General Assembly meets this week to debate future of global drug policy. “A drug-free world — We can do it!”
That was the overly ambitious motto endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1998, the last time it convened for a high-level debate on global drug policy.
Eighteen years later it seems clear that, no, we can’t do it.
Just ask the governments of Mexico, Colombia and Guatemala which, amid staggering violence fuelled by the international narcotics trade, have pleaded with the UN to radically rethink the war on drugs.
That rethink, or at least its early stages, could be near.
Today, the UN General Assembly will meet to scrutinize the UN treaties that, critics argue, are steering the Sisyphean delusion of a “drug-free world.” A wide breadth of world leaders, academics, public health and human rights advocates are among those calling for significant reforms.
Lucas Powers – CBC News – Apr 19, 2016.