World's nations urged to shift focus on drug problem

United Nations: World governments at a UN meeting on the global drug problem were urged today to move away from repression, abolish the death penalty for drug offenses and step up treatment.

In the first such meeting in nearly 20 years, the UN General Assembly adopted a document that marks a shift away from the "war on drugs" launched in the 1970s, with its heavy-handed approach centered on law enforcement and criminalization.

"Drug policies that focus almost exclusively on the use of the criminal justice system need to be broadened. They need to be broadened by embracing a public health approach," said World Health Organization (WHO) director Margaret Chan, drawing applause.

The three-day special session was requested by Colombia, Mexico and Guatemala, which have felt the brunt of the war on drugs with an explosion of crime and violence.

Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto said the fight against drugs must be seen from a "human rights perspective" and warned that harsh penalties for drug use "create a vicious cycle of marginalisation and crime."

Saying that his country had paid a "high price" for failed global drug policies, he also backed calls for decriminalizing marijuana use for medical and scientific purposes.

Delegates from the European Union, Switzerland, Brazil, Costa Rica and Uruguay, among others, called for abolishing capital punishment for convicted drug felons, a practice widely used by China, Iran and Indonesia.

Indonesia's delegate drew jeers when he declared that the use of the death penalty was a matter for individual states to decide, in a statement backed by Singapore, Saudi Arabia, China, Iran and Pakistan, among other countries.

The document adopted at the session makes no reference to the death penalty but calls on government to "promote proportionate national sentencing policies... Whereby the severity of penalties is proportionate to the gravity of offenses."

Pakistan said it was gravely concerned by the trend toward legalising the use of marijuana and other drugs.

Uruguay became the first county to fully legalize marijuana in 2013 and Canada is among countries looking at a similar measure.

"This would give a fillip to drug demand, thus igniting the supply chain having direct fallouts on our region," Pakistan's Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan warned.
"We have dreamed of a drug-free society rather than a drug-tolerant society," he said.

China's Public Security Minister Guo Shengkun agreed: "Any form of legalization of narcotics should be resolutely opposed."