The World Drug Report 2007

Summary

On the publication of the World Drug Report in 2006, the IDPC cast doubt on the claim that the global drug problem was being brought under control. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) makes the claim in even stronger terms in its latest report on the state of the global drug market, the 2007 World Drug Report. This report was published on June 26th, the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking. In keeping with previous World Drug Reports, it contains much useful data and analysis, but its credibility is undermined by the selective use of the available evidence to support questionable claims for the success of the UN track record in tackling illegal drug markets.

Such confident assertions of support for traditional law enforcement models of drug policy are particularly surprising as many Member States are moving away from this position, and the UN itself is due to embark on what is meant to be an objective review of progress and achievement in global drug control with the 10-year evaluation of the 1998 UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on drugs.

The increasingly simplistic, and seemingly conclusive, view emanating from the responsible UN agency must call into question its ability to act as an honest facilitator of what will be a crucial review of policies that affect hundreds of millions of people around the world. While it is already obvious that the international community will not reach the targets it set at the 1998 UNGASS – to significantly reduce supply and demand of drugs over a ten year period – the UNODC is under tremendous pressure to show significant progress.

However, it will be difficult to argue that the world is on the right track on the basis of consumption and production figures since the 1998 UNGASS, or even since the entry into force of the 1961 Single Convention.

The preface to the report makes an attempt to show significant results, despite the fact that its own data show the opposite. This reflects UNODC’s ambiguous position as both a political agent and a supposedly objective centre of expertise.

In this briefing paper, we attempt to focus on what can be understood from the available data, what dilemmas it raises for policymakers, and the key issues to be resolved in the forthcoming review.

Recommendations

While much progress in data collection, programme implementation, and international co-operation has been achieved since the 1998 UNGASS on Drugs, it is clear that the international community cannot claim that the global drug market is under control – despite billions of dollars of investment, the overall scale of the illegal market for all of the main drug types would seem to have increased over the last 10 years, and the profits from these markets continue to flow into the hands of a wide range of organised crime groups. In his preface to the 2007 World Drug Report, Mr Costa calls for a ‘paradigm shift’ as we approach the review of progress since the UNGASS in 1998, but does not articulate what such a shift would consist of.

The IDPC would therefore like to suggest that we enter the next ten years of global drug control on the basis of a paradigm shift towards the following principles, if we are to avoid a continuation of the need to present failure as success:

• That the concept of ‘zero tolerance’ or a ‘drug free world’ be replaced by more realistic policy objectives focussing on the reduction of the harmful consequences of drug  production and use.
• That programmes and activities that focus on reducing these harmful consequences should therefore be given priority, in terms of resources and political support, within the UN programme.
• That containment of the scale of the illegal drug market is a more realistic objective for global law enforcement and demand reduction efforts.
• That the over-riding objective of law enforcement programmes against drug production and trafficking should be the minimisation of criminal activity, and its impact on citizens and communities, rather than the eradication of drug markets.
• That there is an explicit recognition of the fact that the millions of people involved in the cultivation of plants used in drug manufacture, and the hundreds of millions of users, should not all be automatically assumed to be criminal or deviant.
• That the UNODC should be refocussed as a true centre of expertise to assist the international community with transparent and objective information that supports member states in formulating balanced and evidence based policies.

Such a paradigm shift would resolve the current impasse in policy debate at the UN, (where any acknowledgment of the complexities of the reality on the ground is seen as a betrayal of the certainties behind the Conventions), and would provide a basis for much more effective and targeted co-ordinated action in the future. Our vision is that, in 10 years time, the international community can genuinely claim success in containing the scale of the illegal market, marginalising the power of organised crime, and reducing the harmful health and social consequences of drug production and use. Positive achievements of this type are possible, but only if we set realistic and balanced objectives, and re-focus our programmes accordingly.

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