UNGASS 2016 – A new chance to end the war on drugs

From the 19th to the 21st of April 2016, a new UNGASS will take place in New York. This is a great opportunity to show the strength of the global civil society that is opposed to the war on drugs. Together with activist organisations in North and South America, ENCOD wants to bring a clear message to the delegates at the UN, the media and anyone who wants to hear it: the war on drugs has to stop, as it undermines the main mission of the UN, and in fact of all governments: the protection of public health, safety, and human rights in general.

54 years ago, the United Nations met in New York to impose a worldwide ban on cannabis, coca leaves and opium poppies, three miraculous plants that people have used for thousands of years to comfort or strengthen themselves. Since then the brains of the entire world population have been washed out, so it is now a mainstream belief that these plants should be under control, that those who wish to consume them cannot manage the risks and benefits themselves.

But how did the authorities manage these risks and benefits until now? By declaring drugs illegal they have left them in the hands of criminals – with devastating results. The war on drugs appears to be unable to protect public health. What it does protect is drugs money. According to the UN the global turnover for the total illicit drug industry amounts to approximately 400 billion euro per year. Production costs represent less than 1% of this amount, so every year 396 billion euro of drug money is under control of powerful financial interests well established in the Western world. And who benefits: those who seize the opportunity of supplying to cover a huge demand for a prohibited substance, those who insist on a law that enables easy and large profits to be made by all kinds of forces working in the shadow, and those who launder these profits. Meanwhile the consumer is caught between the crossfire.  

The general message of ENCOD’s presence in New York will be: Take drugs seriously. The failure of prohibition is an opportunity to start all over with a different approach. Either totally abolish the three conventions or amend them so that individual nations can create their own policies. The UN could still play an important role in monitoring the impact of drug policies on human rights and public health. But they should stop being an excuse for governments to continue legislation that has become obsolete and counterproductive a long time ago.

UNGASS 2016 will have to deliver a response to the growing evidence that the attempt to police our way out of the drug issues (which are essentially social issues) has led to a total, unmitigated failure. This knowledge is now becoming a mainstream knowledge and is beginning to have its impact on public opinions across the globe.

The solution is simple, glaring, and being implemented unilaterally by states from Portugal to Alaska: let individual states, regions, even cities design their own policies. The delay in implementing this inevitable solution is having disastrous implications for public safety around the world every day. Illegal drug violence kills a quarter of a million people annually: this is magnitudes worse than the damage caused by even the most dangerous drugs. The laws are so ineffective and counterproductive that communities around the world aren’t standing for them any longer.

We call on all citizens to show themselves around UNGASS 2016. If we stand firm for what we say, without being afraid to be confronted with the consequences, proud to resist an unjust law, willing to endure accusations, threats of fines and imprisonment or other measures meant to silence us, we will obtain much more than cannabis legalisation.

Your are cordially invited to the annual conference at Cannafest, the international trade fair of cannabis and medical herbs that will take place on November 11-13, 2016 at the Prague Exhibition Holesovice. The conference presentations will be simultaneously interpreted into English and Czech.

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www.cannafest.com