to place evidence and communities in the center of their drug policies by moving from punishment to support.” “Invest in the full range of evidence-based interventions in health for those who use drugs ranging from treatment, harm reduction and prevention, to aftercare and aftercare.
UN experts also highlighted other UN agency positions, reports, and resolutions, as well actions to prioritize prevention and harm-reduction over punishment.
It pointed, for example, to what it called a “landmark report” published by the UN special rapporteur on human rights that encouraged nations to abandon the criminal war on drugs and instead adopt harm-reduction policies—such as decriminalization, supervised consumption sites, drug checking and widespread availability of overdose reversal drugs like naloxone—while also moving toward “alternative regulatory approaches” for currently controlled substances.
That report noted that “over-criminalisation, stigmatisation and discrimination linked to drug use represent structural barriers leading to poorer health outcomes.”
A year ago, a separate UN special rapporteurs report said that “the ‘war on drugs’ may be understood to a significant extent as a war on people.”
They said that the impact of poverty was greatest for those living in it, and often overlapped with other forms of discrimination against minorities, Indigenous Peoples, marginalised groups.
In 2019, the UN Chief Executives Board (CEB), which represents 31 UN agencies including the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), adopted a position stipulating that member states should pursue science-based, health-oriented drug policies—namely decriminalization.
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