13 March 2025
A broken system: Why drug control needs immediate change - IDPC statement at #CND68
Statement by the IDPC Consortium on Agenda Item 7 at the 68th session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs
Excellences, ladies and gentlemen,
I am delivering this statement on behalf of the International Drug Policy Consortium, a global network of over 190 NGOs that come together to promote drug policies grounded in human rights and social justice.
Thank you Chair for your commitment to civil society participation. Despite funding cuts and an increasingly hostile environment, civil society remains essential to this Commission - bringing evidence, and highlighting the real-world impacts of drug policies.
Excellencies,
The world is changing. The United Nations is at a crisis moment. Many norms, practices and long-standing consensuses that seemed unmovable in Vienna may not survive. The crisis stems from geopolitical change. But make no mistake - it also comes from the UN drug control system’s failure to live up to its own goals.
Last year, the midterm review of the 2019 MInisterial Declaration on drugs revealed a broken system that works for no one. Despite billions spent in drug control, production continues at historical highs. Prohibition has fueled the proliferation of new - and extremely potent - synthetic drugs. The race to schedule substances and precursors has been futile.
This failed system has had catastrophic human rights consequences. Every year hundreds of people are subject to the death penalty for drug offences, to extrajudicial killings, and to violence and displacement resulting from the militarisation of drug control. Indigenous peoples’ plants, including the coca leaf, remain prohibited. People who use drugs are criminalised and stigmatised. Life-saving harm reduction and treatment services are chronically underfunded - increasing risks and harms for people who use drugs, and fuelling overdose deaths. While 75% of the world population has no access to controlled medicines for palliative care and pain relief.
Excellencies,
The UN drug control system cannot survive this crisis without urgent reform.
Despite the historical votes last year, too little has changed in Vienna. The human rights impacts of drug control remain largely unacknowledged. The UNODC falls to unequivocally call for the decriminalisation of people who use drugs, despite this being enshrined in the UN System Common Position on Drugs. Harm reduction does not receive adequate political or financial support, despite the landmark resolution adopted by this Commission last year.
Vienna continues to operate in isolation from the rest of the United Nations system.
This is why the High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk has recognised several times that the ‘War on Drugs has failed, completely and utterly´, and has called for ‘transformative change’ - while the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health has called for a revision of the international legal framework on drug control to best align with human rights and harm reduction approaches.
So what must be done in this moment of crisis?
A comprehensive review of the global drug control regime is more urgent than ever. This review must integrate the perspectives of civil society, affected communities, and UN entities with mandates on health, human rights, and development. At the last session of the CND, 62 Member States acknowledged that the global drug control system ‘needs rethinking’ and should be ‘collectively reviewed’. The resolution tabled by Colombia this year is a unique opportunity to move in this direction.
The role of the UN human rights system must be strengthened. The policies and guidance emerging from Geneva must form the foundation of a new drug policy approach, truly based on the health and welfare of humankind. The mandate of the Office of the High Commissioner must be strengthened to ensure that it can more systematically engage in this important topic.
Last but not least, Member States must step in by protecting and funding life-saving harm reduction responses and community-led services that have proven to save lives.
Thank you very much.
