A Drug Free World - Could we do it? - Beyond 2008 Series #3.

  • Tag
  • Flag
  • Rate
  • Save
close
close

Please login to flag content.

close

Please login to rate media.

close

Please login to save to media.

Not long before the delegates of member states gathered in New York at the UNGASS on drugs in 1998, outstanding professionals and politicians from all around the world addressed Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General in an open letter. They warned the UN not to chase rainbows but to stay down to earth, because in the name of pursuing a drug free society member states often violate human rights, assault the environment and fill prisons with non-violent offenders. “Realistic proposals to reduce drug-related crime, disease and death are abandoned in favor of rhetorical proposals to create drug-free societies. Persisting in our current policies will only result in more drug abuse, more empowerment of drug markets and criminals, and more disease and suffering,” they wrote. Unfortunately these dissent voices remained unheard in 1998, the UNGASS was a sequence of political speeches light years away from the reality of crime, addiction and disease on the streets. “A drug-free world – we can do it!” – this slogan dominated the session, member states committed themselves to achieve significant and measurable reduction of supply and demand of illicit drugs in 10 years.

Please enable JavaScript for full functionality of this page
Please login to post comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Image CAPTCHA
Copy the characters (respecting upper/lower case) from the image.