Half a century of failure

Wednesday, 11 March 2009 5:23 PM

By politics.co.uk staff

Nearly 50 years after the first UN convention committed member states to prohibition, government ministers from around the world gather in Vienna to discuss the next decade of drug policy.

International drug use now stands at 300 per cent of what it did in 1961, when the convention was first formed, with a year on year rise for the last forty years.

But there is little expectation of any sea change in government policy, with a Home Office spokesman telling politics.co.uk: "Negotiations are currently complex and we will discuss with our international partners later this week."

To read an interview with the chair of the all-party group on drugs misuse click here.

To read analysis of UK drugs policy click here.

A politics.co.uk poll, timed to coincide with the Vienna summit, found a large majority of respondents disagreed with the government's decision to reclassify cannabis to Class B.

Sixty-two per cent of users said current policy was too authoritarian, compared to 25 per cent, who said it was too lenient.

To see more information about the poll results click here.

The summit, which will last for two days, is held once every ten years. Britain is sending Alan Campbell, parliamentary under-secretary at the Home Office.

The last time ministers met, in 2008, the slogan of the summit was: "A drug-free world - we can do it!"

This year, expectations have been severely curtailed after a decade which has seen an unprecedented rise in drug production, use and trafficking.

With five per cent of the world's population believed to be drug users - estimated at around 200-300 million people, the priority for the current summit centres around containment.

To read comment on drug prohibition click here.

Danny Kushlick of Transform, a drug policy reform group, said: "The last ten years has seen fear and inertia prevail amongst our political leaders, but it has also seen a huge range of serious voices calling for a debate on replacing drugs prohibition with legal regulation and control."

Delegates are frustrated at the timing of the conference, with American attendants still operating under the orders of the Bush administration.

US president Barack Obama is understood to have a far more liberal approach to the issue. On his first day in office, the new president posted a series of commitments on his website, including one calling for drug policy to be centred on reduction in use and public health.

America remains the most powerful and important contributor to the UN summit. It has been known to wield its economic and political might against states which appear to be taking a more liberal approach to policy making.

But some countries - primarily in Europe - have adopted harm reduction strategies to the issue, most notably Holland, Portugal, Switzerland and Denmark.

Tags:
• domestic policy
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• drugs
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• policing and crime