At the moment, the United Nations has the best chance to advocate for others methods for the global drug policy in April when a special session will be held in New York. However, on Friday, a commission stated that there has not been much progress leading up to the meeting. The Global Commission on Drug Policy is composed of older presidents of Mexico and Brazil, as well as the old United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Virgin Group founder Richard Branson. The reported that there has been a discussion for a long time about the drafting, but the outcome document is just too heavily based on retired approaches and is more focused on criminal justice and prohibition.
The group’s leader, Ilona Szabo de Carvalho, stated that the focus of the meeting should be in different ways to fight the drug problem. Some other approaches would be decriminalization, abolishing unfair punishments for drug-related offenses, such as capital punishments. Instead, there should be more of emphases on treatment. But according to Carvalho, the months leading up has been about drug trafficking and similar crimes. Carvalho asked for a large political debate on different approaches at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on April 19th. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Executive Director Yury Fedotov stated in practiced comments to give out on Monday that preparation for the special session actually has been looking at different methods, unlike what theories are saying. According to Fedotov, there has been a call for drugs for cases of HIV, hepatitis, and even overdose.
“Moreover, it has helped to put the spotlight on considering, inappropriate drug-related cases of a minor nature, including possession for personal consumption, alternatives to conviction or punishment, using such measures as education, aftercare, rehabilitation and social reintegration,” he adds.
