Today, the UNODC released its flagship publication - the 

. Despite the agency’s best efforts to convey progress, the report is an indictment of the global drug control regime. Data point after data point reveal a systemic failure to contain drug markets and protect the health of people who use drugs.

In a welcome move, the thematic Booklets in this year’s publication explicitly acknowledge the harmful consequences of punitive policies, and their inability to disrupt drug markets and organised crime. However, this recognition is still limited by the UNODC's self-imposed commitment to preserve the current drug control regime, rather than to openly acknowledge the failure so starkly evidenced in its own report.

The divergence between the UNODC's political messaging and technical reporting is problematic, but not new. As the international community embarks on an independent 

 of the global drug control machinery, the UNODC must provide Member States with an unbiased presentation and narrative around the evidence. UN entities should be honest brokers of information, not spin doctors. Now that Ghada Waly has 

, the future Executive Director must have the courage to engage honestly with Member States on the failings of the current system.

The World Drug Report always opens with a preface by the Executive Director of UNODC. With Ghada Waly having announced her 

 a few weeks ago, the lack of excitement is palpable in this year’s text, which mainly lists the growing challenges in illegal drug market

Only one paragraph proposes solutions, and these are but UNODC's traditional priorities: 'Investing in the prevention of drug use at an early age', criminal justice responses that 'focus on disrupting the illegal market', and – more positively – treatment and services that are tailored and responsive to people's needs. Notably absent are harm reduction, human rights, or any reference to the new 

There is a real disconnect between the policy prescriptions contained in this paragraph and the contents of this year’s World Drug Report, which question the effectiveness of law enforcement, emphasise the evidence for harm reduction, and highlight the consequences of punitive policies. But let’s start with the basic facts.

Drug use is growing, as are drug-related harms.

The 2025 World Drug Report's main headline is that drug use continues to hit record highs. The UNODC estimates that 316 million people (6% of those aged 15-65) used drugs in 2023, up from 243 million in 2013. Growth is concentrated in cannabis and cocaine use. 14 million people injected drugs in 2023, and half of them are living with hepatitis C.

Drug-related deaths increased from over 350,000 in 2011 to over 450,000 in 2021 - unfortunately we lack updated data for later than 2021. An estimated 64 million people experience drug-related problems, a 13% increase over 10 years. Only 1 in 7 men and 1 in 18 women have access to drug treatment. Only 26 of 110 reporting countries provide access to naloxone, and 76 of 133 offer some coverage of opioid agonist treatment.

Law enforcement does not disrupt drug markets, but it can make them deadlier

A thematic Booklet in this year's World Drug Report examines the links between drug trafficking and organised crime. While the topic would appear politically convenient to UNODC - making the case for more investment in law enforcement and drug control - the Booklet contains an illuminating section that assesses  the effectiveness of drug responses.

In a nutshell, the Booklet finds that 'drug markets, as a whole, are highgly resilient to law enforcement intervention'. Indiscriminate actions against trafficking, which are 'a common type of drug law enforcement response', leave 'drug trafficking groups largely unaffected'. Additionally, 'drug seizures and arrests can change the market equilibrium, sometimes reducing purities and increasing prices, but never eliminating the market as a whole'.

In fact, the Booklet acknowledges that crackdowns can drive insecurity, as ‘ violence increases only when those at the very top are removed, suggesting that inner-and inter-group conflict emerges from power vacuums’. Additional research suggests that major drug seizures — especially involving synthetic opioids — have been 

associated with increased overdose deaths

These conclusions are backed by the data provided elsewhere in the Word Drug Report. For instance, seizures of stimulants such as MDMA have more than doubled in 7 years, from under 300 ton equivalents to over 600. Methamphetamine seizures have also doubled from under 200 ton equivalents in 2017 to over 400 in 2023. But the size of both drug markets has continued to grow, which shows that increasing seizures result mostly from the expansion of production. A message that Member States will need to hear loud and clear during the upcoming review of the global drug control regime.

A technical endorsement of harm reduction – with no political backing

A second thematic Booklet concerns the ‘Impact of drug use’ on people who use drugs, families, and communities. The Booklet may be seen as a reaction to the 

 on ‘Drug use and the right to health’, as some Member States felt that it was necessary to switch the focus from the right to health of people who use drugs, to the harmful consequences of drug use.

The Booklet opens with the recognition that ‘most of the harms caused by drug use, the impact of drug use and drug use disorders are preventable or can be mitigated by acting on different modifiers’. Thus, the focus of the chapter shifts from preventing drug use in itself, to preventing its harms. In fact, a significant part of the Booklet is dedicated to explaining that drug use does not automatically result in harms, but that those are mediated and shaped by social and political determinants, including class, race, and gender.

The booklet also contains a summary of the very well-established evidence on the effectiveness of traditional harm reduction interventions for drug use. Newer approaches such as drug consumption rooms and sites, drug checking services, and heroin-assisted treatment are also mentioned. In general, the chapter is a complex and nuanced document that reacts positively to many of the 

 raised by IDPC with regards to last year’s chapter on the ‘Drug Use and the right to health’.

Whilst this is very welcome, the failure once again to explicitly acknowledge ‘harm reduction’ as a holistic, lifesaving approach - rather than a set of technical interventions in response to injecting drug use - continues to hamper the Report and, by extension UNODC itself. It  also puts it  at odds with the rest of the 

, which wholeheartedly endorses harm reduction, and with the entities and experts that have recognised the harms of drug policies themselves (see, for example, the 

 by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health).

In a critical development, the Booklet on 'impacts of drug use' recognises that punitive laws and practices exacerbate the harms of drug use. Particularly notable is a direct critique of criminalisation - a very welcome improvement compared to last year’s reports.

Thus, the Booklet notes that 'the criminalization of drug use and resulting incarceration of people who use drugs or have drug use disorders have high costs, both direct and indirect, for individuals, their families and the community.' Additionally, 'Policies that target people in relation to their drug use add to the stigma and discrimination against such people and can also exacerbate the negative impact of drug use on health.' Let us hope that the next UNODC Executive Director to take this recognition from the depths of the report and finally joins other UN entities in calling for the decriminalisation of people who use drugs.

This recognition is important because the punitive thrust of the drug control regime continues unabated. According to new data provided by this year’s World Drug Report, in 2023 6.1 million people were in contact with the criminal legal system for drug-related activities - 4 million for mere possession for personal use. Up to 1.6 million were prosecuted and 850,000 convicted solely for drug possession or use offenses. There can be no doubt that people who use drugs continue to be the main target of the drug control machinery.

Political narratives still permeate the report.

Despite these welcome developments, serious concerns remain regarding the Booklet on 'impacts of drug use'. The chapter's opening framing positions 'drug use' as a driver of societal harms, potentially pitting people who use drugs against their families and communities. While the report acknowledges that social and political determinants mediate harms, this recognition is not consistently applied. For example, at one point the Booklet bizarrely includes the millions spent on criminal justice responses amongst the ‘costs of substance use disorders’.


We are also concerned by claims that 'the children of parents who use drugs or suffer from drug use disorders are also more likely to lack a safe nurturing environment’. Whilst parental drug use may have in some cases impact on the welfare of children, such a generic statement can be deeply stigmatising and harmful in a policy context where many parents - particularly mothers - fear being deprived of parental rights because of mere drug use. It would have been helpful to add a note explaining that, according to existing 

, the sole act of using drugs is not harmful to children and should entail no limitation on rights.

Political bias appears elsewhere in the report. For instance, UNODC fails to acknowledge the possibility that the actual aim of legal regulation may be to curb the power of organised crime - as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk 

. This leaves Member States without evidence on a policy option that could bring success where law enforcement has resoundingly failed.

Human rights are completely absent from the World Drug Report, despite the catastrophic human costs of drug policy, 

 by the UN’s own human rights system. Notably, the 2024 World Drug Report had proposed a framework on the right to health and drug use. Whilst that analysis was 

, it was the first time that the UNODC’s flagship publication touched explicitly on human rights and we hoped it would be continued. It is disappointing to see almost no reference to the right to health in this year’s entire report.

This points to the well documented lack of willingness of UNODC to engage with human rights, which is highlighted in the 

 released today by 70 civil society organisations calling for UNODC and CND to explicitly and unequivocally condemn the use of the death penalty for drug-related offences.

At a time of global rethinking, we need an honest and unbiased UNODC

In sum, the World Drug Report 2025 provides a good example of UNODC’s contorted position. On the one hand, much of the report details the obvious failings of the global drug control regime, as well as the harms it continues to exacerbate. On the other hand, at a political level the UNODC remains committed to defend the 

In March 2025, the CND decided to initiate a historical exercise to rethink the global drug control machinery. This process requires accurate, unbiased information. The Colombian delegation noted as much during the debates, 

We don’t want politically correct reports but accurate ones, that tackle developments and problems that we face, so states know then what to do’

Evidence that cannot be contained: The World Drug Report 2025 reveals the ongoing failure of the drug control regime

This blog post is available in Italian here — translated by Forum Droghe.

UN Member States initiate an overdue review of the UN drug control “machinery” with a newly emerging political alliance

Against a backdrop of global turmoil and multilateral rupture, the 68th session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs ended on Friday 14th March with a turning point in the history of global drug policy. With a striking majority of 30 votes in favour, 18 abstentions, and 3 votes against - Argentina, Russia, and the United States - the United Nations’ main drug policy-making body decided to 

 to rethink the global drug control regime.

The Commission also offered a glimpse of a different multilateral order, led by an emerging new alliance of Global South and Global North countries united in defence of the principle of common and shared responsibility against a belligerent and uncompromising United States. Led by Colombia, this nascent group has the potential to find a cross-regional vision for a new approach to a failed drug control system that wreaks worldwide devastation on health and human rights.

Digesting the true implications of this session will require more time to reflect. Here we offer some initial food for thought in relation to Colombia’s successful initiative.

At the start of the week, the US delegation shook the CND with a breathtakingly 

 that broke the basic premise of the so-called Vienna spirit by disrespecting other Member States in directly naming and blaming Canada, China and Mexico for the US domestic toxic drug crisis that has caused hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths. This was followed with inflexible positions and a general unwillingness to negotiate throughout the week. By Friday arrogance had turned into isolation. At the closing of the session, the United States went on to lose all substantive policy votes, accompanied only by new bedfellows Argentina and Russia.

historical vote on the term ‘harm reduction’

 broke the long-standing adherence to finding consensus as the only possible decision-making process in global drug policy. This year the CND witnessed no less than 10 votes, including voting on all six resolutions.

The new reality - resisted by Member States for so long - that the CND can in fact operate through voting is starting to sink in, and given the fraught state of geopolitics this is unlikely to change anytime soon. Voting frees the CND from pointless negotiations resulting in disappointing and meaningless texts in the name of consensus. Voting may also mean that more progressive resolutions can be passed as it becomes harder for one Member State or a small group of States to hold language hostage. The negotiation tactics at the CND will need to adjust in line with this new climate and Colombia demonstrated excellent diplomatic talent last week towards this end.

Vienna is likely to get even more politicised - but reactionary politics have few supporters

’ and a prohibitionist consensus at the CND has papered over very real frictions in approaches to drug policy - and to world affairs in general. This is no longer the case. The United States chose to put the reactionary culture wars of the Trump administration at the forefront of every intervention. This was particularly notable in the push against the concept of gender, and in the attempt to erase the Sustainable Development Goals from the standing agenda of the CND itself. Crucially, the other States did not cave in just to preserve the Vienna consensus, but stood up to protect these values even if that meant risking a vote.

. The landmark resolution led by Colombia, that noted that the CND has a mandate ‘to consider what changes may be required in the existing machinery for the international control of narcotic drugs’, establishes a:

‘multidisciplinary panel of 19 independent experts, acting in their personal capacity, to prepare a clear, specific, and actionable set of recommendations aimed at enhancing the implementation of the three drug conventions, as well as the obligation of all relevant international instruments, and the achievement of all international drug policy commitments’.

Ten members of the panel will be appointed by the CND, five by the UN Secretary General, three by the International Narcotics Control Board; and one by the World Health Organisation. Members will be required to reflect a diversity of expertise, regions, and policy approaches.

The panel will have two years to prepare its recommendations, which will feed into the next high-level review of international drug policy commitments in 2029.

This panel constitutes an extraordinary opportunity to propose serious changes to the drug policy regime to truly serve the ultimate aim of the conventions - the protection of the health and welfare of humankind.

The review should integrate expertise that is usually excluded from drug policy-making in Vienna - bringing in the long-standing contributions of UN experts and agencies in the fields of health and human rights. A mandate that includes ‘all relevant international instruments’ is a clear reference to international human rights law, which must play a central role in this assessment.

But make no mistake - political opposition will be fierce at every stage of the process. The liquidity crisis at the UN may be used - by the very same country that caused it - to stall the review. One of several concessions that was made to garner support for the proposal was to make UNODC the secretariat of the panel - which could compromise its effectiveness and objectivity.

Immediately after the adoption of the resolution, Ambassador Laura Gil of Colombia made clear that this process seeks to integrate the needs and concerns of all Member States, even if their approach to the world drug situation diverges from that of Colombia. However, she reminded delegates of the extraordinary high price that her country has paid to fight the drug trade and that urgent change is necessary:

“...every and each Colombian understands and feels that the global drugs problem casts a shadow over all of us, and this panel is an invitation under the aegis of the conventions to rethink, to revisit the principle of common and shared responsibility today, now. And my country has sacrificed more lives than any other in the war on drugs that was imposed on us… Our best men and women, and the lion’s share of our national budget has been devoted to tackling illicit trafficking. We need new and more effective means to implement a global system. Continuing the same will not lead anywhere fruitful.”

With her tireless, inclusive and considerate diplomatic efforts, Ambassador Gil achieved incredible cross regional support for this resolution with Member States that would not traditionally be seen as ‘like-minded’ voting in favour including South Korea, Japan and Zimbabwe among others. Strong supportive words from the Ambassador of Côte d’Ivoire (who also voted in favour) followed her intervention, illustrating clearly the potential of working in a genuinely multilateral spirit. This was also echoed in the coordination of the European Union and other like-minded countries in the Global North, even if that meant going against their closest historical ally - the United States.

Civil society and affected communities, including people who use drugs, Indigenous Peoples and farmers of crops deemed illicit must play a prominent role in the review process.

We have said for years that the consensus-paralysed CND was at risk of losing relevance in global drug policy making. The consensus thawed in 2024 and has now been comprehensively torn apart. The expert panel brings a historical opportunity for change. This opportunity must not be wasted.

CND68: Historic vote initiates overdue review of UN drug control “machinery”

As a Senior Advocacy and Research Associate, Adrià supports IDPC's UN human rights advocacy work. He previously was a Research & Advocacy Officer at IDPC from 2020 to 2024, working on research, advocacy, and civil society capacity building. He has also worked for Harm Reduction International, Amnesty International, and the European Parliament, always with a focus on international advocacy and human rights.

Como Consejero sénior de incidencia política e investigación, Adrià respalda el trabajo de incidencia política del IDPC en favor de los derechos humanos ante las Naciones Unidas. Anteriormente ocupó el cargo de Consejero de investigación e incidencia política en el IDPC entre 2020 y 2024, donde trabajó en los ámbitos de la investigación, la incidencia política y el fortalecimiento de las capacidades de la sociedad civil. También trabajó para Harm Reduction International, Amnistía Internacional y el Parlamento Europeo, siempre en el ámbito de la incidencia política internacional y los derechos humanos.

En tant que Conseiller senior de plaidoyer et de recherche, Adrià soutient le travail de plaidoyer de l'IDPC en faveur des droits humains auprès des Nations unies. Il a précédemment occupé le poste de Chargé de recherche et de plaidoyer à l'IDPC de 2020 à 2024, où il a travaillé dans les domaines de la recherche, du plaidoyer et du renforcement des capacités de la société civile. Il a également travaillé pour Harm Reduction International, Amnesty International et le Parlement européen, toujours dans le domaine du plaidoyer international et des droits humains.

Adrià Cots Fernández

Senior Advocacy and Research Associate

Translations

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Evidence that cannot be contained: The World Drug Report 2025 reveals the ongoing failure of the drug control regime

CND68: Historic vote initiates overdue review of UN drug control “machinery”