UN expert calls for a fundamental shift in global drug control policy

At a press conference in New York on Tuesday 26 October, at the 65th session of the United Nations General Assembly, one of the UN’s key human rights experts will call for a fundamental rethink of international drug policy.

Anand Grover, from India, is the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right of Everyone to the Highest Attainable Standard of Physical and Mental Health, whose mandate is derived from the UN Human Rights Council. Mr Grover’s annual thematic report, to be presented on October 25/26, sets out the range of human rights abuses that have resulted from international drug control efforts, and calls on Governments to:

* Ensure that all harm-reduction measures (as itemized by UNAIDS) and drug-dependence treatment services, particularly opioid substitution therapy, are available to people who use drugs, in particular those among incarcerated populations.

* Decriminalize or de-penalize possession and use of drugs.

* Repeal or substantially reform laws and policies inhibiting the delivery of essential health services to drug users, and review law enforcement initiatives around drug control to ensure compliance with human rights obligations.

* Amend laws, regulations and policies to increase access to controlled essential medicines

* To the UN drug control agencies, Mr Grover recommends the creation of an alternative drug regulatory framework based on a model such as the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

The report is the clearest statement to date from within the UN system about the harms that drug policies have caused and the need for a fundamental shift in drug policy.

This news was brought to our attention by reader Sami, who also wanted to point this out this fact from Grover's UN Human Rights Report: Lack of access to LSD precursor (ergometrine) is causing tens of thousands of women to bleed to death during childbirth every year.

Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental
health (UN Doc No A/65/255):

44. Emergency obstetric procedures and management of epilepsy also require use of scheduled medications, and remain inadequately resourced. Post-partum haemorrhage results in over 100,000 maternal deaths annually. Oxytocin and ergometrine, two controlled drugs used in obstetric procedures, are difficult to access yet reduce the risk of severe post-partum bleeding by more than half.73 Similarly, around 75 per cent of people with epilepsy in developing countries and up to 90 per cent of patients with epilepsy in Africa do not receive treatment with essential medicines, including phenobarbital, partly because it is a controlled substance.