Parallel Universes: Human Rights and International Drug Control

This video produced by the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union highlights the human rights violations done against people all over the world as a result of the current international drug control system. The activists and researchers interviewed here recount the litany of abuses done in the name of drug control: torture, corporal punishment, overcrowding in prisons, death penalty for drug offences, denial of palliative care and HIV/AIDS treatment, among others.

As explained by the producers, the words of Paul Hunt, former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health (2002-2008), at the 2008 Harm Reduction Conference are more valid than ever. The international drug control seems to be operating in a parallel universe from human rights law and it is the most vulnerable people who pay the price for this.

Click here to read Human Rights, Health and Harm Reduction: States’ amnesia and parallel universes, by Prof. Paul Hunt, member of the International Advisory Committee of the International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy.

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Children in Mexico: Criminals or Victims?

Children in Mexico’s ‘Drug War’: Criminals or Victims?

Mexico’s drug war has taken its toll on children. More than 30,000 of them have been involved in organized crime, according to the Children’s Rights Network (REDIM).

These children are paid by drug gangs to do minor roles such as drug running or being lookouts, but some have been trained to kill. This was the case of 14-year-old Edgar Jimenez, nicknamed ‘El Ponhis’ or ‘The Cloak’, arrested last year. Jimenez had been kidnapped at the age of 11 and forced into crime.

The circumstances that have lead to children’s involvement in organized crime vary, according to the story published by CNN. Social exclusion and economic marginality play a strong role. But also coercion by threats of violence against them or their families.

In this sense, the Children’s Rights Network has urged the government to recognize them as victims of child abuse. In a country where 30,000-50,000 people have died in the ‘drug war’, children have been orphaned and neglected.

There is a need to “take into account the long-term psychological damage to children associated with high levels of violence and the resultant breakdown in family, community, and social structures”, according to Aram Barra and Daniel Joloy’s article in Children of the Drug War: Perspectives on the Impact of Drug Policies on Young People. If the government does not take responsibility for upholding their rights, the long term consequences will not only be felt by these children and their families, but on whole communities.

As Barra and Joloy conclude, “drugs should be addressed as a public health and development issue, rather than a security issue, and only if children are truly placed at the forefront of more effective drug policies rather than being left to drift in a sea of violence.”

‘Harm Reduction and Human Rights’, D. Barrett and P. Gallahue, Interights Bulletin, Winter 2011.

Human Rights and Abuses to Health Care, Interights Bulletin, Winter 2011, Volume 16, Number 4.

Harm Reduction and Human Rights

Abstract

‘Harm reduction’ is a phrase that may be unfamiliar to many in the human rights field despite the fact that its ethos and way of working is very close to it. Based on pragmatism, evidence, and compassion, harm reduction has been often misunderstood, side-lined, and isolated from human rights discourse. This paper shows how harm reduction has made important strides in human rights bodies of the United Nations. However, its application is critically absent anti-narcotics policy despite evidence of grave human rights violations done in the name of the “war on drugs” . The paper concludes that jurisprudence and scholarship around the human rights dimensions of harm reduction will be critical in understanding what works in protecting people from drug-related harms, but what is appropriate and necessary in a democratic society to achieve this legitimate aim

Download the full version of the publication.

A new language for the children of the drug wars

For decades, governments have used the rhetoric of war to describe their drug control efforts and rally their populations behind hardline policies they say will help protect children. Nayeli Urquiza, Research Fellow at the International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy, argues it’s this very terminology that encourages the abuse of children by turning them into enemies of the state.

This guest editorial was originally published in the November issue of Matters of Substance, a publication of the New Zealand Drug Foundation.

For more information on this issue, read the book “Children of the Drug War: Perspectives on the Impact of Drug Policies on Young People”. Available online or download the PDF at www.childrenofthedrugwar.org

Children of the Drug War: Webcast of the seminar held at LSE’s Mannheim Centre for Criminology

The Mannheim Centre for Criminology (LSE) held on November 22 a specialty seminar to mark the publication of “Children of the Drug War: Perspectives on the Impact of Drug Policies in Young People”.

The panel, chaired by Damon Barrett, editor of ‘Children of the Drug War’ included three of the contributors of ‘Children of the Drug War’. Jennifer Fleetwood, lecturer at the University of Kent, who talked about the impact of the ‘war on drugs’ on women and children in Ecuador’s prisons.

Michael Shiner, lecturer at the London School of Economics, talked about the limits of harm reduction in England and Wales and addressing drug use among young people. Steve Rolles, from Transform and author of ‘After of War on Drugs: Blueprint for Regulation’, presented ideas about how to better protect children and young people through State regulation instead of prohibition. He argued that the prohibition paradigm instead of reducing the harms from drugs, has actually increased it, either by the availability of impure or contaminated drugs in the market or through the violence associated with actors trying to control the illlict drug market.

Damon Barrett concluded the discussion by saying that drug policy tends to obscure the human side of it. Underpinned by concepts and such as in “prison populations” and “seizures” drug control hides from our view the people targeted by drug control, and as a result we might run the risk of overlooking the harms caused by inadequate policies.

To listen to the seminar, click here

To download the book, click here

‘Children of the Drug War: Perspectives on the impact of drug policies on young people’ Damon Barrett (ed)

‘Children of the Drug War’ is a unique collection of original essays, edited by Damon  Barrett (Project Director at the International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy), that investigates the impacts of the war on drugs on children, young people and their  families. With contributions from around the world, providing different perspectives and utilizing a  wide range of styles and approaches including ethnographic studies, personal accounts and  interviews, the book asks fundamental questions of national and international drug control systems:

• What have been the costs to children and young people of the war on drugs?
• Is the protection of children from drugs a solid justification for current policies?
• What kinds of public fears and preconceptions exist in relation to drugs and the drug trade?
• How can children and young people be placed at the forefront of drug policies?

Four thematic sections address:

• Production and trade
• Race, class and law enforcement
• Families and drug policy
• Drug use and dependence

The book is published by the International Debate Education Association (iDebate Press). It is available for purchase in hard copy from amazon.com, amazon.co.uk and other outlets.

A pdf of the full book and pdfs of each of its four sections are available for free download. It may also be read online.

Prohibition and religious freedom: Prince v South Africa (2000-2007)

“The test of tolerance as envisaged by the Bill of Rights comes not in accepting what is familiar and easily accommodated, but in giving reasonable space to what is “unusual, bizarre or even threatening”

Sachs J. (Dissent) Prince v President of the Law Society, 2002

Religious freedom and drug use is a flashpoint in drug control. It is widely accepted that many religious practices that include the use of psychotropic substances have been infringed by the global prohibitionist system. Indeed, in the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, traditional uses of coca, marijuana and other substances were recognised, and then given a 15-25 year grace period to be phased out.

While the Prince cases are not new, they are rarely cited in literature relating to drug control and human rights. But they are well worth a read for insights into the way South African courts, the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee addressed the same question.

The case involved a law graduate denied access to the bar in South Africa due to his religious use of cannabis (he was a member of the Rastafari). His claim was that this prohibition amounted to a disproportionate infringement on the religious freedom of the Rastafari, requiring a religious exemption to the relevant criminal law.

By far and away the most in depth and insightful decision is that of the South African Constitutional Court. Mr Prince lost by 5-4. The judgment of Ngcobo J (now Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court) and the concurring judgment of Sachs J are especially strong. They were, however, in the minority. Note the frequent references to the “war on drugs” and international treaty obligations. Both the minority and majority judgments pointed to the international drug conventions to support their reasoning.

Indeed, Mr Prince lost in all of the fora where his case was heard. In each case the infringement of his right to freedom of religion was accepted, but deemed proportionate. Compare and contrast, however, the brief handling of the case by the African Commission and the side-stepping of the test of proportionality by the Human Rights Committee (para 7.3.), which must stand as one of the Committee’s poorer decisions.

Prince v President of the Law Society of the Cape of Good Hope (CCT36/00) [2002] ZACC 1; 2002 (2) SA 794; 2002 (3) BCLR 231 (25 January 2002)

Prince v South Africa (2004) AHRLR 105 (ACHPR 2004)

Prince v South Africa Communication No. 1474/2006 CCPR/C/91/D/1474/2006, 14 November 2007

Thematic Factsheets on the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights

The Press Service of the ECHR has compiled Factsheets by theme on the Court’s case-law and pending cases. These are very useful resources, including links to the cases referred to.

Of particular interest from a drug policy perspective are:

Police arrest

Prisoners’ health rights

Detention and mental health

Prison conditions

Child protection

Death penalty abolition

Mental health

Data protection

For regular updates and commentary on the ECHR, see ECHR Blog.

The Vienna Declaration: A Global Call to Action for Science-based Drug Policy

In Lead Up to XVIII International AIDS Conference, Scientists and Other Leaders Call for Reform of International Drug Policy and Urge Others to Sign-on

28 June 2010 [Vienna, Austria] – Three leading scientific and health policy organizations today launched a global drive for signatories to the Vienna Declaration, a statement seeking to improve community health and safety by calling for the incorporation of scientific evidence into illicit drug policies. Among those supporting the declaration and urging others to sign is 2008 Nobel Laureate and International AIDS Society (IAS) Governing Council member Prof. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, co-discoverer of HIV.

The Vienna Declaration is the official declaration of the XVIII International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2010), the biennial meeting of more than 20,000 HIV professionals, taking place in Vienna, Austria from 18 to 23 July 2010.

“Many of us in AIDS research and care confront the devastating impacts of misguided drug policies every day,” said AIDS 2010 Chair Dr. Julio Montaner, President of the IAS and Director of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. “These policies fuel the AIDS epidemic and result in violence, increased crime rates and destabilization of entire states – yet there is no evidence they have reduced rates of drug use or drug supply. As scientists, we are committed to raising our collective voice to promote evidence-based approaches to illicit drug policy that start by recognizing that addiction is a medical condition, not a crime.”

The Vienna Declaration describes the known harms of conventional “war on drugs” approaches and states:

“The criminalisation of illicit drug users is fuelling the HIV epidemic and has resulted in overwhelmingly negative health and social consequences. A full policy reorientation is needed…Reorienting drug policies towards evidence-based approaches that respect, protect and fulfill human rights has the potential to reduce harms deriving from current policies and would allow for the redirection of the vast financial resources towards where they are needed most: implementing and evaluating evidence-based prevention, regulatory, treatment and harm reduction interventions.”

Outside of sub-Saharan Africa, injecting drug use accounts for approximately one in three new cases of HIV. In some areas of rapid HIV spread, such as Eastern Europe and Central Asia, injecting drug use is the primary cause of new HIV infections. Legal barriers to scientifically proven prevention services such as needle programmes and opioid substitution therapy (OST) mean hundreds of thousands of people become infected with HIV and Hepatitis C (HCV) every year. The criminalization of people who inject drugs has also resulted in record incarceration rates placing a massive burden on the taxpayer. HIV outbreaks have also been reported in prisons in various settings internationally. This emphasis on criminalization produces a cycle of disease transmission, along with broken homes and livelihoods destroyed. Yet these costs, along with the more direct costs of the ‘war on drugs’, produce no measurable benefits.

“The current approach to drug policy is ineffective because it neglects proven and evidence-based interventions, while pouring a massive amount of public funds and human resources into expensive and futile enforcement measures,” said Dr. Evan Wood, founder of the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy (ICSDP) and Clinical Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia. “It’s time to accept the war on drugs has failed and create drug policies that can meaningfully protect community health and safety using evidence, not ideology.”

The Vienna Declaration calls on governments and international organizations, including the United Nations, to take a number of steps, including:

• undertake a transparent review the effectiveness of current drug policies;
• implement and evaluate a science-based public health approach to address the harms stemming from illicit drug use;
• scale up evidence-based drug dependence treatment options;
• abolish ineffective compulsory drug treatment centres that violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and
• unequivocally endorse and scale up funding for the drug treatment and harm reduction measures endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations.
• The declaration also calls for the meaningful involvement of people who use drugs in developing, monitoring and implementing services and policies that affect their lives.

“As a scientist, I strongly support drug policies that are based on evidence of what actually works,” said Prof. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, Director of the Regulation of Retroviral Infections Unit at the Institute Pasteur, IAS Governing Council member and recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Medicine. “I join with my colleagues around the world today to sign the Vienna Declaration in support of science-driven policies and human rights.”

The effectiveness of opioid substitution therapy (OST) and needles and syringe programmes is well-documented, though access to such interventions is often limited where HIV is spreading most rapidly. According to various scientific reviews conducted by WHO, the US Institutes of Medicine and others, these programmes reduce HIV rates without increasing rates of drug use. These cost-effective interventions also produce significant savings in future health care costs, and help people who use drugs access health care and drug treatment. No evidence exists demonstrating negative consequences of use of these programmes.

“Reflecting the AIDS 2010 theme of Rights Here, Right Now, the Vienna Declaration is rooted in the belief that global drug policy must respect the human rights of people who use drugs if it is to be at all effective,” said AIDS 2010 Local Co-Chair Dr. Brigitte Schmied, President of the Austrian AIDS Society. “No one who is familiar with addiction would deny the negative impacts it has on individuals, families and entire communities, but those harms do not justify human rights violations. People addicted to illicit drugs have the right to evidence-based drug treatment, to interventions to prevent infection, and, if they are living with HIV, to antiretroviral treatment.”

The Vienna Declaration was drafted by an international team of scientists and other experts, many of whom will participate in AIDS 2010 next month. It was initiated by the International AIDS Society (IAS), the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy (ICSDP), and the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS based in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Those wishing to sign on may visit www.viennadeclaration.com, where the full text of the declaration, along with a list of authors, is available. The two-page declaration references 28 reports, describing the scientific evidence documenting the effectiveness of public health approaches to drug policy and the negative consequences of approaches that criminalize drug users.

‘Drugs and human rights: private palliatives, sacramental freedoms and cognitive liberty’ C. Walsh, International Journal of Human Rights, 2010

ABSTRACT

This paper reviews the impact of ten years of domestic incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) on the evolution of the United Kingdom’s primary piece of prohibitive drugs legislation, the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The significant cases where traditional interpretation of this Act has been challenged in the courts using the Convention are discussed. Structured thematically, this paper looks at the interplay between drug prohibition and human rights in addressing complex issues, such as our right to self-medicate, to practice our religion(s) freely, and to explore our own consciousness. The intention is to expose the untapped potential of the ECHR as a tool with which to fundamentally challenge the (discriminatory) drug policy of the United Kingdom.

International Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 14, No. 3, May 2010, 425–441

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