Video 2: Most drug policies in the world are based on prohibition law enforcement and criminalization of drug use

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Del curso dictado por University of Geneva

Drugs, drug use, drug policy and health

11 calificaciones

University of Geneva

Drugs, drug use, drug policy and health

11 calificaciones

This MOOC is the first of its kind, since it addresses critical issues related to drugs from a multidisciplinary, health and human rights-based approach. Throughout the course you will cover a range of questions including what are drugs and why they controlled? What are the benefits and harms of taking drugs? How public health policies can address drug use? You will also learn about the intricacies of the international drug control framework and the negative consequences of widespread prohibitionist drug policies around the world. Finally, you will examine ways of furthering drug policy reform. The topics will be presented by over 40 speakers from scientific, academic and institutional backgrounds, spokespersons of civil society as well as people who use drugs presenting their views. By the end of the course you will have: - a strong understanding of the major health issues related to drug use and drug policy; - a clear vision of why drug policy is debated today; - and, if you so wish, you will be equipped to engage in the drug policy reform movement at your local or regional level.

De la lección

Module 4: Questioning prohibition-based policies

Welcome to Module 4 which looks at questioning prohibition-based policies. In this Module, you will discover that most drug policies in the world are based on prohibition law enforcement and criminalization of drug use ; and see that such policies have a number of negative consequences on people’s health as well as on their human rights. This Module will also look at law enforcement more closely and reveal how it can cooperate to improve health. You will learn about the human rights framework and the drug control framework and see what human rights violations, stemming from the implementation of prohibitionist drug policies, look like around the world. Finally, you will also see that drug policies are connected to development and the environment, most often not in a good way, with prohibition fueling violence, crime and corruption and impeding development. By the end of this Module you will be able to: • Evaluate the extent to which prohibition-based policies have succeeded or failed in reducing drug production, trafficking and consumption; • Describe the negative impacts of prohibition-based policies on health, human rights and development; • Recall how prohibition-based policies fuel organized crime and trafficking. We hope this week will provide you with valuable insight into the reality of prohibitionist drug policies, for people in communities all over the world ; and help you see what have been the consequences of these policies, in terms of their impact on human rights, health and development. We also hope you enjoy the essential reading and optional additional resources we have prepared for you. Best wishes,The Drugs, Drug Use, Drug Policy and Health team

Introduction to Module 43:08

Video 2: Most drug policies in the world are based on prohibition law enforcement and criminalization of drug use9:59

Video 3: Are prohibition law enforcement drug policies effective?7:03

Video 4: The negative impact on health of prohibition law enforcement drug policies5:25

Video 5: The impact of law enforcement on public health and public safety6:03

Video 6: How law enforcement and health can cooperate to improve health8:11

Conoce a los instructores

Michel Kazatchkine
Senior Fellow
Global Health Center, Graduate Institute for International Affairs and Development, Geneva
Barbara Broers
Professor (in Addiction Medicine)
Community Health Departement, Geneva University Hospitals
Jennifer Hasselgard-Rowe
Researcher and Lecturer
Institute of Global Health, University of Geneva
Aymeric Reyre
Senior Lecturer
Faculty of Medicine, Paris 13 University

Well, let's talk about

how drug policies around the world are organized around drug prohibition,

and that principle has been carried out for almost a 100 years, not quite.

It's based on three international drug treaties,

1961, 1971 and 1988.

Not every country in the world has signed these treaties,

about 200 countries in the world,

but almost every country has signed these three treaties,

there are few countries that haven't.

The second point about these treaties is that

the system they set up after the Second World War within the United Nations,

there were a number of organizations established to develop policy,

to implement policy, to monitor policy.

The organization that was established to monitor drug policy,

the International Narcotics Control Board,

INCB, also took upon itself the interpretation of the three international drug treaties.

There's some contention about whether the way

they interpret those treaties is the way they should have interpreted the treaties,

but in any case, most of the interpretation

we have for the last 40 or more years has been by the INCB,

it's not really a UN organizations or quasi UN organisation.

I think it's fair to say that their interpretation

has been quite rigid and very prohibitionist,

it's very much emphasizing always supply control and the parts of

the international treaties and emphasize

the commitment that signatory countries should have,

for example to providing drug treatment or respecting human rights.

All of that is overlooked but the parts that had to do

with reducing the supply of drugs or trying to reduce

the supply of drugs are always heavily emphasized.

There was saying during the Watergate affair in

Washington D.C. in the United States in the 1970's Follow the Money Trail.

If you really want to know what's going on in

an organisation or even within the UN system,

it's a good idea to follow the money trail.

If you follow the money trail within countries,

you find that most countries spend most of their money in response to

illicit drugs in trying to reduce the supply of drugs,

trying to reduce their availability,

trying to push up the price,

that's where the emphasis goes.

Now, about half a dozen countries have allowed people to pore over

their records and make estimates of what proportion of government expenditure in

response to those drugs as is allocated to

supply control that is trying to reduce the supply of drugs,

as opposed to demand reduction trying to reduce the demand for drugs or harm reduction,

triying to reduce the adverse consequences of drug use or drug policy.

About half a dozen countries have done those estimates,

my country Australia has allowed those to be done twice.

Results through are very similar and

the results around the world are broadly very similar.

My country, 66% of

government expenditure in response to illicit drugs is allocated to supply control,

that is things like courts,

customs, police, courts and prisons,

that gets 66% of expenditure,

21% in my country goes to drug treatment,

9% to preventing drug use and only 1% to harm reduction.

Even harm reduction has been

explicitly part of my country's national drug policy since 1985,

only 1% of government expenditure goes to things like needle syringe programs.

So, the bulk of it really does go to customs, police,

courts and prisons, so it really does help to follow the money trail.

Third point is that it helps to also pay

attention to the words that people use when they could use other words,

and you'll notice for example,

even within the UN system,

UN system refers to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime,

it doesn't refer to the United Nations Office on Drugs

and Health or Drugs and Social Well-being.

No, it's United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

So, our question is pretty well framed as a criminal justice question.

If you look around the world in most countries,

you'll see that the politicians are also quite

selective about words that they like to apply when referring to drug users.

They're often very harsh,

very negative, very pejorative terms,

drug addicts, scumbags, they

use terrible language to refer to people who have a drug problem.

We don't use terminology like that for people who can't

stop smoking cigarrettes or can't stop drinking alcohol.

We have some sympathy for those people,

are at least the politicians do,

but in most countries around the world politicians,

have no time for drug addicts and they make that very clear.

So again, that's framing this very much as a supply problem,

as a criminal justice problem.

Now, many supporters of drug law reform argue

that the threshold step that we need to make in trying

to get better results has to be

redefining the whole issue of drugs as a criminal justice problem,

and they argue and indeed I argue as well,

that we should be prime saying that this should be primarily a health and social problem.

Not just a health problem,

it's also a social problem.

No, that doesn't mean that law enforcement should have no role in this.

Of course, law enforcement should have a role in this,

but it should be a supportive role rather than the primary role,

it shouldn't have the burden

of having the whole weight of drug policy resting on its shoulders.

Because this is seen very much as a criminal justice problem,

it's criminal justice that gets the bulk of the government money.

What should happen in the future I think is that government spending on

health and social interventions has to rise at least to

the level that criminal justice still enjoys.

If we start talking about shifting money from one to the other,

that gets us into all sorts of problems,

so I don't think that's a good idea but let's talk about where we want to end up.

Where we want to end up is that health and social interventions need a lot more funding,

and need a lot more emphasis,

need a lot more support.

The reason for that isn't just ideology,

it's because the evidence when people have done studies shows that it's very difficult.

It's a real challenge to find instances where

criminal justice approaches have really very clearly brought benefits to drug users,

their families and their communities.

On the other hand, it's quite easy to

show a lot of benefit from health and social interventions,

it's quite easy to show, unfortunately,

a lot of unintended negative gross consequences from law enforcement initiatives.

On the other hand, it's much harder to find instances of adverse consequences,

unintended consequences from health and social interventions.

So, for all of those reasons,

I think and many people say this these days,

we should really be talking about this issue much more as health and social issue and

not trying to keep on pretending that it's

a criminal justice problem which in my view clearly isn't.

So, these are really the major implications that come

from trying to look even at a fairly simple level,

at what has been a very difficult problem for the world and

for many countries around the world for the last few decades,

and that difficulty has been very apparent in recent years.

I hope you'll join efforts around the world to

try and get better outcomes from drug policy in the future. Thank you.

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