Report back from Daniel Wolfe of OSI on the 51st session of the CND in Vienna, March 2008,

Report back from Daniel Wolfe of OSI:

Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) Opens:

Start of Year of Reflection on Progress in Drug Control since 1998

--UNODC head Costa says more attention and funding needed for harm reduction, health, and human rights; stops short of condemning death penalty

-- Thai representatives say drug war will not mean violation of international human rights standards, and pledge increased harm reduction

--Bolivia rejects INCB condemnation, says it will request rescheduling of coca leaf

--US calls for "SBIRT" to address drug use; is joined by Japan in opposing harm reduction

The 51st session of the CND, which opened in Vienna on March 10, marks the start of a year of reflection since the 1998 General Assembly session convened under the motto "A Drug Free World-We can Do it!"

The session was attended by the greatest number of health and human rights NGOs in recent years, including representatives from Alternative Georgia, the Asian Harm Reduction Network, the Beckley Foundation, Break the Chains, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, the Eurasian Harm Reduction Network, Human Rights Watch, Intercambios, the International Drug Policy Consortium, the International Harm Reduction Association, the Open Society Institute, the Transnational Institute, Virtus (Ukraine), and others. The five-day session will include multiple NGO side events and satellites, including a briefing on human rights and drug control, another on the effects of drug law enforcement on women, and a daylong NGO forum with representatives of regional focal points from Africa, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and Latin America reporting on consultations held since 2007. All of these, as well as a large NGO meeting to be held at UNODC headquarters in July, will feed into the 2009 high level meeting where countries will assess a decade of progress and likely issue a new declaration to direct drug control efforts.

UNODC Director Calls for more attention and funding for harm reduction, health, and human rights; stops short of condemning death penalty

Antonio Costa, executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, opened the session by stressing issues including the need for greater attention to grass roots mobilization, alternative development, health, and harm reduction. On harm reduction, he urged that countries not get caught up in sensitivities about words, and referred attendees to the UNODC discussion paper ("Reducing the adverse health and social consequences of drug abuse," available at www.unodc.org) supporting pragmatic and comprehensive approaches such as those in Australia, Canada or parts of Asia. Mr. Costa also noted that health was a basic human right and a foundation of international drug control, that too many were in prison and that too few were in treatment for illicit drugs, and that the "health principle" was a cornerstone of drug control and required greater money and commitment. Mr. Costa, however, saluted drug control in Southeast Asia without noting Thailand's recent declaration of a return to the war on drugs, said that everything UNODC did was harm reduction, and described safer injection sites as problematic while ignoring evidence showing their positive effect. While urging consideration of executions in the name of drug control-"Although drugs kill," he said, "I don't believe we need to kill because of drugs"-Mr. Costa fell well short of previous findings by UN human rights experts that drug crimes were clearly not serious enough offenses to justify death. Instead, Costa urged member states to "give serious consideration to whether capital punishment for drug-related crimes is a best practice." Some member states, including Italy, Switzerland, Netherlands and Norway, called upon UNODC and the INCB to leave no doubt about the importance of opposition to the death penalty for drug offenses.

-- Thai representatives say drug war will not mean violation of international human rights standards, and pledge increased harm reduction

More than fifty country and NGO representatives attended a side event titled "Recalibrating the Regime: Drug Control, Health, and Human Rights." Responding to comments by representatives of the International Harm Reduction Association, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, and
Human Rights Watch, Thai representatives defended the government's return to 2003 drug war strategies, saying that the government was committed to following principles of international human rights standards; that the Prime Minister had made it clear that it was never the intention of the government to use killing as a means of suppression; that Thailand had not declared war on particular segment of the population; and that Thailand would likely adopt harm reduction measures such as methadone and "even needle exchange" in the near future, perhaps this fiscal year, in light of the increasing share of HIV cases among IDUs. At the same time, one representative said that "we cannot sit back and let things slide without taking particular measures," and observed-not happily-that the event should have been subtitled "the case of Thailand."

--Bolivia rejects INCB condemnation, says it will request rescheduling of coca leaf

Noting that the coca leaf had been a sacred and integral part of Andean culture for centuries, Bolivia delivered a strongly worded rebuke to the International Narcotics Control Board, whose 2007 report condemned coca leaf chewing as a violation of international law. Bolivia pledged to submit a request to the Secretary General to reschedule the coca leaf, based on the plants medicinal and traditional uses.

--US calls for "SBIRT" to address drug use; is joined by Japan in opposing harm reduction

The United States, noting that it supported treatment and rehabilitation and opposed harm reduction, urged all member states to endorse its resolution for "SBIRT"--screening, brief intervention and referral to treatment for drug abuse. While many member states asked privately what exactly the U.S. meant, or why such a particular intervention was being proposed as a global standard-the U.S. delegation had apparently not provided much explanation-countries from Argentina to the Netherlands expressed support for a comprehensive integrated approach, including harm reduction. Japan strongly opposed promotion of needle exchange by UNODC, noting that drug abuse itself was the fundamental problem, and Sweden noted that harm reduction would always be secondary to prevention and treatment measures.

Daniel Wolfe

Director

International Harm Reduction Development Program

Open Society Institute

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